CHAPEL HILL – Mack Brown doesn’t have a timetable for when he and Phil Longo will make a decision about the quarterback situation. There are just too many unknowns at this time to project forward.
So, with North Carolina opening fall camp Friday at its new practice fields, the Tar Heels’ head coach and QB coach/offensive coordinator Phil Longo will begin the process of observing, analyzing and eventually deciding who will get the ball first when UNC opens the 2019 season versus South Carolina on Aug. 31 in Charlotte.
The scenarios run the gamut, so Brown and the staff are going to stand back some and see which of Carolina’s three quarterbacks emerge, if any one player does.
“We’re going into it just wide open and with no expectations of a timetable and we’re just going to let it work itself out,” Brown said during Wednesday’s pre-fall camp press conference at the Kenan Football Center.
The competition, which enters Friday’s practice literally even, is between redshirt freshmen Jace Ruder and Cade Fortin and true freshman Sam Howell. Ruder played part of one game last fall versus Georgia Tech before an injury ended his season. Fortin started two games and played in four, thus he maintained his redshirt because of a new NCAA four-game rule that was implemented. He also suffered an injury that significantly affected his season.
The new staff got Howell to flip from his commitment to Florida State less than a month after Brown was hired. He was the prize of the 2019 recruiting class.
All three players have considerable upsides whom Brown said he would have recruited to Texas, where he previously coached. But even after a spring practice in which the repetitions in practice were evenly distributed, the uncertainty of what they will see this month is considerable.
“The biggest thing for us is getting the right guys, and they’re all young (and) two of them got hurt last year so there’s some history of injuries there,” Brown said. “So, we’ve got to make sure we’ve got at least two guys to be prepared to play and hopefully a third one.”
Fortin (6-foot-3, 220 pounds) was injured after playing well for almost a half versus Virginia Tech last October, which was his first start, and he also started the finale against N.C. State. He completed 32 of 65 pass attempts for 388 yards, a touchdown and an interception. He ran the ball 14 times for 76 yards and a TD.
Ruder (6-foot-3, 225) played 25 snaps versus Georgia Tech, throwing a touchdown pass three snaps after breaking his left shoulder. He as 4-for-5 with 80 yards and that TD pass while running three times for 21 yards.
Howell (6-foot-1, 225) enrolled in January and went through a full spring practice.
On Friday, the snap distribution will once again be evenly split, and performance will dictate how that staff alters the players’ reps as they get into the heart of camp.
“Yes, all three quarterbacks will have equal reps and right now we have no clue about which one’s going to step up,” Brown said. “What we’ve told them, and it sounds facetious, but it’s really not is ‘We’re going to put you in situations, and the one that moves the team and scores is the one that’s going to play.’
“That’ll be the best leader, that’ll be the one that handles the offense the best, because it’s a cerebral quarterback offense – you’ve got to make good decisions. They’ve been through a summer with it now with their player-led practices, they went through a spring with it, they were with Coach Longo all spring, they’ve gotten exactly the same number of reps. So we feel like they’re ready to go.”
As equal as things are, there was some movement in the summer, at least individually.
“Some of them took a bigger step this summer than others and we’ll probably see some of that in the first week or so,” the Hall of Fame coach said.
Brown isn’t opposed to playing multiple quarterbacks. He did it often during his first stint at UNC. Mike Thomas and Jason Stanicek had plenty of success going back and forth sharing duties and Chris Keldorf and Oscar Davenport helped lead Brown’s last two UNC teams to consecutive top-10 final rankings.
So, it’s very possible the Heels use multiple quarterbacks on Aug. 31 and perhaps beyond.
“When we were here before, it was interesting that we nearly always had two guys that rotated and it worked,” Brown said. “When we went to Texas, it wasn’t as easy. For some reason, it just didn’t work as well so we were more with one quarterback at Texas, we were with two here.
“I just want to win. So I really don’t care if one of them goes out there and takes over and does really well, he’ll play. We do need to have two ready to play because obviously you’re one snap away from losing your quarterback.”
Right now the Heels have three, though the separation process commences Friday morning.
