It’s fair to say UNC football has underperformed on the field relative to expectations the last several years. Despite good recruiting classes and endless speculation that the Heels would eventually become a football power to be reckoned with, UNC has managed just one ACC title game appearance to balance out a slew of bad losses and blowout bowl defeats.
However, there has been one area in which Carolina has been among the best college football programs in the country the last few years: getting quarterbacks
to the NFL. UNC has three QBs in the league this year: Drake Maye, Sam Howell and Mitchell Trubisky. Howell and Trubisky have carved out roles as capable backups, while Maye is considered one of the better young signal callers on the rise.
While it can be hard to figure out what college gets to “claim” a former player, UNC actually has as many current NFL quarterbacks as some of the top names in the country. For the purposes of this article, a quarterback is considered to be from the last school they attended before going to the NFL. I’m using this definition because 1) it’s the same one ESPN uses, which is as good authority as any, and 2) I get to be petty and say Russell Wilson isn’t an NC State product.
Based on the NFL rosters at the beginning of the season, Oregon and Alabama lead all schools with four QBs currently in the league. UNC’s three tie them with Louisville, Ohio State, and Oklahoma; no other school has more than two. All but perhaps Louisville are considered blue-blood college football programs that are known for recruiting and developing top-tier NFL talent, particularly at the quarterback position.
On one hand, having UNC’s name attached to multiple NFL quarterbacks is a boon to the program and should help with recruiting. On the other hand, it’s frustrating that UNC has had that much talent at the most important position in football and still only had marginal success over the past 10 years. Football is very much a team sport, but it’s no coincidence that teams with elite QB play tend to be the ones that make the playoffs and win national titles. It’d be nice to look back on Howell/Maye led teams and be able to reminisce on more big wins, but I digress.
It’ll be up to Belichick to see if he can continue to develop Tar Heel quarterbacks that eventually land in the NFL. Here’s hoping we hear Bryce Baker and Travis Burgess’s names called on some April day in the future.
