UNC Football: Three Tar Heels’ opponents in AP Top 25

The UNC Football program is set to play three opponents that are ranked in the first AP Top 25 poll of the season.

We are just under two weeks away from the start of the 2018 college football season and that means the first Associated Press Top 25 poll is officially out.

The AP Top 25 was released on Monday afternoon  with Alabama taking the top spot followed by No. 2 Clemson, No. 3 Georgia, No. 4 Wisconsin and No. 5 Ohio State. There were really no surprises in the top 5 as the Crimson Tide are the reigning champs and Clemson, Georgia, Ohio State and Wisconsin are all considered some of the top contenders for the College Football Playoffs.

As for the North Carolina Tar Heels, to no ones surprise they didn’t receive a single vote in the AP Top 25 after a poor 2017 campaign.

Going into 2018, head coach Larry Fedora is hoping to turn this program around quickly and will hope to do so with an impressive 2018 recruiting class. Fedora was able to snag a Top 25 class this year despite wide receiver Jordyn Adams not enrolling at UNC and instead going pro in baseball.

UNC’s schedule is pretty tough to start as they open on the road at Cal. But as it stands now with the AP Top 25 poll, the Tar Heels only have three teams ranked in that top 25 on their schedule and two of them will be at home.

The first will be a home game against No. 21 UCF in the third game of the season. The game will be the first in a home-and-home series the two teams have scheduled, with UNC heading to Florida in 2020.

After a home game against Pitt, the Tar Heels will be on the road for a Thursday night showdown with Miami. The Hurricanes are ranked No. 8 in the initial poll and should still be a Top 25 team when they meet at the end of October.

Following that game, UNC will have a bye week before heading back home to play Virginia Tech.

The Hokies are ranked No. 20 in the first poll but they have some tough matchups before facing UNC in October. They open against No. 19 Florida State and will have a tough road game at Duke at the end of September before hosting No. 12 Notre Dame in the first week of October. It’s very possible the Hokies could be unranked by the time they travel to Chapel Hill.

If UNC wants to turn things around in a hurry, putting together some quality wins over ranked opponents is a good start. Although they are unranked, they will have a chance to pull off some impressive wins.

For more on the Tar Heels football program, please check back with Keeping It Heel.