North Carolina Football 2025: Offensive Preview
Bill Belichick is just as likely to lead the Tar Heels to a national championship as he is to lead the Tar Heels to another Super Bowl.
North Carolina hit an absolute homerun with their head coaching hire this offseason, hiring 6-time Super Bowl winning coach, Bill Belichick. Widely regarded as one of the greatest football coaches of all time, he had an absolute mob of fans to greet him on his Opening Day.
Of course, expectations for the season were sky high:
UNC’s opener brought out a lot of high-profile celebrities back to Chapel Hill:
People are saying that Bill Belichick is dating a girl 50 years younger than him, and I am here to say that it’s a patently false accusation. Bill Belichick is only a mere 49 years older than his 24 year old girlfriend, who now holds outsized influence in the UNC athletics department.
Fans didn’t know it at the time, but UNC season reached its absolute peak in their opener against TCU. Of course, I’m referring to this moment, when we had a dog commentating the plays:
I’m referring to this moment as the peak of UNC’s season, because it’s been all downhill since then.
How rough has it been, exactly? Leaving before halftime rough:
North Carolina has been a hapless team so far this year. No one is disputing that Bill Belichick is an absolutely brilliant football mind, who can rattle off detailed accounts of a long snapper from 50 years ago, but he hasn’t been a great fit for the college game so far. In the modern era with the transfer portal, a new coach needs to quickly recruit and establish his roster. UNC’s roster building this offseason was “chaotic” per accounts. There seemingly wasn’t much thought into who to scout and who to recruit. Most of UNC’s best players are from the previous regime, e.g. QB Max Johnson, RB Demon June, WR Jordan Shipp, etc.
Everyone knows the old trope about how the college game “is not about the Xs and Os, but the Jimmies and Joes,” but how are UNC’s Xs and Os this year under Xs and Os mastermind Bill Belichick?
Not well, it turns out. It gives the appearance of someone who’s not really interested in being there. UNC has looked utterly unprepared this year, and most damningly, has struggled in basic football fundamentals. The entire defense struggles with tackling, the secondary frequently bust coverages on missed assignments, and all sorts of other basic mishaps that show how unprepared UNC has been this season. Belichick is a well-known special teams aficionado, and yet the FG unit will trot on with 12 men on the field. Has Bill Belichick really been involved coaching the team, or has he outsourced that job to nepotism hires like his son the defensive coordinator, who has given up 40 points per game to FBS competition this year? And the only reason that number is not higher is because other teams figured their huge blowout leads were the perfect opportunity to give backups some experience. Is Bill Belichick really coaching this team, or has he been too busy watching Skibidi toilet videos (frfr no cap) or whatever it is that 24 year olds do these days?
UNC thought they were getting a Nick Saban, but ended up with a Chip Kelly instead.
Quarterback
UNC has not yet announced a starter for the Cal game, but it seems likely that UNC will return to their original starter in Gio Lopez if he’s healthy enough to play. Gio Lopez is a transfer from South Alabama (of the Sun Belt Conference), where he had a 6-5 record as a starter in 2024.
Like Cal, UNC is coming off a bye week, which means that Lopez has had two weeks to recover from his injury in his last game against UCF. Lopez also suffered an injury in the opener against TCU after a sack, so he’s already left half of his UNC games early with injuries; the undersized dual-threat quarterback may have durability concerns against Power-4 competition.
Lopez is pretty much always looking to take a deep shot down the field. It reminded me a lot of the Cal passing offense, where the quarterback would throw deep down the field into triple coverage despite his receiver being completely blanketed in coverage (of course, it should surprise no one that I think JKS is quite a bit better at it than Lopez). In fact, I am not sure if Lopez cares if his receiver is open or not, he’s making the throw regardless of what he sees on the field.
By far Lopez’s favorite area of the field to target:
There weren’t a ton of impressive throws to choose from, but I think this one is probably the one with the best placement on the throw all season:
Unsurprisingly, Lopez has the arm strength to launch it down the field:
Lopez is mobile and will try to buy time in the pocket, trying to keep his eyes downfield and focus on remaining a passer instead of bailing at the first sign of trouble:
As mentioned previously, Lopez is a dual-threat QB and can run the ball on designed runs, although they don’t call too many designed runs. This isn’t an RPO-driven offense:
Another designed run:
Of course, there’s been a few negatives for Lopez this season; particularly his post-snap reads and decision-making:
I’ve only watched the 2025 season for Lopez, but I’m convinced he’s typically making his decisions pre-snap. He’ll throw to his first read despite blanket coverage (or to whoever’s on the go-route, regardless if it’s a good decision or not).
