Wednesday afternoon, the Tar Heels released their official roster for the upcoming 2020 season ahead of the start of fall camp. As part of the roster release, there were some other notes released by a team spokesperson about the futures of certain players on the team, including two players who will not play this season and, instead, assist the coaching staff in 2020.
Sophomore linebacker Matthew Flint is one of the two players who will step away and help coach this season. Flint is coming off of a 2019 season that was ended just prior to the Wake Forest game in Week 3 with a broken leg. In his Tar Heel career, the former 3✮ played in just four games, finishing his career with four total tackles. Last year, prior to his injury, Flint saw some limited playing time in the games against Miami and South Carolina and was set to compete for a spot in the two-deep somewhere in the linebacking corps this season.
He’ll be joined by junior cornerback Tre Shaw, who suffered a season-ending injury sometime during this offseason and will help coach the cornerbacks while he is working to rehab from the injury with the Tar Heel training staff. In his career, Shaw was active in 22 games for the Tar Heels and in each of the past two seasons was a key part of the Tar Heels special teams coverage units. Shaw’s career was an injury-riddled one, especially last year where he missed seven games due to a lower body injury. The former 3✮ recruit was expected to be a member of the special teams unit again this season while competing to fill one of the depth spots in the team’s loaded secondary. He finishes his career with 19 total tackles.
The program also announced that redshirt freshman offensive tackle Triston Miller will sit out this season because of family issues, while true freshman defensive lineman Kedrick Bingley-Jones, after having surgery back in the spring on a lower body injury, will not participate in fall camp.
Losing Flint and Shaw aren’t too big of a concern for the Tar Heels with both guys not competing for major roles this season. However, the loss of Miller is a tough loss, as it looked like he was poised to compete for the starting job at left tackle that was left vacant by Charlie Heck. That job is now almost certainly going to be Asim Richards and the Tar Heels will have to scramble to find a solid backup to him over the next couple of weeks. Bingley-Jones not being able to participate in fall camp also hurts a little, as he looked poised to move into the middle at nose tackle and compete for reps at a position that the Tar Heels are simply lacking depth at right now. Him not being available means there is a strong possibility that we could see Xach Gill move inside for his final season on campus and also means a big role out of the gate for true freshman Clyde Pinder.
There were a couple of other things worth noting from the official roster that was released today. After rumors of a move to the other side of the trenches, it was made official today that redshirt freshman Wisdom Asaboro will be making the move from the defensive line to the offensive line this fall. Sophomore Welton Spottsville, who appeared in ten games a year ago as a member of special teams, will also change sides of the football this fall, as he’ll make the move from wide receiver to safety, a spot that he had plenty of success at at the high school level.