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What’s wrong with Drake Maye? It’s the defense.

A famous basketball coach once said about opponents preparing to play his team, “We don’t want to take what they give us. We want to do what we want to do.”

That means finding a way to do that and executing, despite the defense.

Drake Maye is getting that from well-conceived game plans trying to keep him off the field and, when he’s on it, make it harder for him to get comfortable. The stats over Maye’s last six games, back to 2022, show that.

In his first 10 games as the Tar Heels’ QB1, Maye eclipsed 3,400 yards passing and had 34 TDs and only three interceptions. He had 13 TD passes in the last four, three in the ACC Coastal-clinching win at Wake Forest last November.

At that point, Maye officially entered the Heisman Trophy conversation. Since then, in the last four games of his red-shirt freshman year (all losses) and the first two wins of this season, he has had 6 touchdown passes, 3 in the last-second loss to Oregon in the Holiday Bowl. He’s also had six picks.

South Carolina held Maye in check for the first half, ending with Carolina ahead by three. No. 10 threw two TD passes in the third quarter to open up the game that the defense put away. As we know, he did not throw another against App State for only the third time in his so-far 16-game college career.

And Mack Brown said Monday that Minnesota, the opponent this Saturday at 3:30 in Kenan, depends on its defense, which held Eastern Michigan without a first down in the entire second half. “Never heard of that before,” he said.

The head coach knows that App gave up the run to hold down the chunk plays that Maye loves to throw. His 57-yarder to J.J. Jones was the only such play in the game and led to a missed field goal at the end of regulation.

“Drake did an unbelievable job with the 1-minute drive at the end,” Brown said. “I wish we’d made the kick, obviously, because the game should have been over. . . a 39-yard field goal right in front of the sticks.”

Brown was asked whether he will take what the defense gives him, even if it keeps Maye way under his Heisman Trophy hype.

“Drake’s wonderful and we only want to win, period,” he said. “A hundred percent, we’re not into any of the other stuff. Somebody asked Drake after the game, ‘What about you not throwing as much.’ He said, ‘I would’ve handed it to Omarion (Hampton), too. Nobody could stop him.’

“So it’s about winning games,” Brown said. “Drake’s totally about that.”

 

Featured image via Associated Press/Reinhold Matay


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