If the theme of my 2026 tight end preview was “potential”, the best word to describe the offensive line is “rebuilding.” It was one of the worst units on the team last year and was one of the (many) reasons the team stumbled to a 4-8 record in Bill Belichick’s inaugural season with UNC. To be fair, injuries played a part in the line’s performance as well; UNC lost several players throughout the season, including multiple starters. Other players were benched due to poor performance; the end result was a rotating cast of linemen (many that were slated to be depth pieces) that had no chemistry and failed to give Gio Lopez much of a chance to operate the offense.
The Heels ended up losing the majority of the offensive line players that played a lot of snaps last year. This could be a blessing or a curse; as previously noted, the line last year was quite poor and definitely needed an infusion of talent. On the other side of the coin, it means Belichick and new offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino are basically rebuilding a line from scratch. They will return a couple of key players that suffered injuries early in season last year, but they also have had to bring in a lot of new faces to replace the ones that have left. It’s also only a blessing if the talent you brought in is better than what left.
Let’s look at the key players:
The Returnees
The Heels have six linemen returning from last year’s team. This group is headlined by Aidan Banfield; the junior will likely reprise his position at left guard on the line. Banfield had an excellent freshman year, starting 11 games in Mack Brown’s second final year and garnering Freshman All-American Team honors from the Football Writers Association of America. He went down with an injury four games into the 2025 season and didn’t return except for a few snaps on special teams against Syracuse. Even before he went down, he was off to a slow start, mixing good outings against Richmond and UNC Charlotte with poor ones against TCU and UCF. If he can regain his freshman form and completely heal from his injury, he will be one of the stalwarts of the offensive line this year.
Christo Kelly is another returning player that will hope to rebound from a 2025 injury. Kelly will be entering his (checks notes) seventh season of college football this fall. He spent five seasons at Holy Cross, going from a little-played reserve to their starting center and getting named to the All-Patriot League First Team. Kelly transferred to UNC and was the team’s starting center last year but suffered an ankle injury in the first game of the season that ultimately cost him the entire year. Kelly seems to be fully recovered; he attended spring practice, which is a good sign he will be ready to roll this fall. When the dust settles after the camp position battles, he’s likely to be the team’s starting center. It remains an open question to how well he will adjust to the jump in competition from an NCAA FCS school to a Power 4 conference.
The rest of the returning lineman either have limited experience or have yet to prove themselves. Eidan Buchanan was a starter for the season opener against TCU but virtually disappeared after that. Jordan Hall actually played the most snaps last year of all the returning players and probably has an early leg up on securing a starting spot on the line. Byron Nelson and Trey Blue have yet to play a down for the Heels and will more than likely be depth pieces this season.
The Transfers
To make up for the lack of experience, Belichick brought in a couple transfers that look to play a lot of snaps immediately. Andrew Threatt transferred in from Charlston Southern after garnering First Team All-Conference honors in the OVC-Big South Football Association. While his career arc is pretty neat — he went from being a reserve at CSU to being recruited by UNC in one season — questions about whether he will be able to hold his own against other high-end power conference schools are fair. The senior was ranked as the 50th best inside lineman in the 2026 transfer class and looks likely to start for the Heels. Maybe Threatt is an underrated gem who does well, but I’m definitely nervous that the line looks to start two players whose previous experience was in FCS football.
Former Arkansas player JacQawn McRoy also joins the Heels this season. McRoy does bring size to the position; he stands 6’8” and weighs in at 344 pounds. He potentially could be a guy the Heels choose to run behind as they try to get the ground game on track this season. Petrino is obviously familiar with McRoy from his Arkansas stint, and McRoy has the pedigree of an elite player but hasn’t really found success. He redshirted his freshman year at Oregon after joining the Ducks as a top-100 recruit and only played in a half dozen games with the Razorbacks last season. Nonetheless, there’s a good chance he ends up as one of the starters on the line, possibly at the left tackle position.
I’m grouping the other three transfers (Jonah Rodriguez, Brandon Homady, and Rowan Byrne) together as they’re all somewhat unknowns. Homady and Byrne are both redshirt freshmen who sat out last season for West Virginia and Clemson, respectively. It’s likely both at least see some playing time for the Heels this season even if it’s just in a reserve capacity. Rodriguez is a JUCO transfer.
The Freshman
UNC has seven incoming freshmen that are recruits for the offensive line. Many of them probably won’t see the field this season barring either a very good camp or a rash of injuries. One name to keep an eye on is Will Conroy, an interior lineman. Conroy is the highest-rated prospect of the freshmen linemen; he played for IMG Acadamy in Florida and is rated as the 27th best inside offensive lineman in his class. He’s already been getting some regular reps on the second- and third-team lines in camp. Offensive tackle J.B. Shabazz and interior lineman Cristian Alvarez also have a chance at becoming depth pieces as the season goes on. My guess is several of these freshman redshirt this season unless circumstances press them into service.
Overall Outlook
The offensive line is easily one of the biggest question marks heading into this season; it’s also probably among the most important position groups that Belichick has to get right if the Heels are going to match or exceed their very modest expectations. For his part, Belichick seems confident in the line’s improvement from last year. He’s touted that this line is much further ahead of where last year’s line was, due to most of the players being present for spring training, which he believes should improve the units’ cohesion.
Cohesive or not, this line is less talented on paper than last year’s grouping and heavily relying on most of the position to take a step (or several steps) forward. Two of the likely starting five are FCS players trying to make the leap to starter in a Power 4 conference. Two of the starting five are also players trying to return from season-ending injuries last season (Christo Kelly technically qualifies for both categories). After the starting five, the depth is very young and inexperienced. Overall, it’s a position grouping with more questions than answers. I expect Petrino will use his tight ends to try and help his line out, but there’s only so many deficiencies that can hide. It feels like the ceiling for this line is just average, while the floor is quite low. If this season turns out to be better than expected, it will likely be partly because the offensive line stayed healthy and outperformed expectations and/or whichever QB the Heels end up starting is able to compensate for the group’s shortcomings.
