Here’s a little spring football news to tide you over until the Heels play basketball on Saturday. What, is some other basketball thingy going on this weekend or something?
ESPN NFL draft guru Mel Kiper has released his top 5 players at each position and five Tar Heels have made the list, each in the top 3 at their respective spot.
The Carolina players on Kiper’s Big Board include:
- No. 1 DT Marvin Austin
- No. 1 ILB Quan Sturdivant
- No. 1 OLB Bruce Carter
- No. 2 S Deaunta Williams
- No. 3 TE Zack Pianalto
Wow.
Via Heather Dinich at ESPN’s ACC blog:
It’s also a black-and-white reminder of just how high the expectations are for North Carolina’s defense. Kiper has three Tar Heels ranked No. 1 at their respective positions and five ranked overall. (Not sure people realized just how much TE Zack Pianalto’s injury last year hurt the Heels.) There’s no shortage of NFL talent for Butch Davis to work with. It’s a different story for Paul Johnson, though, this year.
Putting aside Dinich’s well-evident love for all things Paul Johnson and Georgia Tech, she does make a salient point about the impact of Pianalto’s injury. It will be interesting to see how next season all comes together with 21 returning starters.
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If TJ Yates can figure things out, we could be in for a great season.
what’s funny is that at times early on, he looked like he was going to be UNC’s best ever at that position…not saying much, but still.
Quinn is the one the Pro Scouts have to be salivating over.
are those numbers for real? not just the ACC? those are the overall draft numbers for those positions? really??
HTTE:
Those are overall, not just in the ACC. Like I said, wow!
I’m very excited about this football season! Maybe next basketball season when the “I’m a Tar Heel” video shows Butch Davis the crowd will erupt! (Like the crowd has done for Roy in the past).
Time to put or shut up for this coaching staff IMHO.
(I do agree Zack’s injury hurt the team, especially the loss to UVA)
UNC needs to watch film of the Ravens Superbowl run. Play great Defense, and the QB needs to manage the game. TJ had a great game at state, and needs to channel that all year, but the games he is off, he needs to just play within himself and allow the D to win those games.
UNC has not always faired well when the pressure is on during football season, 98 comes to mind with the lose the FSU at home. Either way, go Heels and please beat STATE that is all they have……..
^^HP, I thought that during the Miami and FSU games the crowd was much louder than usual for Butch. Not at Roy levels to be sure but I always try to make some noise for Butch and especially the Miami game I thought it was louder.
Dinich, making Raycom look good. If she wasn’t such a homer then it would be alright with me but she’s always in someone’s corner and of late it has been GT, Maryland became untenable so she’s left that one behind for now. She does have some decent insight from time to time and she can generally pick a game but I just can’t handle her BS.
Football…can’t wait.
What is scary is those rankings do not include Robert Quinn or Kendric Burney. Quinn was one of the national leaders in sacks last season. Burney is a serious playmaker in the secondary.
That defense is loaded. All the offense has to be is good enough and I think it can be that especially since John Shoop seems to have a pretty good bead on how to use Draughn and Houston in combination.
I predict our young O-line will perform well, our wide-outs will be vastly improved, and TJ will silence all the critics. No more Tire Bowls for the Heels! Of course, every March I have the Heels in the Orange Bowl and the Braves in the Series…
Heather Dinich is a former writer for the Baltimore Sun up here where I am stationed and she has ALWAYS been a homer… She covered the Naval Academy football team, hence her love for all things Paul Johnson and Georgia Tech now…She is also one of the few Ralph Friedgen defenders out there, even though the “Fridge” hasn’t done anything at Maryland since his first season…
I’m going to go into this Carolina Football season with quiet optimism. I say that because we still don’t know what we will have on offense. I’m hoping T.J. Yates can develop, but not counting on it. I’m hoping Bryn Renner is the real deal, but not counting on it either. I’m hoping that Dwight Jones will develop into the star receiver he was in High School, but I thought he was going to do that last year, before he got injured…
I think if the defense can take it up a notch and play like it did for the greater part of the 2008 season, this could be a special year for the Heels. Can we FINALLY win in Charlottesville???
I will still never get over the 1996 loss to UVa at UVa… I was there, watching painfully in person, as we grabbed defeat out of the jaws of victory… Can 2010 be the year the monkey or by now King Kong is removed from our backs???