Heel Tough Blog: Drake Maye Searching for Super Bowl LX Title

Mike Wass- AP Photo

When the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks take the field for Super Bowl LX, three former Tar Heels will be a part of the festivities as they hope to close the season out with the ultimate prize, a Lombardi Trophy.

For the first time in the history of the Super Bowl, a former Tar Heel will be one of the starting quarterbacks in the game. Drake Maye, who spent two years as a starter at Carolina, may have fallen just short of a regular season MVP, but he will have a shot to head to Disney with a Super Bowl MVP.

Throughout most of Maye’s football career, he has been one of the best at that level of football and the same is becoming true at the NFL level. Back at Myers Park High School, he was a two year starter and put up some of the best numbers in the state and nationally during that time frame. As a junior, he put together one of the greatest seasons in the history of North Carolina high school football, throwing for 3,512 yards, 50 touchdowns and just two interceptions while completing 72.4% of his passes. He also ran for 201 yards and six touchdowns on just 37 carries.

Prior to his junior season, Maye committed to Alabama and looked locked into the Crimson Tide, but little did you know Mack Brown and his new staff were putting in the work to flip him. Following his huge season and Alabama bringing in Bryce Young in the 2020 class, he would begin reconsidering his decision and just a few months later, pulled the trigger on a flip to North Carolina, choosing to stay home and play for the university that his father, Mark, starred as a football player from 1983 to 1988, and his mother attended after playing high school basketball in Charlotte.

While Mark Maye’s legacy is a very good one, Drake would write an even better one for himself in his time at Carolina. While it may not have been as successful as we would have liked, he was still able to take the program back to the ACC Championship Game for the first time in seven years. In his three seasons in Chapel Hill, he threw for 8,018 yards, 63 touchdowns and 16 interceptions on 64.9% completions and ran for 1,209 yards and 16 touchdowns on 302 carries. His redshirt freshman season in 2022 was his best season, as he threw for 4,321 yards, 38 touchdowns and seven interceptions on 66.2% completions and ran for 698 yards and seven touchdowns on 184 carries on his way to finishing tenth in the Heisman voting.

Following his sophomore season in 2023, Maye made the decision that he was heading to the NFL prior to the team’s Duke’s Mayo Bowl appearance against West Virginia, ending his Tar Heel career after 30 career games and 26 starts. In the draft process, he was seen as one of the top three quarterbacks in what was considered one of the best quarterback drafts in recent memory. Despite getting some buzz about possibly ending up in Chicago or even New York with the Giants, it was Eliot Wolf and the New England Patriots that would give him the call on draft night at pick No. 3 after he watched fellow quarterbacks Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels go off the board ahead of him. Now, less than two years later, he is the one heading to the Super Bowl first from that trio.

As a rookie a year ago, Maye played in thirteen games, including twelve consecutive starts to close the season. He completed 66.6% of his passes for 2,276 yards, 15 touchdowns and ten interceptions and ran for 421 yards and two touchdowns on 54 carries in what was an up and down season for him as a rookie. 

This season, though, Maye took things to the next level and went from a promising young prospect to one of the best quarterbacks in all of football. In 17 regular season games, he threw for 4,484 yards, 31 touchdowns and just eight interceptions while completing a league-leading 72.0% of his passes. He also ran for 450 yards and four touchdowns on 103 carries on his way to putting himself in contention for league MVP. Unfortunately, he would fall just shy of winning the award on Thursday, finishing one vote behind Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford.

Maye has bigger goals, though, that he will be looking to accomplish on Sunday. The playoffs have been a bit of a bumpy road for him, as he has thrown for 533 yards, four touchdowns and two interceptions, but has been sacked 15 times and fumbled six times. He has used his legs well, though, running for 141 yards and a touchdown on 24 rush attempts, including the perfect execution of the naked boot play in the game against Denver in the AFC Championship Game. This will be the most controlled environment that Maye has played so far this postseason, though, so let’s hope that allows him to produce his best postseason game so far.