Saturday’s spring football game at Kenan Stadium showed the Tar Heels will once again have an exciting product on the field for 2021, highlighted by the passing of junior quarterback Sam Howell. 

Howell came out firing on the first play of the game with a long deep pass to sophomore Josh Downs. Downs dropped the pass, but it showed the limited-capacity crowd in attendance that the Tar Heel offense has no intentions of slowing down this year.

Howell would go on to find Downs for a 48-yard completion later in the afternoon, a play that set up a beautiful touchdown throw to Antoine Green in the back corner of the endzone not long after.

The very next drive, Howell went downfield once again and found Emery Simmons for a gain of 44 yards. He would finish the day having completed six of his 10 passes for 110 yards and the score to Green.

Even with Dyami Brown and Dazz Newsome set to join the NFL next week–and Beau Corrales limited to drills only on Saturday—Howell still appears poised for a huge year with his new group of receivers.

Head coach Mack Brown spoke to reporters afterwards about the challenges his quarterback is facing heading into year three.

“The thing you worry about with a guy like Sam is all of a sudden he’s being promoted for the Heisman,” Brown said. “Every article. Every TV show in the country. When they talk about quarterbacks, he’s mentioned as one of the best in the country. Can he handle that after two seasons? The message we got back was yes.” 

With Brown using the spring game primarily as a chance to evaluate young talent, a number of key defensive players were held out or played sparingly–including senior linebackers Tomon Fox and Jeremiah Gemmel.

Sophomore Desmond Evans made an impact on the defensive line with an early sack on Howell, while junior linebacker Eugene Asante appears more than ready to take over for Chazz Surratt—ending the day with two sacks of his own.

A total of 13 drives and 85 plays made up the entirety of the scrimmage, with each of the two sides scoring a pair of touchdowns. Overall, though, the defense was solid on both ends as neither team averaged more than five yards per play.

The team’s newfound depth was the focus Saturday on that side of the ball, something that could make all the difference as the season unfolds in the fall.

“I was pleased, we’re definitely better on defense,” Brown said. “Because we can put more guys out there and not look bad. When we first got here, we might could put seven or eight [players] out there that were really good with some others. But you didn’t really have many backups. And now we’ve got guys we can rotate and put in there.” 

Game Notes:

  • Running back Josh Henderson (six carries for 35 yards) and redshirt freshman Jefferson Boaz (two carries for 50 yards) each scored rushing touchdowns for the “Carolina” team.
  • Howell’s touchdown pass to Antoine Green was the first score of the day for the “Tar Heels” team, which also received a rushing touchdown from D.J. Jones.
  • Both sides combined to go 1-for-15 on third-down conversions.
  • Backup quarterbacks Drake Maye (3-for-8, 19 yards) and Jacolby Criswell (1-for-3, eight yards) each struggled to find success in the passing game.

 

 

Photo via Dakota Moyer

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