I don’t know if this is on the coach or the QB, but the play-calling in general has also been suspect. Against a much weaker opponent, why is this your 4th down play call?:
I don’t think the above play is a special 4th down call, it’s a regular play they’ve run often this season (i.e. Lopez finds whoever the most tightly-covered receiver is, and then throws his way).
On the other hand, the backup QB Max Johnson has shown an ability to throw the ball and lead a consistent passing attack—that is, not just praying for a Hail Mary every few plays, but working the short to intermediate passing game to consistently drive down the field. Max Johnson is originally a transfer from LSU and Texas A&M, and started the 2024 opener for UNC before suffering a gruesome leg injury in their opener against Minnesota, when he snapped his femur. I think that Johnson is the much better quarterback, but I am guessing that he’s not the coach’s “guy,” which might be why Lopez has been given so much more rope. Those of you who remember Jake Spavital and Sam Jackson V can probably relate.
Max Johnson, the son of Buccaneers' Super Bowl winning QB Brad Johnson, is a much more polished quarterback. Johnson will go through his progressions (even given the limited time a porous offensive line gives him) and makes better reads. He does a lot of the little things right, such as in the following example where he looks off the safety to give his receiver downfield a window:
Despite Johnson’s gruesome injury, he’s still shown an ability to stand in the pocket to make throws. As someone with bad knees, I am pretty sure I felt more PTSD than he did here:
I don’t have a ton of highlight throws from Johnson, because a lot of his plays are just routine “find the open receiver” plays as they drive 70+ yards down the field. It’s also worth mentioning that Max Johnson’s brother, the tight end Jake Johnson, is the receiver he has the most chemistry with, particularly for timing throws:
Johnson’s not setting the world on fire with highlight reel throws, but he’s shown generally good accuracy on his passes (although he’s occasionally sailed a throw under pressure—which he’s faced a lot of—I still think he handles pressure better than Lopez):
Here Johnson makes a nice throw on the run:
Johnson has settled into more of a pocket passer role since his leg injury, but he was actually a good runner prior to that:
I just remembered that I had seen Max Johnson before—in his 2021 matchup for LSU at UCLA, back when I did the preview for schools in what was then known as the “Pacific” conference, where teams used to play each other based on their geographic proximity. It’s hard to imagine, I know. Back then, Johnson frequently scrambled for the first down when he felt pressure, and made some bad throws when he did try to throw against pressure. He’s clearly grown a lot since then (perhaps not being able to always scramble for a first down makes you a better passer), and I’ve been impressed with what I’ve seen from Johnson so far this year.
So it’s pretty clear that Gio Lopez should get the start.
Running back
UNC is one of the worst rushing teams in the ACC with a mere 102.2 rushing yards per game—good for 14th out of 17 in the conference—only above… #15 Cal, #16 Stanford, and #17 Boston College. Yikes.
Self-deprecation aside, I think even that stat is a little misleading. UNC’s two wins have come against an FCS team (Richmond) and a bad AAC team (Charlotte; last in the AAC, and whose lone win this season was also FCS), and in those two games, UNC had 64 carries for 341 yards (5.32 yards/carry). In 3 games against P4 competition (TCU, UCF, Clemson), UNC has 71 carries for 170 yards (2.39 yards/carry), with most of those coming in garbage time against backups (TCU was up 41-7 in the 3rd, UCF was up 27-3 in the 3rd, and Clemson was up 35-3 at halftime). Against FCS teams or P4 backups in garbage time, UNC’s rush offense began to find moderate success.
Stop me if this sounds familiar, but UNC’s struggles in the run game are largely due to a struggling offensive line. They fail to win blocks, miss protections, and largely just get overwhelmed by better defensive linemen. The quarterback doesn’t have much time to throw, and the running backs rarely get room to run.
