Bill Belichick and North Carolina’s Quarterback Battle Has a Winner

With about a week and a half to go before its opener, North Carolina reportedly has its man at starting quarterback.

The Tar Heels plan to start quarterback Billy Edwards Jr. in their opener against TCU on Aug. 29, according to a Tuesday afternoon report from Pete Thamel of ESPN.

Edwards, a 23-year-old Northern Virginia native, played for Maryland from 2022 to ’24 and for Wisconsin in ’25. (He first enrolled at Wake Forest, where he took a redshirt in 2021.) He beat out Miles O’Neill, a participant in eight games at Texas A&M, for the gig.

The subtext of coach Bill Belichick’s decision: This is one North Carolina has to—has to—get right.

In 2025, poor quarterback play severely hampered North Carolina

Belichick’s first starting quarterback in the college ranks was Gio Lopez, a transfer who’d enjoyed a rock-solid ’24 at South Alabama. Lopez’s first game against the Horned Frogs on Labor Day was a catastrophe, as he completed just four of 10 pass attempts for no touchdowns and one interception while rushing seven times for -10 yards.

Better days were ahead—he completed 75% of his passes for four touchdowns combined against Syracuse and Stanford around Halloween. It wasn’t enough, however, to mask his regression with the Tar Heels—and the lack of personnel around him. Lopez is now a member of the Demon Deacons, who won’t play North Carolina this year barring unforeseen circumstances.

North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick, with the media during interviews at Hilton Charlotte Uptown. — Bill Belichick’s success at North Carolina rides on the arm of Billy Edwards Jr., who was named the Tar Heels’ Week Zero starter Tuesday. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Edwards will attempt to right the ship

Edwards’s numbers are not overwhelming by any stretch of the imagination, but there’ve been multiple points in his career where he’s been able to get the job done. In 2023, the Terrapins called upon him to start the Music City Bowl against Auburn, and he was named MVP of a 31–13 win despite an unsightly 30% completion percentage. He erupted for four 300-yard games in ’24, although he threw an interception in all but one (a 50–7 win over UConn).

The ’25 campaign was different and even weirder. Leaving Maryland for the Badgers, he started Wisconsin’s opener against Miami (Ohio) before a knee injury knocked him out. He then came back against the Terrapins three weeks later, only to suffer another knee injury that ended his season.

“I’ve continued to try and exhaust every option, everything I can do. It just hasn’t worked out as well as definitely I anticipated, but as well as I hoped,” Edwards said in December via Colton Bartholomew of the Wisconsin State Journal.

North Carolina needs to show life in a difficult first half of the season

The Tar Heels slogged their way through another round of negative headlines toward the end of July, when general manager Michael Lombardi went on paid administrative leave amid reports of a human-resources complaint.

Even moreso than usual, Belichick could use some wins on the field, but the first half of North Carolina’s schedule doesn’t make that easy. TCU is first up in Dublin, followed by East Tennessee State after a bye week. Then, in a five-week span: Clemson, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and Duke (only the Fighting Irish come to Chapel Hill).

If the Tar Heels aren’t at least gesturing in the direction of a bowl game by mid-October, Miami, Louisville, Virginia and NC State lie in wait later on to finish them off. For both Belichick and Edwards, there’ll be no honeymoon period this time around.

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