Looks like Carolina football will be rebuilding, not reloading.
From a broad view, the Tar Heels winning 19 football games over the last two seasons still fell short of the expected payoff with a veteran team on both sides of the ball. Yes, they went to the ACC title game in 2015 and were picked to repeat in the Coastal Division this past season. But no ACC championship came out of it, so now what?
Coaches and insiders may know more about who is coming in and who is coming up, but the cupboard looks pretty bare to me. The offense, losing seniors and guys entering the NFL draft early, appears decimated. The defense will have 7 of 11 starters back, but it was still no great shakes, finishing dead last in rushing defense and middle of the league in total defense with one interception the entire season.
Is this the last fall-out from the three-year probation Larry Fedora inherited, when Carolina lost 15 scholarships, combined more recently with recruits fearing another post-season ban from the NCAA? If that’s the case, then the four- and five-stars Fedora goes after are still balking from the negative recruiting of other schools. Thanks, all you pro-Wainsteiners for leaving nothing in the chamber.
This could be an unprecedented plummet – from favorites in the Coastal to dropping toward the bottom of the division in 2017. Among bowl teams Miami, Georgia Tech, Pitt and Virginia Tech, which will be picked to finish lower than UNC next fall? None, me thinks. And with Duke and Virginia already rebuilding, will the Tar Heels fall below the Blue Devils and Cavaliers in preseason polls?
It was already looking tenuous before Elijah Hood changed his mind and Mitch Trubisky did what was expected, both declaring for the NFL draft. Hood never should have said he was returning when he obviously was trying to get a clean bill of health in his personal concussion protocol to let the NFL know. And why would Mitch come back, with his receivers, running backs and o-linemen all leaving?
Hang on, folks, it could be a rough ride in the near future.
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Yup. Not really expecting much next year. I believe they still have talent all over the place, but it is the type of talent that would be back-ups at those “top-tier” teams. We need to start landing those big-time recruits that we go after. I do think we are trending upward, with Lawler and Melton heading up a pretty good class. But it still seems that some recruits are still not sold on UNC’s program. With the school putting more money in the programs to build new and renovate facilities, and with Fedora and co, we should be okay. Just whether the storm, keep supporting the team, and things should be fine.
However, UNC will likely always be known as a basketball school. So consider this. No program has ever had a perennial championship contender in both basketball and football, and our basketball program is not going anywhere. So how good do we expect the football program to be? I think UNC could be the first program to be a power in both as we have the funding, facilities, and fan base. But, it just isn’t that likely.