Mack Brown provides post-spring evaluation of UNC quarterback competition

Mack Brown isn’t close at all to naming a winner in the North Carolina quarterback competition. With spring practice wrapping up, the Tar Heels coach said there was not much separation between Jacolby Criswell and Drake Maye.

Neither player stood out over the other in UNC’s spring game Saturday, as Maye finished 9-of-12 passing for 113 yards and two touchdowns while Criswell went a perfect 6-of-6 passing for 104 yards and a touchdown. Brown said he liked what se saw from both, but likely won’t name a full-time starter until the fall.

“They’re a lot alike,” the coach said in a press conference following the spring game. “If you look at them every day, people say, ‘Ah, they’re just saying that to keep ’em both here.’ We’re not. They’re a lot alike. Both of them have quick arms and can throw the ball deep. They’re both accurate. They both can run. Jacolby’s got more experience because people forget he’s been here two years now and had a lot more reps. But the biggest thing is, who’s gonna throw to the right guy? Who’s gonna be the most accurate? And the other thing is who’s getting the ball out of their hands?”

Criswell has the edge in experience, getting ready to enter his third season with the Tar Heels. However, Maye was the higher-rated recruit out of high school, and was listed as the No. 46 overall player in 2022 according to On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average.

North Carolina allowed a sack on 11.4% of quarterback dropbacks this past season, which ranked a lowly 126th in FBS. For that reason, Mack Brown wants to make sure the winner of the Tar Heels quarterback competition knows when to hold on to the ball and when to let it go. He even alluded to the possibility of playing both quarterbacks and riding the hot hand on a game-by-game basis.

“We’ve had too many sacks,” he said. “Get the ball out of your hand. We work so hard on that. You watch the great quarterbacks in the NFL, they get the ball out of their hands. Sacks ruin drives, and we’ve had so many of them ruin drives as good as we’ve been on offense. I don’t want to be that team. I want us to go back and be a lot more consistent, and I’m seeing that with both quarterbacks. We could play both of them. We could put one in the game and if he plays well leave him in, if he struggles put the other one in. Usually someone has a hot hand during a game. We’ve got a lot of thinking to do. We’ll look at it hard in the fall. We’re just so fortunate to have two really good ones and another young one that I thought looked good.”

Whoever wins the quarterback competition will be tasked with replacing the production of three-year starter Sam Howell. From 2019-21, Howell compiled 10.283 yards passing, 92 touchdowns and 23 interceptions. But now, it’s time for a new era in Chapel Hill.