The UNC football program is hoping to build off its 2022 season and hope to finish the season off strong rather than drop four-straight games.

There were moments last year where you could see promise for the future of the program, mainly being the play of quarterback Drake Maye. While Maye returns this season, the Tar Heels are going to have to replace some production on the offense headlined by the departures of Josh Downs and Antoine Green. They will also have to dos o under a new offensive coordinator as Phil Long is now at Wisconsin.

The Tar Heels did receive some early praise being named one of ESPN’s Top 25 in their “way-too-early” rankings. And now that same publication has marked out the Tar Heels’ path to making the College Football Playoff.

The site put out the path for each of the top 25 teams in their rankings and for UNC, it’s headlined by the play of Maye and the Tar Heels’ defense:

It is obvious the Tar Heels already have a quarterback in place to make them playoff contenders with Drake Maye returning. But the biggest issue if UNC wants to finish in the top four is addressing its defense, one of the worst units in college football a year ago. North Carolina gave up a whopping 6.1 yards per play and 57 touchdowns in 2022 — fourth worst among Power 5 schools and eighth worst among all 131 FBS schools. North Carolina had six players hit the transfer portal from its secondary and brought in a new cornerbacks coach, Jason Jones, to help improve that unit. But perhaps more than anything, North Carolina must be better along its defensive line, which failed to generate much — if any– pressure at all last year. The Tar Heels had 17 total sacks, tied for fourth worst in the entire country. Bringing in Amari Gainer from Florida State to play on the edge is big, in addition to four other transfers coming in to boost the secondary. — Adelson

UNC’s defense is the single biggest component to how the 2023 season will go in Chapel Hill. If that unit can get things turned around and Maye plays well, they have a chance to surprise some.

But if they struggle again, it could be another long season for Mack Brown’s program.

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