Leading up to the season opener in Ireland, one of the biggest question marks surrounding the UNC football program revolved around the quarterback spot.
Billy Edwards Jr., an experienced transfer signal-caller, earned the job out of training camp over some of the younger, inexperienced guys in the quarterback room. For UNC fans, after suffering through a year of Gio Lopez, are just hoping for whoever plays quarterback this season to do the simple things.
Be consistent.
Protect the football.
Don't make dumb mistakes.
Well, Edwards Jr. did just that in the season opener, and all it took was one game to prove that Bill Belichick and the Tar Heels made the right call in regard to who should lead the offense.
Billy Edwards Jr. proves he's the right guy to lead UNC's offense
Before we get into it, let's preface this by saying that UNC's offense is still very much a work in progress. However, even though he didn't put up huge numbers (16 of 28 passing for 232 yards), Edwards Jr. did what we all hoped he would.
Between his play, and Bobby Petrino's offensive scheme (which is LIGHTYEARS better than what Freddie Kitchens dialed up a season ago), you felt a sense of comfort when the Tar Heels took the field on offense.
The conditions weren't great, in fact, it was pouring in Ireland, and UNC STILL threw for more yards than they did in any game last season. You can classify the offensive performance as mediocre or average for this Week 0 contest, but it was a major upgrade to what we saw during the 2025 campaign.
Let's remember this as well: Edwards missed essentially all of the 2025 season due to injury, so the rust factor was certainly there a bit. Even so, he looked like a capable quarterback, something we haven't seen in Chapel Hill since Drake Maye graced the position.
Don't get it twisted: Edwards Jr. isn't Maye by any means, but, he's much better than what we've watched over the past few seasons at the quarterback position.
Xavier Lewis put the country on notice with his dominant season opening performance
Edwards Jr. made the right reads, protected the football, and set his teammates up for success. Essentially, that's all we want from the Tar Heels' quarterback, as he already proved to Chip Patterson of CBS Sports that he earned the right to be QB1 moving forward.
"Billy Edwards earned the right to be QB1 moving forward."@Chip_Patterson believes the QB battle has been settled for UNC 💪 pic.twitter.com/vlVnu9jpCj
— CBS Sports College Football 🏈 (@CBSSportsCFB) August 29, 2026
“I think that Billy Edwards has earned the right to be QB1 moving forward. I think that the offense did look better with Billy Edwards at quarterback. And you know, one of the things that stood out to me was just his command of the offense.
I think that when you look at what he was able to do, particularly in the second half, I think that he was able to give them a little bit more consistency. And I think that’s what North Carolina needs right now."
While we all expected to see some of Miles O'Neill in the season opener, Edwards Jr. didn't give the Tar Heels any reason to go in a different direction. In fact, his play added some distance between him and the rest of the pack (the other quarterbacks vying for playing time), as this went from a potential two-man quarterback situation to having a clear-cut guy who will handle the duties.
Of course, this is very much subject to change as time goes on, but for now, based on one regular season game, Billy Edwards Jr. has taken hold of the job and now will look to build upon his success to be even better moving forward.
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