College Football: Three Tar Heels named to All-Time team

Three former North Carolina Tar Heels were named Honorable Mention for CBS Sports’ All-Time All-America Team to celebrate the 150th season of the game

The 2019 season will be the 150th for the college football, with the official anniversary day happening on Nov. 5. Throughout the year, the game will be celebrate CFB150 with patches on jerseys, special events, and more throughout the year as the season concludes with the College Football Playoff in New Orleans in January 2020.

With just under two weeks until the first week of the season on August 24th, CBS Sports’ college football writers put together their All-Time All-America team featuring some of the greatest players ever.

The publication put out a first and second team as well as honorable mention and among the players on the list are three former Tar Heel stars.  The trio of Lawrence Taylor, Julius Peppers and Dre Bly were named to the All-Time All-America Honorable Mention for their careers.

All three defensive players had stellar careers at UNC before going into the NFL.

Taylor played three seasons at North Carolina, recruited as a defensive lineman before making the switch to linebacker. He set several program records in his time with the Tar Heels and finished his final year (1980) with 16 sacks while being named tAll-American and the Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year. He went on to be drafted No. 2 overall in the 1981 NFL Draft enroute to a Hall of Fame career.

As for Bly, the defensive back led the nation with 11 interceptions in his redshirt freshman season and ended his career 20 total, an ACC record at the time. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 20013. Bly was a second-round pick by the St. Louis Rams in the 1999 NFL Draft and went on to be an All-Pro in 2003 and was a Super Bowl Champion.

The defensive back returned to UNC to join Mack Brown’s staff, coaching the defensive backs.

For Peppers, the Future Hall of Famer was one of the most dominant college football players of his time while at UNC. Peppers made his impact felt with a 15-sack season as a sophomore in 2000 being named first-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference and second-team All-American honors. He followed that up with a first-team All-ACC selection and was recognized as a unanimous first-team All-American in his junior year.

Peppers capped that junior season off by winning the Chuck Bednarik Award (nation’s top defensive player), Lombardi Award (best collegiate lineman) and Bill Willis Trophy (nation’s best defensive lineman). He was selected No. 2 overall by the Carolina Panthers in the  2002 NFL Draft and went on to make 9 Pro Bowls, be named to the NFL All-Pro First team three times and the second team three times.

Oh ya, Peppers also played basketball while at the University of North Carolina.

To see the full All-Time All-America Teams put together by CBS Sports, please visit their site and check back for more coverage on the college football season.