CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye has only 14 career starts but enters the 2023 season as one of the biggest stars in all of college football. The ACC Football Kickoff obliged with Heisman Trophy buzz, talk of conference championship hopes and projections that Maye could be among the first players taken in the upcoming NFL Draft. Instead, Maye has focused on where he can improve after a frustrating finish to his otherwise phenomenal redshirt freshman season.
The hype is all valid given what went well last season. Maye eclipsed 5,000 yards of total offense and scored 45 touchdowns. The list of players who have hit similar benchmarks in a season -- 4,000 passing yards, 35 passing touchdowns, 650 rushing yards and seven rushing touchdowns -- is elite and includes Robert Griffin III (2011), Johnny Manziel (2013), Marcus Mariota (2014), Deshaun Watson (2015-16), Kyler Murray (2018) and now Drake Maye. That's four Heisman Trophy winners and a national champion, and 10 games into the season it looked like Maye's historic year might end up with a trip to New York City as a Heisman Trophy finalist.
But Maye knows that those high-end national accolades require more than individual production. Those kinds of honors start with team success, and while North Carolina was 9-1 in November when the Heisman hype rally ramped up, a four-game losing streak to close the year put a damper on that campaign. So when the season was over, his focus immediately turned to improvement.
"After the season Drake came in to me and said, 'Help me with these things, these are things I need to improve.' That's who he is," Mack Brown said on Thursday. "That's why he is such a great player. He was raised in a family of champions. He was raised in a family of athletes. His dad was a great quarterback. So he is always looking at what I can do better instead of patting himself on the back.
"He is a little bit like me," Brown continued. "We have to be careful with him because he is too hard on himself, and he is always 'I didn't do this right.' Well, let's talk about what you did right too, so we can do that."
And there certainly some things that went well. Maye swept through the ACC, winning Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year while earning spots on national Freshman All-America teams and being the FWAA Freshman of the Year. Still, the way things ended have left a sour taste in the mouths of Maye and his Tar Heel teammates.
"Obviously the way we ended last year, lost a lot of close games. Any way you end the season like that, I use it as motivation. That's all we talk about," Maye explained. "We were 9-1 rolling into Georgia Tech, and we finished 9-5. Just finding ways to use it as motivation, but at the same time get over that hump and look forward to this season. We're excited. That's our goal to get back to the ACC championship ... that's what we're working towards."
The smallest of margins stung the most for North Carolina, with three of those four losses being defeats of four points or fewer. One play here or one play there could have had the Tar Heels in the mix for a New Year's Six bowl game, and it likely would have included even more national attention for Maye. While Maye's 2022 was historic, he knows that getting better at the margins can lead to more team success as North Carolina looks for a stronger finish. If the Tar Heels can do that, all the other accolades will certainly follow.
