UNC Football: Tar Heels crack top 10 in first AP Poll of season

The 2021 college football season is just a few weeks away and already the anticipation for a more ‘normal’ season is high. But for UNC Football fans, the upcoming season is filled with lots of excitement and hope.

Following an Orange Bowl appearance in 2020, Mack Brown has his Tar Heels’ team ready to take that next step and potentially challenge Clemson for the Atlantic Coast Conference title. But first things first, UNC has to take care of business week-by-week.

And when UNC opens up the new season at Virginia Tech, they will do so ranked No. 10 in the Associated Press preseason Top 25.  This will be the first time since the 1997 season that the Tar Heels were ranked in the preseason top 10 by the AP Poll. They were under head coach Mack Brown that season as well.

The first poll of the season was released on Monday with Alabama taking the top spot followed by Oklahoma, Clemson, Ohio State and Georgia. As for the rest of the top 10, Texas A&M came in at No. 6 followed by No. 7 Iowa State, No. 8 Cincinnati and No. 9 Notre Dame. UNC will travel to South Bend to take on the Fighting Irish in October.

In total, the ACC had just three teams in the poll with Clemson and UNC in the top 10 and Miami checking in at No. 14 overall.

The Tar Heels will open up the campaign on September 3rd in Blacksburg against the Hokies with a 6 p.m. kickoff on ESPN.

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