See Which Tar Heels Made Phil Steele’s All-American and All-ACC Teams
By John Bauman
Today, Phil Steele released his All-ACC and All-American teams. See which Tar Heels made the grade and which Tar Heel was named to the All-American team.
First off, some great news for the Tar Heels. UNC offensive guard Landon Turner has been named a 2015 1st team preseason All-American by Phil Steele. Turner was joined on the first team offensive line by Mark Tuerk of USC, Vadal Alexander of LSU, Ronnie Stanley of Notre Dame and Laremy Tunsil of Ole Miss.
Duke SS Jeremy Cash was also named a first team preseason All-America at SS, and Kelby Brown was selected as 2nd team preseason All-American at linebacker. Unfortunately, N.C. State did not have any players selected on any of Phil Steele’s four All-American teams.
You can see the entire All-American teams here.
Steele also released his preseason All-ACC teams, which included 12 Tar Heels across the four teams. Here are the players selected to the preseason All-ACC teams…
1st team
Caleb Peterson, OG
Landon Turner, OG
2nd team
Quinshad Davis, WR
Ryan Switzer, WR
Jon Heck, OT
Ryan Switzer, PR
3rd team
Marquise Williams, QB
Elijah Hood, HB
Mack Hollins, WR
TJ Logan, KR
4th team
Lucas Crowley, C
Naz Jones, DL
Jeff Schoettmer, LB
You can see all of Phil Steele’s All-ACC teams here.
North Carolina Tar Heels
Some thoughts…
– Four out of UNC’s five starting lineman from last season were selected to an All-ACC team. Now I realize that’s great and Coach Fedora and his staff must be excited, but, I’m a little skeptical. Four offensive lineman is a lot. That’s the most in the ACC, I wouldn’t rank UNC’s offensive line as the best in the ACC heading into next season. I agree Turner is a stud, but the other three had good and bad moments last season.
I think UNC’s offensive line could be pretty good, but I think Mr. Steele could be overrating the line just a bit. Maybe, and hopefully for the team’s sake, I’m wrong.
– I’m surprised Switzer is just a 2nd team All-ACC punt returner. Just a few months back, in 2013, Switzer was an All-American. Now he is second in his conference? I disagree.
– You can tell that UNC’s offense is going to be the strength of the team just from looking at these teams. UNC has nine offensive players on the teams, which is pretty darn good. However, just two defensive players were selected, and they were both on the 4th teams. Gene Chizik is dealing with a lot less talent than on the offensive side of the ball.
– I think at the end of the season, Marquise Williams is the 1st team QB. But I’m totally biased in saying that. I think Quise is going to have a really good year and make a run at the ACC Player of the Year trophy, and maybe even a Heisman trophy. Yea, I said it. I really believe in him this year.
Stay tuned to Keeping It Heel for more UNC Football news and analysis as the summer rolls along!