As we continue with our position previews for the 2026 college football season, we turn our attention to the running backs. Of all the position groups, the running backs does return their top two leading rushers, who accounted for 58.4% of the teams total yards, from the 2025 team that finished fourteenth in rushing yards in the ACC last season.
The Front Runners
Demon June
June returns as North Carolina’s leading rusher from last season. June finished his freshman year rushing 84 times for 464 yards (29th in the ACC)
and two touchdowns. He also caught a touchdown. If you aren’t too impressed with those numbers, they look even less impressive when you realize he accrued 53.6% of those yards and all three scores in just two games. He also finished the season with just 20 carries and just 48 yards across the Tar Heels final four games. June has the size and speed to be the team’s lead back, but he will need to get the chances he wasn’t getting as the season was falling apart last year.
Benjamin Hall
Hall was the Tar Heel’s second leading rusher last season finishing with 274 yards (38th in the ACC) and two touchdowns on 71 carries. Hall’s best game came in the loss to the California Golden Bears where he rushed for 68 yards and a touchdown on 14 carries. Hall on the whole was more consistent than June, but that just meant he had a slightly higher floor and a much lower ceiling. Hall should be a great compliment to June as he enters his fourth season of eligibility.
The Returnees
Jaylen McGill
Like June, McGill was a freshman last season for the Tar Heels. However, unlike June, McGill was very unproductive. The rising Sophomore appeared in just six games for North Carolina last year finishing with only 19 yards on just seven carries. McGill also had seven catches for 49 yards. McGill’s best game came against Virginia when he had three carries for 14 yards while also catching two passes for 23 yards. The Spartanburg native does possess good size, so hopefully he will be able to do more this season for UNC.
Charleton French
French was a bit of a disappointment last season as he followed up a 10 carry 84-yard season in 2024 (across three games) with a single carry last year under new head coach Bill Belichick. French is not the biggest back on the team and may need to find more of a niche as a specialist to find rushes in his third season as a Tar Heel.
The Transfer
Kaleb Jackson
Despite having a poor running back room last season and losing several players from that room, the current administration only brought in one player via the portal in former LSU Tiger Kaleb Jackson. Jackson does bring some pedigree to the Tar Heels coming from a SEC school while also having accrued 331 yards and four touchdowns on 82 carries across three seasons with the Tigers. However, he only had seven carries for 16 yards across four games last season. Jackson is a big back for new coach Bobby Petrino to use though there may be questions about whether he is too big to be anything more than a goal line back, not that the team doesn’t need one of those.
The Rookie
Crew Davis
Much like with the transfer portal, the Tar Heels looked at their roster and only brought in one running back recruit in Crew Davis. Davis, who also played lacrosse in high school, comes to the Tar Heels as the sixty third rated running back (he was also the third best running back from NY). The freshman did have a combined 1,653 yards and 18 touchdowns last season for Iona Prep which would make Davis one of the better dual options out of the backfield for the team even as a rookie. Whether he sees the field or not this year probably depends on how the guys ahead of him do, but he does have potential to be a weapon for UNC next season.
On the whole if you are unimpressed by the running back group, I don’t blame you. The returning production is not all that impressive and the new additions are at best wild cards with question marks. Considering the state of the quarterback room, this group needs to be reliable for North Carolina to succeed in Coach Belichick’s second season, and right now there isn’t a lot of proof for that to be the case.
What do you think of the team’s running backs? Let us know in the comments below.
