Heel Tough Blog: Tar Heels Land 2027 3✮ LB

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The Tar Heels picked up two commitments on Saturday within minutes of each other. The first of the two came in the form of a recent offer at the linebacker position following his visit to Chapel Hill yesterday.

As first reported by Inside Carolina, the Tar Heels have picked up a commitment from 2027 3✮ LB Tasheem Butler after he was on campus yesterday afternoon. He commits to the Tar Heels over Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Appalachian State amongst others.

Butler, the No. 1041 overall prospect and No. 87 linebacker in the 2026 class according to Rivals Composite Rankings, hails from Glassboro High School in Glassboro, NJ. In 13 games this past year, Butler finished with 138 total tackles, 34.0 tackles for loss, eight sacks, nine quarterback hurries, one pass deflection and a forced fumble.

Butler has a fun tape to watch. The first thing that stands out is the physicality that he plays with. It shows up in a multitude of ways, but especially when he is shedding blocks and meeting ball carriers in the hole. He has the speed to play sideline-to-sideline and his closing speed when he looks in on a ball carrier allows him to take aggressive angles to the football and make the plays that he needs to in the open field. You don’t see much of him in coverage, so there are some questions there, but he looks natural when he drops and has the tools to be successful in that area. He brings plenty of special teams experience with him and that could be the way that he finds his way on to the field early in his career. There is a lot of potential here and the production makes it easy to be excited about even if he may not be the highest rated prospect.

With his commitment along with the other one that the Tar Heels picked up today, the team now has five prospects already committed to the 2027 class. The commitments move the class to No. 32 overall and No. 7 in the ACC according to the Rivals Composite Team Rankings.