The lone bright spot in TCU’s rush offense is the true freshman RB Demon June (pronounced “Duh-mon”). June is a powerful downhill runner:
June is looking to run through tacklers:
June keeps his leg churning and finds a way to keep falling forward:
UNC has also gotten June involved in the passing game, looking to get June into open space:
June decisively hits the hole:
Although June is a powerful runner, he doesn’t quite have breakaway speed:
Although he did eventually find his way into the endzone:
The other player I would have covered here is 5th year senior RB Caleb Hood, but he recently decided to medically retire from football. That means we can expect to see more of the RB rotation this week, namely Davion Gause and Benjamin Hall.
RB Davion Gause has had a couple nice runs, such as this one that went for a touchdown:
Or more impressively, when he hurdled this Clemson defender:
RB Benjamin Hall has shown a bit of elusiveness:
And again:
If QB Gio Lopez gets the start, I’d expect UNC to try and spread the field horizontally, perhaps get their running back involved on screens and swing passes. If QB Max Johnson is in, I’d expect a more traditional passing attack with downhill running from RB Demon June, particularly if UNC has the numbers advantage blocking.
Receivers
Given UNC’s affinity for downfield passing even when it doesn’t make sense, they probably have really good receivers who can gain separation deep down the field and make contested catches, right? Wrong.
UNC receivers struggle to gain separation and frequently struggled with drops this season. Oh wait, does that sounds familiar too?
UNC’s best receiver is Jordan Shipp, a crisp route runner who can get open on short to intermediate routes. Shipp has reliable hands:
Shipp is also strong after the catch and possess some tackle-breaking ability:
Regardless of who is the quarterback, Shipp will be the favored target.
The next leading receiver after Shipp is Javarius Green, who has been inconsistent at times. Here he has a nice run after the catch:
Green looks to have some speed:
However, Green has also had his share of negative plays. This one should have been a touchdown on the busted coverage, but Green loses track of the sideline and makes the catch out of bounds:
Green is also one Lopez’s favorite targets on go-routes, but has yet to win against man coverage.
The other outside receiver, Chris Culliver, will use his speed to gain separation (as you can see from some of the clips in the QB section). Here he gets open against Richmond:
If Max Johnson is the quarterback, expect his brother to get a lot of targets, as their chemistry and timing is hard to beat:
Another player getting increasing looks in recent weeks (as a preferred target of Max Johnson, not Gio Lopez—perhaps because the 2s are more familiar with each other?) is Tennessee transfer Nathan Leacock. Leacock was a high 4-star recruit, 247Sports’s #13 ranked WR in the class of 2023. Here he makes a nice catch despite the off-target throw from Johnson:
Johnson also has a bit of a connection with freshman WR Shanard Clower, a speedy 5’9” slot receiver:
Although, like most of the rest of the receiving corps, he has also had the occasional drop:
I didn’t really have any highlights for him, but WR Kobe Paysour has also seen increased touches with Max Johnson. He can be found in the QB clips as well.
While Jordan Shipp will command attention as the #1 receiver, and Jake Johnson will have his moments with Max Johnson, there isn’t anyone who has really set the world on fire in the receiver room.
Conclusion
Cal absolutely has the ability to scheme away QB Gio Lopez’s favorite routes and force him into throws he’s not comfortable making. The Cal defensive line should be able to overwhelm UNC’s offensive line. On the other side of the ball, UNC frequently misses tackles and busts coverages, leaving plenty of offensive opportunities for big plays. This is a game that—on paper—Cal should absolutely win. Of course, if you’ve been a Cal fan for any length of time, you remember 2024 FSU (2-10), 2022 Colorado (1-11), 2021 Arizona (1-11), and so on. This is one of those games. Do I think Cal will win? Yes. Will I be surprised if Cal finds a way to lose? No. Justin Wilcox beat bad UNC teams in 2017 and 2018. Can he do it again this year, or does Cal only show up for marquee OOC matchups?
Go Bears.
You can find my full clips here.
Thanks Christopher!
On another topic, why has there been no discussion on WFC of the "special" Friday edition of Gameday in Berkeley? For that matter, why have we not heard from the Calgorithm this year? Did they transfer along with Fernando, Ott and Endries?
Thanks again Christopher, appreciate the background on these guys. I read a statement in one of the ACC game prediction sites about this game. It read; Cal needs to decide what kind of team it is.
That was all there was. I am going to the game, and we damn well better win. Go Bears!