12/12/2022 football Edit

Downs Named Second-Team Associated Press All-America

After another big season, UNC record-setting WR Josh Downs is a second-team AP All-America. (Kevin Roy/THI)

Andrew Jones • TarHeelIllustrated

Publisher

Andrew Jones has covered sports for 26 years, including all major college & professional sports for daily newspapers & national sites. He's done radio and TV & is entering his seventh year at THI.

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North Carolina receiver Josh Downs has been named second-team All-America by the Associated Press.

Several days ago, Downs was also named second-team All-America by the Football Writers Of America Association.

Downs is a two-time All-ACC performer, a two-time Biletnikoff semifinalist and one of the most accomplished receivers in Carolina history.

Downs is third all-time at UNC with 202 receptions, fourth with 2,483 receiving yards, and he is second all-time with 22 touchdown receptions. As a sophomore in 2021, Downs set UNC single-season records with 101 catches for 1,335 Yards.

Even though he missed two games this season, Downs still caught 94 passes for 1,029 yards, becoming the second Tar Heel with multiple thousand-yard seasons, equaling Dyami Brown, who did it in 2019 and 2020. Downs’ 11 touchdowns ranked second in the ACC and seventh in the nation.

Downs caught 10 or more passes in four games this season, including a three-game stretch in which he hauled in 37 passes, which is an ACC record for that span. That was part of a four-game sequence in which the 5-foot-10, 180-pounder passes the 1000-yard mark as well.

In fact, Downs had 100 or more yards receiving in six of the 11 games he played this season, and 11 times in the last two campaigns. His single-game high is 203 yards versus Virginia in 2021.

Downs announced last week his intentions on entering the NFL Draft.

“Everything,” he said following UNC’s loss to Clemson in the ACC championship game Saturday night Charlotte, when asked what North Carolina means to him. “When I was in high school, I was a smaller guy…

“They believed in me, and Coach (Lonnie), Coach (Phil) Longo, and Coach Mack (Brown), they never changed on me. Carolina means the world to me.”

Downs will not play in the Holiday Bowl on December 28, when the Tar Heels face Oregon. His Carolina career is officially over.