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The battle of ACC quarterbacks resumes this weekend.
You may have noticed that Carolina’s All-ACC quarterback of a year ago has fallen out of the Heisman Trophy watch and down the national statistics. It might not matter at this point to Drake Maye, who has led his team to UNC’s best start (4-0) in 26 years and is listed as the third QB to be drafted by the NFL.
The Tar Heels have strived for a more balanced attack this season and, for the most part, have gotten it. They are fourth in the ACC in total offense, third in passing and ninth in rushing, among the 14 football-playing members.
Maye’s numbers are way down compared to his red-shirt freshman year, when he had 16 TD passes in the first four games compared to only five so far this fall. But he is completing 72.3 percent of his passes, second in the ACC behind Miami’s Tyler Van Dyke at 75 percent. The U comes to town next week.
The Heels do have the No. 2 rusher in the conference, Omarion Hampton, at 96 yards per game with a second-best seven touchdowns. And they also have the best offensive and defensive efficiency rating in years, 5th and 3rd, respectively, in the ACC.
So while winning is paramount, Maye remains one of the most heralded QBs in the country and certainly a future NFL fixture. Southern Cal’s Caleb Williams, who has 21 touchdown passes in five games (all wins for the Trojans), is the odds-on favorite to become the second player ever to win consecutive Heisman Trophies (after Ohio State’s Archie Griffin in 1974 and ‘75).
Maye is actually locked in a close battle as the 2023 first-team All-ACC quarterback, with Van Dyke and three other QB1s the Tar Heels will play this season. Syracuse’s dual threat Garrett Shrader, who is 43rd in the country in passing efficiency, Van Dyke and Georgia Tech’s Haynes King, who is No. 23 in passing efficiency and 10th in passing yards with 1,488 and 11 TDs.
The Tar Heels are being careful not to overlook Syracuse Saturday at 3:30 in Kenan Stadium, since Shrader has come on to also become Orange’s second leading rusher with 5.6 yards per carry and 340 net overall.
“He is a tremendous quarterback,” says Kaimon Rucker, who leads the Tar Heels in sacks and will be one of the defenders “spying” on Shrader. “He makes plays with his arm as well as his legs. Having the responsibility to contain a scrambler like that, you gotta be hyper-aware of him and not lose contain.”
For the best-balanced team in Mack Brown 2.0, winning no longer rests on Maye to outscore the opponent by himself. Good defense counts, too, and over the next three home games, we’ll see if it’s good enough to go 7-0.
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Andy Mead
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