The second transfer window in college football is set to open tomorrow and one of the Tar Heels veterans defensive backs will be amongst those entering.
As first reported by Chris Hummer of 247Sports, senior cornerback Lejond Cavazos will enter the transfer portal on Tuesday with two years of eligibility remaining. This will be his second time in the portal after he transferred to UNC in the 2022 offseason from Ohio State.
In his two seasons in Chapel Hill, Cavazos played in twelve games, eleven of which came in 2022. He posted 18 total tackles, a tackle for loss and two pass breakups in those eleven games as a junior and even started the final three games of the season opposite Storm Duck and, eventually, Marcus Allen. He was set to compete for one of the starting jobs at corner last offseason, but had to deal with injuries that kept him sidelined into the season. He would play in just one game, getting garbage time snaps in the game against Syracuse before another undisclosed injury would remove from the lineup the rest of the year. He was set to compete for a significant role this season, but it appears that some of the new faces in that room have outshined him, leading to this move.
His departure is one that the national media is trying to paint as a substantial loss for this defensive back room, but this is still a group that is in good shape based on what Mack Brown has been telling the media this spring. The return of DeAndre Boykins in the nickel has allowed Alijah Huzzie to move back to the corner role the team wanted him to play last year, one that he shined at in the reps he took there last spring. Marcus Allen, who played over 900 snaps at corner last year, will also be back after missing the spring with a partially torn ligament in his knee, giving the team one of the better returning corner tandems in the ACC. Depthwise, a lot of young guys have been getting snaps with the starters with Allen out and Brown has liked what he has seen from them. JUCO transfer Tyrane Stewart is a guy that Brown has raved about multiple times this spring and he has also said they are seeing some promising things from true freshman Zion Ferguson. The returning player that has seemed to make the biggest leap is redshirt freshman Ty Adams, who Brown said is making plays on the football just about everyday in camp.
Cavazos is the second Tar Heel player to announce that he will enter the portal in this window, joining redshirt freshman offensive lineman DJ Geth, who told the coaches before spring camp that he would be doing so.