The 2024 college football season is full of questions for the North Carolina Tar Heels as they enter another season under Mack Brown.
With the team losing some key players in Drake Maye, Cedric Gray and Tez Walker, they will look to replace that production and more. The biggest factors in UNC’s success will be at the quarterback position where there is currently a battle between Max Johnson, Conner Harrell, and Jacolby Criswell for Fall camp. But the defense is also a big question mark as well.
UNC moved on from Gene Chizik after another tough season and hired Geoff Collins to run the unit. And that side of the football could be the biggest key to UNC’s success.
In College Football News’ preview for UNC in the 2024 season, Pete Fiutak listed UNC’s defense as the biggest key to success for this season:
Shock of shocks, like most teams, North Carolina isn’t as good when the defense is giving up a ton of yards. What’s weird about this team, though, is that’s it’s built to keep up in shootouts – in 2022 defensive yards allowed didn’t matter so much, but they did in 2023.
Granted, some teams keep the O going because they have to open things up, but mostly, the UNC D hasn’t been great.
Last year the Tar Heels went 6-0 when allowing fewer than 390 yards of total offense, and was 2-5 when giving up more. One of those wins came only because the defense forced four takeaways against Miami, and the other was the wild thriller over Appalachian State.
UNC does have a strong run game led by Omarion Hampton and while they shouldn’t expect the next quarterback to be as good as Drake Maye, getting a good defensive performance this year could help the program surprise some people for 2024.
Follow us @TarHeelsWire on X and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of North Carolina Tar Heels news, notes and opinions.