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Merrill Hoge sounds like he is still a little woozy from his football days.
Hoge is one of those social media ex-players who likes to be a contrarian. He is the guy who swam upstream against all the coaches and scouts in the NFL by declaring whoever drafts Drake Maye will fire its coach within three years. That team, the Patriots, took him with the 3rd overall pick.
If any of the other NFL experts saw Hoge’s posts and took another look at Maye, they all must have concluded that he is a little nuts after a concussion-ended career in the NFL. Still, the day before the draft, Hoge doubled down and said the same thing about the Tar Heel star.
Did Hoge actually watch any games that Maye played? If he did, he must have caught the three or four halves when the Tar Heels were not very good on offense, like the first half at N.C. State last fall. Carolina had lost to Clemson the week before when starting linebacker Kaimon Rucker broke the middle finger on one hand to join the list of walking wounded. Even Mack Brown said that before the State game, he “knew we’d get killed.”
For the record, Hoge was a big star at middle major Idaho State, where as a running back in the mid-1980s he set the NCAA record with 5400 all-purpose yards. Good for him, but does that make him much of a pundit?
Did Hoge even bother looking closely at Maye’s resume? In his All-ACC first year of college football, Drake completed 66 percent of 517 passes for 4300-plus yards and 38 touchdowns. He rushed for 700 yards and seven TDs. As a sophomore without his two best receivers from the year before, Maye threw for 24 touchdowns and ran for nine scores while quarterbacking the nation’s No. 19 rushing offense.
Besides that record, Maye’s 6-foot-4, 225-pound size makes him a prototypical NFL quarterback, a similar frame as Tom Brady with better speed and arm strength coming out of college. And it looks like Maye will spend his rookie season learning the nuances of the pro game under veteran QB Jacoby Brissett.
Maye has family and Carolina pedigree after star QB father Mark and All-ACC basketball brother Luke, who were all with the elated youngest son in Detroit for the draft before what looked like a million fans watching live.
The Tar Heels’ ninth first-rounder since 2008, which ranks third in the overall ACC, and UNC’s 10th quarterback drafted, Maye joins one the storied programs in all of sports, a six-time Super Bowl Champion under former coach Bill Belichick.
If Merril Hoge thinks New England’s new head coach Jerod Mayo will be fired after the 2026 season, I’ll take some of that action on FanDuel or DraftKings or in the local barber shop.
Hoge was heard, all right, and let’s not forget his silly proclamation.
Featured image via Associated Press/Jeff Lewis
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
