University of North Carolina Athletics
Becoming Mitchell Trubisky
April 28, 2017 | Football
By John McCann
None of us knew.
Not a single one of us covering the North Carolina Tar Heels the last several seasons knew.
We watched Mitchell Trubisky serve as the relief quarterback for Marquise Williams for two seasons. We watched Trubisky make winning plays when he did manage to get on the field during that time.
But none of us knew.
We watched Trubisky throw himself into the conversation about maybe being the best quarterback who ever played for Carolina. The guy started one season for the Tar Heels and set a single-season Carolina record with 3,748 passing yards, 30 passing touchdowns and 4,056 yards of total offense.
Trubisky ranks fifth at Carolina with 41 career passing touchdowns and sixth with 4,762 passing yards, and his 5,201 yards of total offense puts him in seventh place in 126 years of Tar Heels football.
And nary one of us local sports writers who saw Trubisky all the time honestly can say that we thought he would be the No. 2 pick in Thursday's NFL draft and the first quarterback taken. The national sports writers hipped us to that. Trubisky followed that lead and decided to skip his final season at Carolina.
And think about that: Trubisky could have returned for one more season with the Tar Heels.
But we didn't know what Trubisky knew.
Tip your hat to the guy for not outwardly pouting but staying put. He didn't transfer to find more playing time. He grew where he was planted, blossoming from Mitch to Mitchell.
The local sports writers and I are in good company, though, because nobody knew Mike Jordan would become Michael Jordan when he left Carolina, either.
John McCann is a former sports writer for The Herald-Sun in Durham, N.C.
