CHAPEL HILL – Talent? Check. Experience? Check. Depth? Check.

North Carolina’s offensive line has been transformed over the last two years, from a thin group with a gifted NFL left tackle and then a bunch of question marks and youth, which often go together.

Now, as Mack Brown gears toward his third season in stint number two in Chapel Hill, the Tar Heels boast one of the better lines in the nation. UNC returns its entire starting five from a year ago as well as a key reserve who has started 14 games and played 880 snaps in his career.

Furthermore, the coaching staff is confident it can go eight deep and could reach 10 deep by sometime in fall camp.

“I’m excited, now as a fifth-year guy on the o-line, to say that we finally do have some great depth,” senior center Brian Anderson said. “And me as a guy, my third year in the saddle to be in the center position, I was young and I’ve grown and this is really our third year all five of us starting and playing together.

“And that's just huge because our cohesiveness is just so much better. We are just on the same page with everything and can really fit things together.”

Collectively, the main six offensive linemen plus junior William Barnes and former walk-on Quiron Johnson, who has moved well past multiple scholarship players the last two seasons, have combined to start 113 games while playing 8,424 snaps. A year ago, the group logged 4,308 snaps.

Anderson is third on the o-line with 22 career starts. Ahead of him are senior tackle Jordan Tucker with 25 and senior guard Marcus McKethan with 24.

The Tar Heels are stacked among their first six for sure, including Ed Montilus, and with Johnson having earned offensive line coach Stacy Searels’ trust, that’s seven. Barnes made a strong push in the spring, so the desired number of eight has become a reality. Good thing, too, as the group admittedly got tired ofen last season.

“Yeah, sometimes,” junior Asim Richards acknowledged. “Honestly, I got a little bit of rotation with Joshua Ezeudu and Ed Montilus. So, I wasn't necessarily worn down, but I’d say Jordan Tucker and Marcus McKethan were a little more worn down than we were because we had a rotation going on.

“But now more guys are stepping up, they have a better rotation. It’s just better for all of us.”

Barnes is the key. He came in as 4-star and perhaps the jewel of the class of 2018. He played 88 snaps in UNC’s first two games, road losses at California and East Carolina, before an injury a week later forced him to redshirt the rest of his first campaign.

Weight issues and simply having a longer timetable than originally expected kept Barnes out of the lineup aside from extra points and some field goals. But he exploded this past spring and gained the trust of the entire coaching staff.

“We’re really excited about William,” Brown said. “He struggled for the two years we’ve been here, or the one spring and the two falls. He was at 342 pounds and now he’s at (316), so he’s really lost a lot of weight, he’s working really hard with our nutritionist to keep it down, he’s gotten much stronger.

“He made good plays in our year-and-a-half and two falls with him, but he wasn’t consistent… He could go in the rotation with the blue team today, and that’s something he could not have done in our previous two falls.”

What is so intriguing about the o-line room is after the three senior starters move on, and the possibility that Ezeudu could leave for the NFL after this coming season, there is no shortage of potential behind them. Even some of the guys not currently tabbed for the rotation right now could find their way into the mix at some point this fall.

Add sophomore Wyatt Tunall, redshirt freshman Malik McGowan, sophomore Cayden Baker, redshirt freshmen Trey Zimmerman, and true freshmen behemoth Diego Pounds (6-foot-7, 330 pounds), among a few others, and North Carolina appears in solid shape moving forward.

It not only bodes well for 2022 and beyond, but the competition in that room is enflamed. As the players like to say, “it’s lit.”

But before the Tar Heels reach down to those guys, they have a healthy collection of blockers that will pave the way for quarterback Sam Howell, one of the top Heisman Trophy candidates entering the 2021 season, following a year in which UNC finished with the No. 5 overall offense in the nation, including No. 9 averaging 41.7 points per game.

Some of the skill guys that helped the Heels explode are off to the NFL, but the line remains intact, and might be even better.

It is experienced, talented, deep, and has a chemistry and culture of grinding and success. It has come rather far in a short period of time.