All it took was one touch of the football for Jaden Jefferson to turn it into something special.
The true freshman took the opening kickoff of the second half to the house and scored on a 98-yard run. By the looks of it, you would've never known that the kickoff return was the first time Jefferson touched the football in a college game!
To no surprise, Jefferson earned some conference honors for the huge kickoff return.
Jaden Jefferson named the ACC Specialist of the Week
The Atlantic Coast Conference released its weekly honors on Monday, including Jefferson.
ACC Specialist of the week, Jaden Jefferson 💨 pic.twitter.com/vZYVtMNhqo
— Carolina Football (@UNCFootball) October 5, 2026
Jefferson is your ACC Specialist of the Week, his first accolade at the collegiate level.
Not bad for a true freshman!
After the game, Bill Belichick said UNC's special teams unit was bad a season ago, jokingly adding that Jefferson recorded more yards on that single return than the team did all last season. While it was meant to be a joke, it's a sad reality of how bad the unit was a year ago, but the promising sign is that UNC might've just found its return man for the foreseeable future.
Sure, the Tar Heels would've loved to win that game, but they will be pleased that another of their young talents is starting to prove he belongs.
Jefferson became the first Tar Heel since Chris Culliver to return a kickoff for a touchdown. Culliver, who returned two kickoffs for touchdowns in 2024, returned another during the Fenway Bowl against UConn on December 28, 2024. What felt like a long time between (644 days to be exact), Jefferson finally ended the drought of special teams success, a very encouraging sign for the unit moving forward.
If he keeps returning kicks the way he did against Notre Dame, it won't be long before opposing teams do everything in their power to avoid kicking it his way.
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