UNC Football: Drake Maye among 2023 most valuable players

UNC Football quarterback Drake Maye was ranked on a list of the top 12 most valuable college football players for the 2023 season.

Are you tired of hearing about UNC football quarterback Drake Maye yet?

We’re not!

Maye has already been named to several pre-season award watch lists, including the Davey O’Brien Award, Maxwell Award, Walter Camp Player of the Year Award, Manning Award, and ACC Preseason Player of the Year. It’s safe to say that Maye is pretty valuable to the Tar Heels. But how does he rank among the rest of the country?

247Sports ranked their top-12 most valuable players for the upcoming 2023 college football season. Naturally, we all know that quarterback is one of the most important positions on the football field and it is shown in these rankings with nine of the players ranked being quarterbacks.

To no one’s surprise, Maye is ranked as the No. 1 most valuable player in college football this season. Here is what the 247Sports crew had to say about Maye and his impact on the 2023 Tar Heels…

"Both figuratively and literally, this is college football’s most valuable player entering the 2023 season. Drake Maye turned down “a whole lot of money to stay” at UNC according to Mack Brown, whose quarterback would’ve been a record-setter in NIL this offseason had he entered the transfer portal. The Tar Heels’ defense was near record-setting bad last season, but UNC managed to reach the ACC Championship Game because of Maye’s stellar play at quarterback. He lost his top target, Josh Downs, from a season ago and high-end transfer Tez Walker, at least right now, has not been granted eligibility for this fall by the NCAA. Maye must be elite for the Tar Heels to be a top 25 team in 2023."

While players like Caleb Williams and Bo Nix are ranked ahead of Maye in some preseason categories, those players are viewed to have more talent around them on their current teams than what Maye has in Chapel Hill. UNC football fans hope that the 2023 Tar Heels can prove nay-sayers wrong about the rest of the team outside of Maye, but one thing is for sure… UNC needs Maye to be at his absolute best if they want to have a historical season.

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