CHARLOTTE – The annual ACC Kickoff launched Wednesday at The Westin with conference head coaches, select players, and the media together for the first time since March of 2020. The Coastal Division was up first, of which North Carolina is a member.

THI was on hand for the two-day event that concludes Thursday with the Atlantic Division taking center stage. ACC media preseason predictions and all-conference picks will be released Thursday, but Wednesday was all about the Coastal Division, which means the North Carolina Tar Heels were on tap.

UNC Coach Mack Brown was joined by graduate OLB Tomon Fox, senior MLB Jeremiah Gemmel, and junior quarterback Sam Howell. Over the next few days, THI will run a series of notebooks and items from today’s availability. Here is our first notebook from the ACC Kickoff:

UNC Quarterback Sam Howell will go into the season as one of the leading candidates for the Heisman Trophy, but if he’s to win the award he must develop on-field chemistry quickly with a host of new wide receivers and running backs after losing two hugely productive players to the NFL from each position group.

But Howell isn’t worried.

“I think this offseason has been really big for us, it’s been a great challenge for me to step up and be more of a leader,” he said in the interview breakout room. “We lost a lot of talent at the skill positions on offense, so I’m really spending a lot of time focusing on the (younger) guys. Those guys have worked so hard, they’ve been so into it and so fun to work with.

“They’re all really talented players and have kind of a chip on their shoulders because everybody is talking about all the players we lost and no one is talking about the players we have.”

For the first time ever, each school is being represented by three players at the ACC Kickoff. In past years, each school brought two players to the event, and no team had more collective experience and production than the trio of Tar Heels on hand Wednesday.

Super senior outside linebacker Tomon Fox has played 2,517 snaps in his career at UNC, which includes 35 starts in 47 games played. Fox has racked up 146 tackles, including 34 for a loss of yardage, of which 21.5 have been sacks. He has one interception, recovered three fumbles, and forced five fumbles.

Senior middle linebacker Jeremiah Gemmel has played 1,620 snaps (1,610 the last two seasons) at Carolina while starting 25 of the 29 games he has played. Gemmel has accumulated 163 tackles, including 13.5 for a loss of yardage, of which five have been sacks. He has two interceptions, recovered a fumble, and forced four fumbles.

Junior quarterback Sam Howell has been on the field for 1,771 snaps in his two seasons, which include him starting all 25 games he has played. Howell has completed 496 of 770 pass attempts (64.4 percent) for 7.227 yards, 68 touchdowns, and 14 interceptions. In addition, Howell has run for six touchdowns and has caught two TD passes.

Speaking to the trio’s experience is that Fox has a chance to pass Lawrence Taylor on UNC’s all-time sacks list. He still has a way to go to catch all-time Tar Heels leader Greg Ellis, who had 32 during his outstanding career. Taylor, who had 21.5 sacks at UNC, is arguably the greatest defensive player in NFL history, so being right with him in sacks and getting an extra year, courtesy of the NCAA not counting last year against any athletes’ eligibility, one might wonder if Fox has watched much of Taylor on NFL films.

“I think it's an honor to even have my name brought up in the conversation with someone like LT,” Fox said. “He is someone I looked up to once I started playing the defensive side of the ball, when I first started playing ball. People like him, Julius Peppers. People I idolized. To have my name up there with them is something to be greatly looked at from them.

“Hopefully the first game when I pass him this upcoming season, it's something to be in the memory books, you know (smiling).”

UNC was picked to finish first in the ACC for five consecutive years from 1980-84, a period that included two top-10 final rankings. And since division play started in 2005, Carolina has been picked to win the Coastal Division just once, but the 2016 Tar Heels fell short with a 5-3 mark a year after going 8-0 in the Coastal.

A year ago, Mack Brown’s second UNC team in stint number two was picked to finish third overall, as there were no divisions, and that’s where the Tar Heels concluded the season advancing to the Orange Bowl. Clemson was picked to finish first and Notre Dame, playing a provisional season in the conference, was tabbed to end up in second place, both of which happened. The Tigers and Fighting Irish also represented the ACC in the College Football Playoff.

In 2019, Carolina came in sixth in the Coastal preseason poll, but the Tar Heels tied for third with a 4-4 league mark in Brown’s first season back in Chapel Hill in 22 years. And in 15 years of preseason divisions picked by the media, UNC’s average projection in the Coastal has been fourth.

And with UNC being picked to finish first or second, and certainly regarded as a program that could break through this season and challenge for a spot in the College Football Playoff, the hype surrounding the Tar Heels is unlike anything the program has seen in some time. Perhaps not since 1997 before Brown’s last year during his first run at Carolina.

The last two preseasons, Brown and the staff spent a lot of time building up their team, as expectations weren’t anywhere near what they are now. But with one of the most anticipated fall camps commencing in two weeks and the hype escalating by the day, now they need to temper things some, and a bit of that falls on the shoulders of the older players communicating that message.

Senior linebacker Jeremiah Gemmel says it is best to have multiple guys chatter when it comes to something like this.

“I think it’s really a big role for me,” Gemmel said. “But not just for me but all the guys on the team. We’re getting to a point on the team where it doesn’t have to be just one person like me with Tomon saying something. It relays down. There are younger guys who are a little bit older who have played, like Tony Grimes, who are stepping up and talking.

“I think that’s great for the team. I don’t think it’s ever great to have just two leaders on the team. You always need to have vocal guys, especially guys who have played really well on the team.”