Carolina’s New Starting QB Offers Experience, Discretion
By David Glenn
North Carolina football coach Bill Belichick may have tipped his hand on the Tar Heels’ 2026 starting quarterback choice earlier this year, when he summarized his basic philosophy on the position.
“Eliminating negative plays,” Belichick said, “is really probably more important than making the spectacular ones.”
UNC quarterback Billy Edwards Jr., a sixth-year senior, fits that description well.
Edwards is the only Carolina QB with significant experience at the college level. In his single season as a college starter — at Maryland, in 2024 — he had some prolific passing games, but he also limited his mistakes despite playing under very difficult circumstances.
Now 23 years old, Edwards previously spent one season at Wake Forest, three at Maryland and one at Wisconsin. After missing his senior season in high school because of the COVID pandemic, he took a traditional redshirt with the Demon Deacons in 2021 and a medical redshirt with the Badgers in 2025, when he earned the team’s starting job in August but ultimately played in only two games because of a knee injury.
Billy Edwards, image via Maryland Athletics
In between his one-year stops at Wake Forest and Wisconsin, Edwards played three seasons at Maryland under coach Mike Locksley. Two of those campaigns ended with an 8-5 record and a bowl victory, although Edwards’ one year as the Terrapins’ full-time starter proved to be a much more difficult journey.
In 2022, Edwards started twice, helping the Terrapins to a 31-24 regular-season victory over Northwestern and a 16-12 triumph over NC State in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. In 2023, he started just once, in another postseason game, posting a 31-13 win over Auburn in the Music City Bowl. In 2024, he was the full-time starter for a team that included two talented wide receivers (National Football League draft picks Tai Felton and Kaden Prather) but an ineffective offensive line and a porous defense.
With Edwards behind center full-time, the 2024 Terrapins finished 4-8 overall and just 1-8 in the Big Ten, a 17th-place finish in an 18-team league. That Maryland squad had the second-worst scoring defense in the Big Ten, at more than 30 points per game, and the third-worst rushing offense in the conference, at just 110 yards per game.
The 2024 Maryland offense ranked 10th in the league (at about 24 points per game) overall, though, and Edwards finished third in the conference with about 262 passing yards per game. The Terrapins lost only six fumbles during the entire season, and Edwards threw only nine interceptions to go with his 15 touchdown passes.
That Big Ten-level experience and game-management track record, along with his performances during UNC’s spring drills and August practices, ultimately gave Edwards a significant edge over Texas A&M transfer Miles O’Neill (a redshirt sophomore with only 20 career passing attempts), redshirt freshman Au’Tori Newkirk and talented true freshman Travis Burgess.
“Billy Edwards has played a lot of football and had a lot of production in the Big Ten in the ’24 season,” Belichick said. “From an experience standpoint, he had more experience than all the other (UNC) quarterbacks put together times five.”
It’s not yet clear whether Edwards will have a better supporting cast at UNC than he had at Maryland. As with the Terrapins in 2024, the Tar Heels have significant questions along the offensive line and on defense, where coordinator Steve Belichick recently took an indefinite medical leave of absence.
Whereas Carolina has confidence in many of its skill-position players, including wide receiver Jordan Shipp and running backs Demon June and Benjamin Hall, there is lingering uncertainty on the offensive line, which ultimately proved to be a problematic area during the Tar Heels’ 4-8 season a year ago.
While projected starting offensive tackles Jordan Hall (6-8, 310) and Shaq McRoy (6-8, 330) offer extraordinary size, they also have only five and one career college starts, respectively. Two other probable starters, guard Aidan Banfield and center Christo Kelly, are coming off injury-riddled campaigns. Another possible starter at guard, Charleston Southern transfer Andrew Threatt, is trying to make the jump from the Football Championship Subdivision ranks.
New UNC offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino attempted to add another quarterback to the mix back in February, when record-setting Western Carolina transfer Taron Dickens signed with the Tar Heels. Another superb decision-maker, Dickens earned FCS All-America honors for the Catamounts last season, after throwing for 3,508 yards and posting 38 touchdown passes against only two interceptions.
Dickens even spent much of May in Chapel Hill and planned to enroll at Carolina for summer school in June. He ultimately ended up at Northern Illinois, though, after failing to make it through the UNC admissions process.
That left Edwards, who completed 65 percent of his passing attempts and posted 300 or more passing yards in four games (including a 373-yard performance in a 29-28 victory over Southern Cal) for Maryland in 2024, as the only experienced signal-caller on UNC’s roster during preseason practice.
“Billy Edwards Jr. is the one with the most experience,” Petrino said. “When he got here in the winter, he had some things to take care of physically, and he’s as healthy as he’s been in a long time.”
David Glenn (DavidGlennShow.com, @DavidGlennShow) is an award-winning author, broadcaster, editor, entrepreneur, publisher, speaker, writer and university lecturer (now at UNC Wilmington) who has covered sports in North Carolina since 1987.
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.
