Mack Brown reveals where Drake Maye gets his elite competitiveness, composure

North Carolina redshirt freshman signal-caller Drake Maye had quite the debut last night against Florida A&M. He became just the second ACC quarterback in the past 15 seasons (Jameis Winston was the other) to throw for five touchdown passes and complete 75 percent of his passes in his first game. Maye looked like one of the front runners for the 2022 ACC Player of the Year award en route to leading his team to a 56-24 victory over the FAMU Rattlers in Week 0. Following the win, North Carolina head coach Mack Brown spoke with reporters about where his star signal-caller gets his competitiveness from–his family bloodlines.

“I think when you’re raised in a family where your brother–one of them won a baseball national championship, one of them won a baseball national championship, brother won a basketball national championship. Dad was a quarterback here and very good, competitive. And he’s the younger brother. Those older ones beat him down and he had to compete to have a place in the room. And I think like Sam [Howell] he thinks this is what he’s supposed to be doing. He grew up thinking I’ll be the quarterback at Carolina. When he committed to Alabama, I said, ‘I’m hangin’ on, man. You don’t need to be anywhere but here. This is the place where you need to be in school.’ And I think he has a chance to be real good,” Brown said in the postgame press conference.

Not only did Maye’s five passing touchdowns set the school record for the most passing touchdowns by a player in their first start, but he also surpassed his father, Mark Maye’s career-high passing touchdown mark of four touchdowns that he threw in 1987 against Georgia Tech.

“They asked me that on the field after the game,” he said. “I’ve actually been asking to see some tape of my dad playing because I never really saw him play. My dad won’t be too sad about that though.”

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Mark Maye currently ranks 11th in Tar Heels history with 3,459 yards passing and 15th in touchdowns (20). Although both of his records from the 1987 season have since been broken, he still holds a special place in UNC lore.

But if Saturday’s season opener was any indication, Drake Maye could be well on his way to surpassing his father on the career list as well. The redshirt freshman will look to continue his impressive start to the season when UNC next faces Appalachian State at noon ET on the road Saturday.

On3’s Chandler Vessels also contributed to this article.