Where does CBS Sports rank UNC ahead of 2025 college football season?
At this time next month, we'll be a full two weeks into college football season. Also at this time next month, UNC fans are hoping for a 2-0 start to Bill Belichick's first year coaching college football.
North Carolina will kick off its highly-anticipated 2025 campaign on Monday, September 1 at 8 p.m. ET against the TCU Horned Frogs. The Tar Heels still have a few weeks to decide their starters, most notably at quarterback, but also don't be surprised to see Belichick tap deep into positional depth.
Excitement is at an all-time high in Chapel Hill, but we won't know how good UNC is until it plays an actual opponent. In CBS Sports' Preseason Rankings of all 136 FBS teams, North Carolina lands at 54th.
The Tar Heels are just one spot ahead of in-state rival NC State, winners of this annual series' past four matchups. UNC is one slot behind Houston, which hasn't enjoyed a winning season since 2022.
North Carolina has plenty of talent scattered across its roster, but plenty of talent that played elsewhere in 2024. At Training Camp last Saturday, Belichick revealed there are 70 new Tar Heels on this year's roster.
UNC has a fairly tough early portion of its schedule, also traveling to UCF and hosting Clemson. North Carolina will play five straight beatable opponents in California, Virginia, Syracuse, Stanford and Wake Forest, before being tested again with Duke and the Wolfpack.
No one expects the Tar Heels to be a National Championship contender this fall, but that's obviously the hope. Fans simply just want to see marked improvement from the Mack Brown era, which ended with another loss to the team in red.
Follow us @TarHeelsWire on X and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of North Carolina Tar Heels news, notes and opinions.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
39 minutes ago
- USA Today
Nebraska women's basketball makes the top five for elite 2026 forward Leelee Bell
Nebraska women's basketball made the top five for 2026 five-star forward Leelee Bell. The Louisville Cardinals, Michigan Wolverines, North Carolina Tar Heels, and Oklahoma Sooners also made the list in addition to the Huskers. She made the announcement on social media earlier this week. Bell is the No. 35 overall player in the country, the eighth-ranked power forward in the 2026 class, and the top player in her class from the state of North Dakota, according to the Rivals industry rankings. Bell enters her collegiate career as a decorated high school player. She was a two-time North Dakota Gatorade Player of the Year honoree and a state champion. This would be a massive addition to a 2026 recruiting class that currently has no commitments in the class itself. Bell would be a cornerstone addition, bringing a player who can immediately add scoring and depth to the program. Coach Amy Williams and the staff certainly have their work cut out for them. However, landing Bell would certainly be a notch in their proverbial belts. Contact/Follow us @CornhuskersWire on X (formerly Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Nebraska news, notes, and opinions.
USA Today
39 minutes ago
- USA Today
Iowa football QB Mark Gronowski shares first camp comments
As Iowa football's 2025 season swiftly approaches, quarterback Mark Gronowski joined the "Fight For Iowa" podcast alongside legendary play-by-play voice Gary Dolphin to speak on his vantage point of Hawkeyes summer camp. At 6-foot-3, 230 pounds, the native of Naperville, Ill., will be in his first and final season with the Hawkeyes after transferring in from South Dakota State, where he led the Jackrabbits to a pair of FCS national championships in 2022 and 2023. In his four seasons with South Dakota State, Gronowski passed for a total of 10,308 yards and 93 touchdowns while rushing for 1,767 career rushing yards and 37 touchdowns to close his tenure as tied for the title of the winningest quarterback in FCS history with a 49-6 record. When Dolphin asked the quarterback about his perception of the Iowa defense throughout camp, the fifth-year senior gave much appreciation for Phil Parker's group. "It's a great defense, and it's great to go and compete against it every single day, and compete against Coach Parker, too," Gronowski said. "He throws out some great defenses, puts out some great calls to make us work, make us think like a quarterback, and it helps us get better every day, and I love doing it." Dolphin then asked the quarterback about his comfort level with running Tim Lester's offense, to which the quarterback replied that he feels confident with the various plans of attack and his ability to figure out the defense in front of him. "I feel great. I'm heading into every single play. I know what I'm doing. I'm thinking through the entire play, and I'm understanding the defenses that we got in front of us. I feel really comfortable right now and we just got to continue to grow and continue to get that timing with the receivers. "I'm just trying to continue to approach the line of scrimmage with a pre-snap plan that really I can dial in and understand every single coverage that I'm facing, so it really makes the answers easy," Gronowski added. "If we see a cover three, we're hitting a certain route. If we're seeing cover four, we're hitting a certain route, and just making that almost second nature. And that just takes a lot of film watching and a lot more reps, too, against this defense," Gronowski said. Dolphin closed his set of questions by asking how he feels about playing behind the Hawkeyes' highly-skilled offensive line, where Gronowski expressed gratitude for the energy the line brings to practice and, ultimately, to game situations. "Those guys are awesome. Those are all great personalities as well. Fun guys to hang out with, and they make it fun out here at practice every day," Gronowski said. The Hawkeyes open the season on Aug. 30 from Kinnick Stadium versus FCS opponent Albany at 5 p.m. CT on FS1. Contact/Follow us @HawkeyesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Iowa news, notes, and opinions. Follow Scout on X: @SpringgateNews.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Shedeur Sanders has Browns edging into real QB drama after solid exhibition showing vs. Panthers
