There was a ton of excitement surrounding the UNC football program with its 2020 recruiting class, when top-ranked defensive end Desmond Evans committed to the Tar Heels.
Evans was the state of North Carolina’s top overall player and the country’s second-ranked player overall, according to ESPN. He was the Tar Heels’ second 5-star commit in their loaded 2020 class, joining cornerback Tony Grimes.
Evans has played solid football during each of his first four seasons in Chapel Hill, but not what one might expect from a state’s top-ranked player. 2023 was Evans’ most solid campaign so far, as he started all 13 games and recorded 33 tackles (18 solo), a career-high five tackles for loss and passes deflected apiece, plus a career-high three sacks.
Entering his final season this fall, which starts on Thursday, Aug. 29 at the Minnesota Golden Gophers, Evans has high hopes for himself under new defensive line coach Ted Monachino.
“Last year, my (position) coach used to critique everything that I do, and I used to be thinking about what he said during the play,” Evans told InsideCarolina’s Evan Rogers, referring to former UNC defensive line coach Tim Cross. “You can’t play football like that. You can’t play football fast and think about stuff. So Coach Ted, you can ask him, ‘coach, do you want me to do it like this?’ And he’ll be like, ‘I’m not going to over-coach you. You can do it the way you want to, but understand it’s football at the end of the day.”
If Evans can live up to his recruiting billing out of high school, North Carolina could really surprise some people in 2024.
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