North Carolina Tar Heels:
Replacing the No. 3 overall draft pick would be difficult in the old days of college football, but a team like North Carolina can just enter the transfer portal, spend some money, and get a proven starting QB. That’s precisely what the Tar Heels did to bring in former Texas A&M and LSU QB Max Johnson after the Patriots took Drake Maye in the 2024 NFL Draft.
The Tar Heels, who haven’t won a bowl game since 2019 and haven’t won double-digit games since 2015 under Larry Fedora, will run it back with a lot of returning production on both sides of the ball. This is a team that has seemed destined for more in recent seasons and has found a way to watch it all go up in smoke late in the year.
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Offense
Johnson walks into a pretty good situation. RB Omarion Hampton rushed for 1,504 yards and had 15 touchdowns last season. WR Tez Walker is a notable loss, but over 1,000 yards of returning production are back at the position and TE Bryson Nesbit is in the running to be among the first tight ends drafted next April. Johnson is also well-versed in learning new offenses, as he’s done it a lot in his career.
He had a 27/6 TD/INT ratio at LSU in 2021 before transferring to Texas A&M, where he played in 12 games over two seasons. He has a 47/12 TD/INT ratio and has thrown for nearly 6,000 yards. The offense ranked 13th in yards per play and 20th with 34.5 points per game. Even with the loss of Maye, those may be repeatable numbers.
Defense
So, as always, it seems to come down to the defense. This season, the Tar Heels have a new DC in Geoff Collins, whose coordinator stops include Mississippi State and Florida. He’s also been a head coach at Temple and Georgia Tech. After a year off, Collins inherits a defense that hasn’t lived up to its talent level, but is improving.
The Tar Heels were 65th in yards per play allowed last season with 5.6 and finished 109th in total yardage allowed. At least that was an improvement from finishing 114th in YPP in 2022. The defense also went from 14 takeaways in ‘22 to 22 in ‘23, so the upward trend was taking place in Gene Chizik’s second year.
Outlook
The schedule is very kind to UNC this season. They play at Minnesota in the opener and don’t have a game with over 200 miles of travel after that until November 2 at Florida State. If Collins can rehab the defense, this is a team with a very high ceiling. They avoid Clemson and Louisville and don’t have a tough road schedule at all. My numbers say 7.74 wins, but I like the Over on this one.
Pick: Over 7.5 Wins
