In UNC football debut, Drake Maye adds to family legacy, and makes name for himself
Drake Maye’s famous name, distinguished in two different sports at North Carolina, carries with it expectations that are almost unfair for a quarterback making his first collegiate start. The shoes into which he stepped Saturday night were nigh impossible to fill.
His father Mark played the same position at UNC, a two-year starter for the Tar Heels who came within a whisker of an ACC title. That alone would be a lot, even if Drake Maye willingly embraced that legacy when he dropped his commitment to Alabama to attend North Carolina instead.
His older brother Luke hit one of the biggest shots in UNC basketball history — the jump shot to beat Kentucky on the way to the Final Four and the 2017 national title — was an all-ACC pick in 2018 and 2019, and the preseason player of the year as a senior. His older brother Cole won an NCAA baseball championship that same year at Florida, leaving Drake as the only sibling without a ring.
On top of that, he merely had to take over for a three-year starter in Sam Howell — who also was from Charlotte and also was talked out of playing elsewhere to stay at home and play for UNC — who threw 38 touchdowns as a freshman, went into his final season a Heisman candidate and could very well end up starting in the NFL as a rookie before the season is out.
If Drake Maye wasn’t born to play quarterback at North Carolina, he certainly checks a lot of boxes. It was an awful lot to heap onto a player with all of two quarters of college game experience, who, despite his pedigree, was an entirely unknown commodity.
So it’s all a little astounding that by the time he finally had a chance to meet up with his family early Sunday morning, he’d not only won his debut and claimed a piece of the UNC record book for himself, he was a fourth of the way to his father’s career touchdown totals in 1/33rd of the games and had a congratulatory text from Howell on his phone.
If anyone was surprised by his school-record five-touchdown debut, it wasn’t Drake Maye. About what he imagined for his debut? “I’d say so,” Maye said.
Yes, it was against an undermanned opponent in Florida A&M, although the Rattlers certainly didn’t look the part in the first half. And yes, it only gets tougher this weekend at Appalachian State, against a veteran defense that will have a deep playbook to confuse an inexperienced quarterback.
But it’s still nothing short of remarkable that Maye confronted the legacy not only of his own name but his heralded predecessor in his very first start and somehow came out ahead.
“My dad, he won’t be too sad about that,” Maye said.
This is just the beginning for Maye, who despite what UNC coach Mack Brown characterized as a close position battle with Jacolby Criswell for the starting job played deep into the second half, long after the outcome had been decided. That’s what you do when it’s clear this kid is going to be the guy, and he needs the reps more than he needs the rest.
Maye, for his part, didn’t shy away from contact, scrambling like Howell, although out of choice more than necessity, and pinwheeling over a defender at the goal line. He was still arguing afterward that he scored — not at all unlike a younger brother who learned not to accept the judgment of his older siblings.
“I think when you’re raised in a family where a brother won a baseball national championship, a brother won a basketball national championship, dad was a quarterback here and very good and competitive, and he’s the younger brother — those older ones beat him down,” Brown said. “He had to compete to have a place in the room.”
Maye always had a place at UNC and has a place in the record books now, after only one start. Whatever comes next, he’s already lived up to his last name. He’s got a chance now to make his first name stand out against the others.
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This story was originally published September 1, 2022 at 6:10 AM with the headline "In UNC football debut, Drake Maye adds to family legacy, and makes name for himself."
