Heel Tough Blog: Tar Heels Lose Top Returning EDGE to Portal

Chris Leduc- Icon Sportswire

The Tar Heels haven’t had many significant portal entries this offseason despite the coaching change, but the team received a bombshell on Tuesday night.

According to Hayes Fawcett of On3 Sports, junior edge rusher Beau Atkinson is entering the transfer portal following the conclusion of spring practice over the weekend. He will have two of eligibility remaining wherever he lands.

In his three year career in Chapel Hill, Atkinson played in 26 games, including his lone start in the bowl game this past season against Connecticut. After not playing in his true freshman season in 2022, Atkinson played 229 defensive snaps and 77 special teams snaps across 13 games as a redshirt freshman in 2023. He finished the season with 19 total tackles, 5.0 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks, 14 total quarterback pressures and a forced fumble. This past season, he had a breakout season despite only starting the one game as he collected 35 total tackles, 12.0 tackles for loss, 7.5 sacks and 25 total quarterback pressures in just 381 defensive snaps and 83 special teams snaps.

This is a massive blow to this Tar Heel defense, especially after he was one of the few defensive players that actually dominated in the ‘Practice Like a Pro’ event that the team had on Saturday in Kenan Stadium. Unless the team is able to get him back, they will be relying heavily on Connecticut transfer Pryce Yates and Delaware transfer Melkart Abou-Jaoude to play the majority of the snaps at edge rusher and pray that the latter can even make half the impact that Atkinson was going to make. The team will now need to be extremely aggressive in the spring transfer window when it comes to finding someone that can help replace his production.