Just over two weeks ago, everything seemed to be falling in place for the UNC football program in terms of its special teams unit.
Rece Verhoff was granted (at the time) a fifth season of eligibility and elected to return to Chapel Hill for one more go-around. The program was obviously thrilled, thinking they were getting the guy who put the most points on the board for the team last season back, sharing a social media post to announce his return.
However, the Tenth Circuit said, as the legendary Lee Corso famously coined:
"Not so fast, my friend!"
The Tenth Circuit throws a wrench in UNC's special teams plans
While the focus of the Tenth Circuit ruling, one that essentially overturned Judge Sweeney's nationwide injunction, has been the college basketball players it is impacting (most notably Seth Trimble), college football players are being impacted as well.
Verhoff is one, as now he went from being eligible to ineligible in just a matter of weeks (16 days to be exact).
With less than a week until the Tar Heels' season opener in Ireland against TCU, Bill Belichick and his staff are back to square one to figure out how to proceed. It's likely that LSU transfer Aeron Burrell and freshman David Green will play a factor, it just remains to be seen who UNC will call upon to handle the kicking duties to begin the 2026 season.
We knew going into this that this situation was very fluid and could change at the drop of a hat. This whole case serves as another NCAA blunder, one that could've simply been avoided had they just granted the Class of 2022 another season of eligibility.
Now, these student-athletes who are now denied an additional season of competition are scrambling to file their own lawsuits in hopes of once again reversing the decision.
It's unknown whether Verhoff will pursue that route, but based on the fact that he elected to return, you'd have to think that he would at least try. However, even if he does (or did) file his own lawsuit, it's very unlikely that it will be reviewed and potentially overturned before the start of the season gets underway next weekend.
For UNC, the good news is that they obviously had to have a plan in place prior to Verhoff's return. Whether that plan is good or not remains to be seen, but you could also make the case that their willingness to quickly bring Verhoff back could be a sign of a lack of depth on special teams, one that the veteran kicker would put a bandaid on for at least another season if he obtained the eligibility.
Now, as has been the case with this situation, it will be a waiting game to see if anything changes once again. For now, Verhoff (among many others) won't be able to participate at the college ranks.
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