UNC Football offensive lineman Cayden Baker Retires

On Thursday afternoon, rising UNC Football junior offensive lineman Cayden Baker officially medically retired from football. 

The UNC football program lost another player on its roster during the 2023 spring season on Thursday when offensive lineman Cayden Baker announced he would be retiring from playing football due to a medical reason.

As reported by InsideCarolina, Baker hasn’t had much action in a Tar Heel uniform since stepping on campus as part of the 2020 recruiting class ranked no. 14 in the nation according to 247Sports.  Baker was a 4-star player from Fort Meyers, Florida in that class.

Since joining the UNC Football program, he has played in 22 games in his three seasons. However, making appearances is about all that’s on his stat sheet. In those 22 games, he’s only seen 76 total snaps, approximately 3.5 snaps per game. Those aren’t very meaningful snaps. He only saw 16 snaps in 2023, ten at right tackle and six at left guard.

It wasn’t announced what his medical reason for retiring was, but this certainly hurts the program’s depth for the 2023 season (and possibly beyond). Baker did have three seasons of eligibility remaining (senior year, redshirt year, and a COVID year). The offensive line struggled mightly in 2021 in Sam Howell’s junior season giving up 49 sacks and seemed to not improve much in Drake Maye’s sophomore season giving up 40 sacks. It should be noted that Maye used his legs very often to get out of trouble in 2022.

We wish Cayden the best in his health going forward.

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