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Entering Friday night, Shedeur Sanders' NFL world orbited multiple qualifiers. If the rookie quarterback could master NFL play-calling and verbiage … if he could learn head coach Kevin Stefanski's offense and maximize minimal practice reps … if he secured exhibition opportunities and showed a spark … then maybe there would be a reason to make him a serious part of the Cleveland Browns' quarterback conversation. Exiting Friday night, Sanders went ahead and started that dialogue. Whether the Browns are ready for it or not. [Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2025 NFL season] This is what Sanders' first meaningful NFL incursion has generated. Get beyond the symphony of social media applause from celebrities (LeBron James, Jamie Foxx, etc.), former NFL players (Richard Sherman, Gerald McCoy, etc.), and too many NFL analysts to count. Tuck all of that away and consider this: For months, the spotlight on Sanders has washed out virtually every other storyline in the organization — and that was before there was something consequential to digest. Now he's actually played some relevant football. And the outcome was solidly impressive for exhibition work, even from the most conservative of vantages: 14-of-23 passing for 138 yards and two touchdown passes, with two sacks and zero turnovers in nearly three quarters against the Carolina Panthers. But the true gravity of the performance was more in how Sanders held up after being tapped to start Cleveland's first exhibition game, despite getting very few high-level practice snaps since the start of training camp. After a series where he looked like a quarterback treading water in his first NFL opportunity, he settled into a comfort zone that was intriguing if not impressive. And he did it rotating through a tide of situational challenges that should be useful when the Browns sit down to digest the game tape. He threw from the shotgun repeatedly, but also tucked under center a handful of times. He played snaps in the red zone with scoring opportunities, as well as backed up to Cleveland's own goal line and throwing out of his own end zone. He was faced with third-and-long, third-and-short, and at one point, even executed a quarterback sneak for a first down. And on a few occasions, he was forced to evade the rush inside the pocket or to move outside and operate off script. In one game, he packed in a multitude of scenarios that should have the coaching staff and front office feeling good about what it can digest as it heads into next week. But it also now pours jet fuel onto an external fire the Browns have been trying to tamp down for weeks, if not months. And that is this: If Sanders takes sparing opportunities and excels in those moments, how can he not become a legitimate part of a larger quarterback conversation? A little over four weeks ago, I spoke to a high-ranking executive inside the franchise and they offered this line amid an assessment of Sanders potentially moving up the team's depth chart: 'How he plays in preseason games won't be ignored.' If that sentiment still rings true, then Sanders' performance against the Panthers can't simply be written off as exhibition snaps against exhibition-quality players, especially when the snaps come on the heels of Sanders effectively being forced into three quarters of work after fellow backup quarterbacks Kenny Pickett and Dillon Gabriel suffered injuries that took them off the table for Friday night. Yet, after this performance, you could still feel Stefanski redirecting the conversation about Sanders. Nearly every postgame question had something to do with his rookie quarterback's performance — asking how Stefanski rated it, what it meant for Sanders' future, how the quarterback slotting might be impacted … on and on. For the most part, the Browns head coach was gently complimentary, often choosing to steer many of his answers to the overall team by using phrases like 'the guys' and 'the players.' It wasn't a ham-handed attempt to keep from focusing solely on Sanders, but it wasn't exactly subtle, either. And within it, you could feel a continued effort to put the screws down on a wider quarterback conversation. 'We're really just focused on developing our players,' Stefanski said at one point, when asked specifically about a potential impact to the quarterback depth chart. 'We're in evaluation mode. I'm pleased with where the guys are, but I'm not diving into the quarterback competition.' The one thing Stefanski did allow? Sanders' preseason opportunity is going to extend to next week's game against the Philadelphia Eagles. 'He'll get a ton of reps next week as well,' Stefanski said. 'That's all a part of our development of our young players.' For Sanders' part, he remained diplomatic and focused inward — which has been his baseline attitude from the moment Cleveland's training camp began. 'I just think about when I get out there just doing what I gotta do,' Sanders said. 'Everything else is out of my hands, so why worry about it? I just don't think that deep into everything because it's something that you're not able to control. So why put energy into something you can't control? The most you could do is whenever you get your opportunity and your number is called, is perform and at least do the bare minimum and win the game. That's what I feel like we did today and there's definitely things that I could grow off of.' At the very least, it's an approach based in reality. Two months ago, when the Browns were heading into their full squad minicamp, it was clear Sanders was going to be able to control only the opportunities the Cleveland staff offered to him. And at the time, it didn't sound like there would be a landslide of chances to make a difference. There was a strong insinuation he should be viewed as nothing more than the fourth-string quarterback who had a short list of things he needed to focus on. He needed to learn Stefanski's scheme and take advantage of whatever reps were provided — even if they were few and far between. He had to master NFL terminology and play-calling verbiage and treat it like a first language. And above all, if the time came and he was given opportunities in preseason games, he had to make the very most out of every single snap. On Friday night, he did that. And come Saturday morning, the quarterback conversation in Cleveland will have just gotten started.
