Why QB Max Johnson’s return is a sign of hope for UNC football

Kenan Stadium appeared nearly half-empty by the time Max Johnson entered the game Monday.

The student section had thinned to scattered clusters and empty rows littered with food wrappers and crumpled cups. Down 41-7 late in the third quarter to TCU, North Carolina’s hopes for a comeback had long since vanished.

But Johnson’s own comeback story was just taking shape. On first and goal with 38 seconds left in the third quarter, the backup quarterback stepped into the shotgun, facing a backdrop of emptying stands. He looked left. His younger brother and UNC tight end, Jake Johnson, broke on a curl route near the goal line. Max fired. Jake pulled in the pass, spun out of a tackle and crossed into the end zone.

As lopsided as Monday night’s 48-14 loss became, for at least one drive — for at least one play — the connection between the brothers cut through the gloom.

“I didn’t know it was Jake at first,” Max said after the game. “Once I threw it to him — what a special moment. Just to celebrate with him, it felt like we were little kids again.”

A year ago, the idea of jogging onto the field again seemed unlikely. Max’s promising first season as a fifth-year transfer at North Carolina was shattered last August by a gruesome leg injury he suffered in the season opener at Minnesota.

Jake remembers watching from the sideline as his brother fell. A cart soon came to take Max away.

“I was shocked a little bit,” Jake told the News and Observer. “Something was wrong. And so, in my head, it’s like you’re trying to think about the game, but at the same time, your brother — he’s out for the season.”

The long road back

Max’s injury required five surgeries and left him hospitalized for two weeks in Minneapolis.

“It was tough, man,” Max said at an Aug. 2 news conference, “laying there in the bed, not knowing what was going to happen [or] how long I was going to be in the hospital. I really just didn’t know. There was a point in time where I thought I was going to lose my leg.”

When Max returned to Chapel Hill in mid-September — back to the apartment he shares with Jake — the quarterback looked, understandably, different.

He’d lost a lot of weight and volume in his body. Jake recalls his brother looking “thin.”

“You’re just distraught about what just happened,” Jake said. “In a way, you feel hopeless, but you’re not.”

Max relied on his parents and Jake for months to help with everything from getting dressed to daily tasks. Rehabilitation consumed him: Three hours a day, seven days a week in the training room. He cycled through scar tissue massages and runs on anti-gravity treadmills.

Meanwhile, the Tar Heels moved on without him. Backup Conner Harrell (who now plays for Charlotte) initially took over the offense before yielding to Jacolby Criswell. North Carolina fired Mack Brown in November and changed coaching staffs.

For a while, Max faded into the background.

“Obviously he wanted to get back to the team,” Jake said. “When you suffer an injury like that, it’s hard mentally to be there. Knowing that our whole family had supported him and encouraged him helped him to get back to where he was.”

Back on the field

By June, Max was fully present in practices again — running, lifting and smiling with his teammates.

His resilience isn’t lost on those around him. Quarterbacks coach Matt Lombardi called Max “the ultimate competitor.” Running back Caleb Hood praised Max’s maturity, adding that the veteran quarterback is “always gonna be ready.” Jake said Max is so healthy now “you kind of forget that he broke his leg.”

But Max isn’t ready to forget. Jake said his brother keeps the torn No. 14 jersey he wore against Minnesota by his desk. It’s there, draped over his chair.

“He always sits in it,” Jake said. “Just a reminder of the process he had to go through and the perseverance.”

Max’s recovery has inevitably shaped the way he will approach this season, including how he handles UNC’s loss on Monday and moves on to face the 49ers Saturday. Despite North Carolina’s dismal performance, Max reflected after the game on the experience of running out of the tunnel, throwing a touchdown pass to his brother — just playing again.

He asked Tar Heel fans to not lose hope.

“We’re going to continue to put our best foot forward,” Max vowed Monday. “We continue to work and trust in each other.”

Long after the stadium had emptied and his postgame news conference was over, Max stood outside the Kenan Football Center with Jake and their parents. Together, they walked past the towering Charlie Justice statue. They climbed the nearby steps toward their car, duffel bags in tow. For Max, just walking out of the stadium was a victory in itself. The brothers were disappointed in the loss, sure, but Jake described the moment as a “special time for our family.”

Because while nearly everything went wrong for the Tar Heels and coach Bill Belichick on Monday, hope — at least for the Johnsons, and particularly for Max — wasn’t hard to find at all.

News and Observer sports reporter Caroline Wills contributed reporting.

This story was originally published September 4, 2025 at 2:28 PM with the headline "Why QB Max Johnson’s return is a sign of hope for UNC football."