For the first time since 2016, the Tar Heels will finish a season with a winning record. The 2019 Tar Heels closed out their season on Friday afternoon with their third consecutive dominant win, a 55-13 Military Bowl victory over the Temple Owls. As we close down a positive start to the second Mack Brown stint, here is the final stock report of the 2019 season.
⇧ Sam Howell
As if he could have done much more with this amazing true freshman season, Howell took home Military Bowl MVP honors after another strong performance on Friday. He completed 25 of his 34 pass attempts for 294 yards and three touchdowns, giving him 38 touchdowns for the season, a number that will place him 3rd in ACC history in single season touchdowns. He caught his fourth total touchdown on the day from wide receiver Rontavius Groves, giving him 40 total touchdowns for the season.
⇧ Don Chapman
If not for the play of Howell, Chapman may very well have been the player of the game, as he had the best performance of his young career. His ten total tackles were a team leader on Friday, as he made a handful of strong tackler helping in run defense. Chapman has continued to improve as he’s gotten more playing time and is making a strong case to be a starter at safety next year with Myles Dorn departing.
⇧ Storm Duck
Speaking of guys who had their best performances of the season, Duck put together his best performance of the 2019 season on Friday afternoon as part of the Tar Heels strong defensive showing. Duck finished the game with five total tackles, 2.0 of which were for a loss and also came up with a pick-six early in the third that put the Tar Heels up by 28. Duck has only improved as the season has gone along and he will have a compelling case to hold on to that job heading into 2020.
⇧ Dazz Newsome
Newsome entered Friday’s game with a chance to break the 1,000 yard receiving mark and he did so in spectacular fashion. Newsome caught eight passes for 71 yards and two touchdowns, both of which were unbelievable grabs to put points on the board. Just because we know you want to see them again, take a look at both of those catches once again. Newsome became just the fifth wide receiver to reach the 1,000 yard receiving mark and the ten receiving touchdowns in a season.
⇧ Dyami Brown
Brown was the first of the two Tar Heels with a chance to get to 1,000 yards to reach that mark. Brown led the Tar Heels with 87 yards receiving on five receptions. He became the fourth wide receiver in program history to reach the 1,000 yard receiving mark in a season and he found the endzone once to help him tie the program record for touchdowns in a season with twelve.
⇧ Michael Carter
It took until late in the fourth quarter, but Carter reached the 1,000 yard mark with his 18th and final carry on Friday. His is the eighteenth different running back to accomplish that feat and the first since Elijah Hood back in 2015. Carter finished the day with 84 yards rushing on 18 attempts.
⇧ Javonte Williams
The Tar Heels leading rusher on Friday fell short of the 1,000 yard mark by 67 yards, but still had another productive day to close out a strong season. Williams carried the ball 14 times for 85 yards, while also catching three passes for 24 yards. Williams finished the season with 1,109 yards of total offense on 183 total touches.
⇧ Tomon Fox
Fox had one of his best overall games of the season, getting the most substantial pressure on Temple quarterback Anthony Russo of anyone on the team. Fox finished the day with five total tackles, including 1.5 tackles for loss, all of which came in sacks. Fox finished the season as the Tar Heels leader in sacks with 7.0 and joined Chazz Surratt as the only Tar Heels to finish the season with 10.0+ tackles for loss. For good measure, Fox also pulled down an interception in the victory on Friday.
⇧ Dominique Ross
The senior closed out his career with another strong performance. Ross finished second on the team in tackles on Friday afternoon with six and also was big in pass coverage situations, highlighted by a diving pass breakup. He finished the season with 60 total tackles, 6.0 tackles for loss, 2.5 sacks, one interception and five pass breakups.
⇧ Myles Dorn
Dorn played his final game in a Tar Heel uniform on Friday and finished with another good performance. He racked up five total tackles and broke up two passes on the day, both pass deflections that were nearly interceptions. Dorn finished his senior season with 83 total tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss, two interceptions and six pass deflections.
⇧ Sally Brown
The matriarch of the Tar Heel football program received the game ball on Friday afternoon and rightfully so. The Return of the Mack experiment is ahead of schedule and the expectations heading into 2020 were unimaginable when the experiment began last November. Without Sally helping talk him into getting back into coaching, the Tar Heels might not have the Hall of Famer on the sidelines today.
⇧ Jay Bateman
The job that Bateman did in his first season in Chapel Hill is about as good as anyone could have hoped. The Tar Heel defense went from allowing 34.5 points per game in 2018 to just 23.7 in 2019, the lowest number a Tar Heel team has allowed since 2010. The biggest improvement came in run defense, where the Tar Heels allowed just 143.5 yards rushing per game, the best number a Tar Heel team has posted since 2012. Add in the fact that most of the players that played key roles were not recruited for the Bateman system and depth became an issue, especially in secondary and it’s hard to argue that any one coordinator in ACC did a better job this season.