Drake Maye revealed his thoughts on Omarion Hampton's strong showing Saturday

UNC quarterback Drake Maye had an impressive showing in his first start for the Tar Heels as he led them to a 56-24 win over Florida A&M in week 0. But freshman running back Omarion Hampton also had a great day as he lead the Tar Heels in rushing, Maye spoke about Hamptons performance following their big win.

“Omarion, we call him Big O, he’s a good player. He’s still kind of trying to figure out kind of what to do, sometimes I’ll have to tell him which way the play is going, but when he gets the ball in his hands it’s good for our team. I think y’all saw it tonight, so just gotta get him the ball,” Maye said.

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Hampton knew exactly what to do for when he had the ball in his hands Saturday night, rushing for 101 rushing and two touchdowns on 14 carries. Hampton averaged an impressive 7.2 yards per carry in his debut, and also showed his value in special teams returning two kickoffs for 51 yards.

Maye had a big game in his own right, throwing for 294 yards and 5 touchdowns with no interceptions in his first career start for North Carolina. The freshman duo of Maye and Hampton had a strong showing to start the season, as Tar Heel fans could’ve gotten a sneak peak of their one-two punch of the future in Chapel Hill.

Mack Brown explains why Omarion Hampton’s big game doesn’t mean he’s RB1

The UNC Tar Heels had an impressive 56-24 victory over Florida A&M to start their season. Freshman running back Omarion Hampton led the Heels in rushing with an impressive 101 rushing yards and two touchdowns on just 14 carries. Hampton’s freshman debut was superb, but head coach Mack Brown said it doesn’t necessarily make him the starting running back for the season. 

“We have told the guys it’s every day, you’ve got to produce every day and you never know if a freshman is going to be able to handle the pressure of going to work with a focus every day. So tomorrow will be interesting, Tuesday’s practice will be interesting to see if he’s walking around with a little swagger, if he goes back to work. So we have told them that you gotta produce every day if you’re going to keep the job and there a lot of good running backs,” Brown said. 

Hampton also added two kickoff returns for 51 yards to his day, but overall Brown feels good about his stable of running backs this season, and mentioned the names of some other young backs that contributed to the Tar Heels win and could continue to contribute the remainder of the season. 

“Elijah Green‘s really good, he comes in at the end of the game and we’re trying to get the game over and he’s about to score. But we’re fortunate to have a lot of good running backs, Caleb Hood has missed a lot of pre-season, he had a fumble on the sideline even though it went out of bounds, we’re not going to fumble the ball. So we’ve got to take care of the ball, so that was another message to him, but the guy’s going to play because he’s really good too,” Brown said.