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UNC Football: Tar Heels open up training camp

By Zack Pearson

TALLAHASSEE, FL - OCTOBER 01: Head Coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels Larry Fedora talks to an official before the game with the Florida State Seminoles at Doak Campbell Stadium on October 1, 2016 in Tallahassee, Florida. (Photo by Jeff Gammons/Getty Images)
TALLAHASSEE, FL - OCTOBER 01: Head Coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels Larry Fedora talks to an official before the game with the Florida State Seminoles at Doak Campbell Stadium on October 1, 2016 in Tallahassee, Florida. (Photo by Jeff Gammons/Getty Images) /
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The UNC football program has opened up training camp for the 2018 season as we are just under a month away from the first game

On Friday, the Tar Heels officially opened up training camp in Chapel Hill as they prepare for the upcoming 2018 season with a light practice. While they opened up practice Friday, they didn’t practice in pads and instead participated in walk-throughs and some non-contact drills just to get back into the swing of things.

UNC’s first padded practice will be on Wednesday as they begin to ramp things up a bit.

As they prepare to enter the new year, the Tar Heels are certainly hoping that 2018 goes a lot better than 2017. They are coming off a 2017 campaign where they went 3-9 overall and just 1-7 in Atlantic Coast Conference play.

Going into this year one of the big storylines will be the quarterback competition.

Head coach Larry Fedora decided to wait until kickoff in Week 1 to announce his starter, and even then, he played both Brandon Harris and Chazz Surratt. The carousel continued throughout the year with Nathan Elliott getting significant time down the stretch. Elliott was the most consistent quarterback UNC had last season and is fighting for a starting spot with Surratt.

Joining the two are freshman quarterback Jace Ruder who has the talent to come in and start right away but it’s unlikely Fedora would want to turn to a freshman in a key rebuilding year.

The big thing for Fedora is to pick a starter right away. It will help the first team get in sync during training camp and should bode well for the offense early on.

https://twitter.com/TarHeelFootball/status/1025836872986226689

UNC does have some big playmaking ability on this offense and it’s something we want to monitor as training camp goes on. There will be battles for three starting wide receiver spots, four spots on the offensive line and even time in the backfield.

The offensive isn’t the only side of the ball with question marks.

As John Papuchis enters in his second season as defensive coordinator, he’s hoping to see some positive results from the defense he’s installed. The Tar Heels are going to need some playmakers to step up and be able to force takeaways if they want to be successful.

There will be a competition for two outside linebacker spots, which could end up being a key training camp battle.

With good depth along the defensive line and talent at safety, UNC’s defense should be better with another year in the system.

As far as camp goes, the Tar Heels hosted their annual “Meet the Heels” event on Saturday to kick things off. They return to practice this week as things should start to pick up and we will have some hitting in camp.

Who has big play ability for the Tar Heels?. dark. Next

Make sure to check back with Keeping It Heel for more updates on UNC training camp as we continue to countdown the days until the season opener.

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