Would a quarterback change solve UNC’s problems? The evidence from the last year says maybe not.
That’s the uncomfortable part for a fan base already looking for a spark. Billy Edwards Jr. has had a rough start over three games, and the numbers are blunt: he’s completed 9 of 22 passes for 136 yards with an interception on throws downfield.
His total QBR sits 77th nationally and 11th in the ACC, while his passer rating ranks 98th in the country and 14th in the league. UNC’s offense has managed just six points in the second half against TCU and Clemson, which is exactly the kind of thing that pushes people toward the next name on the depth chart.
But North Carolina has already lived through this movie.
Last season, plenty of fans wanted a different quarterback when Gio Lopez was in the room. Instead, the version of Lopez they saw at UNC was the problem.
He was good at South Alabama, then looked like someone who’d never played the position once Bill Belichick got ahold of him. Four games later, he’s at Wake Forest, where he has helped the Demon Deacons to a 3-1 start and an upset on the road of 16th-ranked Louisville.
In the ACC, Lopez is fifth in passing yards per game and sixth in passer rating. Nationally, he’s 30th in QBR.
That’s the cautionary tale here: UNC’s issue last season wasn’t simply that it had a bad quarterback. It was that a quarterback who had been good elsewhere was turned into a bad one.
Mac Jones tells a similar story. He arrived in New England after backing up Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa at Alabama and then putting up one of the best passer ratings in NCAA history.
He spent four years under Nick Saban, made the Pro Bowl as a rookie, and then regressed badly in his second and third seasons. Belichick chose Matt Patricia as offensive coordinator in year two, and Jones reportedly stopped hearing from his coach during that stretch, with Belichick apparently blaming the quarterback rather than his own choices for the offense’s collapse.
By year three, the locker room was a mess, the Patriots had gone 4-13, and Belichick was out.
Jones was viewed by many as finished. Instead, two years after leaving Belichick and playing for the 49ers, he posted the NFL’s 10th-best QBR over eight games last season.
That put him one spot behind Lamar Jackson and ahead of Trevor Lawrence, CJ Stroud, and Bo Nix. Once he got away from Belichick and regained confidence, he looked like the capable quarterback he had always been.
That’s why the current UNC conversation feels different from the usual “make a switch” debate. Bobby Petrino was supposed to help.
He arrived with a reputation as a quarterback developer and playcaller, replacing Freddie Kitchens. Yet the Tar Heels still don’t look fixed at the position.
The larger point is hard to miss. If a coach keeps cycling through quarterbacks, coordinators, and explanations while the results stay ugly, eventually the pattern points back to the same place.
At Texas and UNC, Mack Brown went through multiple defensive coordinators after 2009, and every one of them produced poor results. Those defenses got Brown fired at two different schools.
At some point, the common denominator was clearly Mack Brown.
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UNCs New Era Is Already Sending A Clear Message In Charlotte
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Avdalas arrives from Virginia Tech as part of the new look around the roster, while Stevenson enters as one of the players expected to carry a bigger load for the Heels. Malone will be there as well, making it the first season under his leadership and giving UNC an early chance to show how its next chapter is taking shape before the games start to count. [Read more 🡒]
UNC Is Already Battling For A Prized In-State 2029 Star
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For UNC, the interest is obvious even if the paperwork is not quite there yet. The Tar Heels have shown early involvement, but Duggins still does not have an official offer from the program, which leaves his recruitment in an interesting spot this early in the process. With other schools already in the mix, Carolina will have to keep pressing if it wants to stay positioned with one of the states most closely watched young forwards. [Read more 🡒]
UNC Football Faces A Huge Week As Chapel Hill Fills Up
Chapel Hill is about to get crowded, and not just because football season is heating up. North Carolina has a full slate across campus this week, with the Tar Heels football team opening a nine-game stretch against Notre Dame while several other programs also step into the spotlight, giving fans plenty of reasons to keep an eye on the calendar.
Mens golf, mens and womens soccer, field hockey, softball and volleyball all have matches or events lined up over the next several days, making it one of those weeks when the universitys athletic schedule feels like it is running in every direction at once. For UNC, the breadth of competition is part of the appeal, but the Notre Dame game still sits at the center of it all, setting the tone for what could be a busy run through the rest of the fall. [Read more 🡒]