Trubisky rising: How the UNC QB went from a backup to a top NFL prospect
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. â The day after North Carolina dropped a winnable season-opener against South Carolina in 2015, Keith Heckendorf was on the road recruiting but taking the time to check in on his quarterbacks. When the passing game coordinator and QBs coach got Mitch Trubisky on the phone, he was surprised at what he heard.
âCoach, Iâm exhausted,â said the redshirt sophomore, who didnât play a single snap in the 17â13 loss to the Gamecocks. âI lived and died on every play in that game.â
Despite a stellar training camp that year, Trubisky lost out on the starting job to Marquise Williams for a second straight year. But Williams struggled in that first game, throwing one touchdown against three interceptionsâincluding two in the end zoneâand an overmatched South Carolina team emerged victorious against the Tar Heels. Trubisky admitted to his position coach that he thought his coach would turn to him and heâd lead the Heels to victory.
âBut Coach,â Trubisky continued, âI donât want to play because Marquise struggles. I want to play because you, Coach [Larry] Fedora and everyone on this team believes that I can help us win ballgames.â
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This story is emblematic of Trubiskyâs ability to be a great teammate, for sure. But it also lays the foundation for the answer to the question everyone has about one of the draftâs top quarterback who started only one full season of college ball: If Mitch Trubisky is so good, why was he a backup for two seasons to a guy who didnât make a final 53-man NFL roster?
Currently, Trubisky sits in the premiere class of this yearâs quarterback crop, ranking just above Deshaun Watson and DeShone Kizer. The former Mr. Ohio threw 30 touchdowns, ran for five more and tossed just six interceptions last season for the 8â5 Tar Heels. Heâs accurate with a big arm, mobile inside and outside of the pocket and features a clean character slate. To understand what took him so long to get on your radar, you have to go all the way back to 2013.
That season, fifth-year senior Bryn Renner needed season-ending shoulder surgery in early November, and UNC coaches tabbed Williams as the starter for the rest of the season. Trubisky had enrolled early at the school and performed well in the spring, but they decided against burning his redshirt in a season where the Tar Heels started 1â5 and had no shot at an ACC title. Williams won four of his six starts and rolled into the next season with that experience under his belt.
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Both Fedora and Heckendorf say Trubisky and Williams were neck-and-neck in 2014, but Williamsâ experience won out. The Tar Heels also knew their offensive line wasnât strong, and Williams was the better, more powerful runner of the two. Fedora found a compromise, though. He would play Trubisky on the third offensive series of every game and go from there.
âI didnât want Marquise looking over his shoulder every snap, and I wanted Mitch knowing that he was going in at this point,â Fedora said. âNot, âYouâre going to go in, oh I donât like this situation, well maybe next series, now the series after that,â and then you donât get him in. We were going to bite the bullet and heâs going in on the third series.
âWhether he eventually wins the job or heâs the second-team guy, now he has meaningful reps, so if something does happen to Marquise, we can roll with him.â
The rotation was awkward and never worked. Coaches reassured Trubisky that it was fine if a series ends in a punt, but naturally Trubisky pressed trying to make his mark with his opportunity. He completed just 54% of his passes and had as many touchdowns (four) as interceptions. With a historically bad defenseâthe Heels lost four games in a seven-game stretch by giving up 70, 50, 50 and 47 pointsâand Trubisky struggling to get comfortable, Fedora abandoned the rotation and the Tar Heels stuck with Williams in a forgettable 6â7 season.
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With Williams leading the way on the field for the rest of that season, Trubisky kept busy in the weightroom. He came to Carolina at 195 pounds and played the 2016 season between 220-225 pounds with lean muscle gained from the gym. Before the December Sun Bowl against Stanford, Trubisky was doing 350-pound power cleans easily.
âThat really propelled him into that offseason that hey Iâm going to go win this job,â Heckendorf said. âWe came into the offseason and I told him if you want this job, you have to go get it. He had this feeling that, âIâm not going to let this happen again. Iâm going to be ready to lead this team going forward.ââ
Well, about thatâŚ
By most accounts, Trubisky was the better quarterback in the fall leading up to the start of the 2015 season and would have been the starter in a vacuum. But the truth was that Trubisky had to be demonstrably better than Williams to get the job for three reasons. First, Williams had 19 starts to Trubiskyâs zero. Second, Williams was one of the lone offensive bright spots from the previous year and boasted the charisma and leadership qualities the team needed. And finally, benching a fifth-year senior quarterback from Charlotte to start the year likely wouldnât have played well back in UNCâs biggest recruiting hub.
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There was some disagreement among the offensive staff members on Fedoraâs decision but they went with it. The Tar Heels were on their way to a 3â1 record that season when Fedora yanked Williams midway through the win against Delaware because Williams was freelancing against the Blue Hens. Trubisky completed 17 of his 20 passes (with two drops) for 312 yards and four touchdowns and was named the ACC Offensive Back of the Week.
The following day Fedora told his staff that he was sticking with Williams so long as the senior would play within the offense the following week at Georgia Tech. Against the Yellow Jackets, the Tar Heels went down 21â0 in the first half, and there was a palpable feeling the offense would soon be turned over to Trubisky.
âA change may have happenedâ at quarterback if things had gone differently, Fedora said. âWhat you are thinking about in that game,â he continued, âdo we need a change to try to spark something? Whatâs the reason that weâre down 21-0 right now? It wasnât the quarterback.â
Williams engineered one of the greatest comebacks in team history. He led the team in passing, rushing and receiving in that game and got the 38â31 win in Atlanta, the first one for North Carolina since 1997.
âFrom that moment, there was no conversation,â Heckendorf says emphatically. âThere was no conversation. That solidified that this is Marquiseâs team.â
UNC went 11â3 that season, including a narrow loss to Clemson in the ACC title game. Conference coaches and media voted Williams as the second-team All-ACC quarterback behind Heisman-finalist Watson. Williams finished his UNC career as the schoolâs all-time leader in total offense and touchdowns scored. So while itâs true that Williams went undrafted last year and didnât make the final cut in Green Bay, heâs also one of the most prolific players in Carolina history.
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Trubiskyâs play in 2016 didnât surprise anyone in Tar Heel Land. He showed glimpses of it in spot duty during the 2015 season (he completed 85% of his passes and had six touchdowns and no picks), and Trubisky rolled in the first three-quarters of the season. He had UNC at 7â2 with a shot at a rematch with Clemson in the conference title game when his game (and the rest of the team) took a step back. The Tar Heels lost three of their last four games, including the Sun Bowl loss against Stanford. If the biggest knock on Trubisky is his pocket awareness, those bad traits showed in losses to rivals Duke and N.C. State. But Trubiskyâs coach is willing to shoulder the blame for that.
Trubisky, a mild-mannered kid from Ohio, was suddenly atop Mel Kiperâs Big Board for quarterbacks. He made the back page of a New York tabloid. His friends and teammates teased and questioned him about his future plans.
âAs I look back on it, I wish I could have done more to take some of that pressure off of him,â Fedora admits. âI wish I could have shut it down so that it would have been taken off of him so he didnât have to always worry about it because it was there. I think I could have done a better job of insulating him from it, and down the stretch he would have been an even better quarterback.â
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Thatâs a coachâs lament for a player who waited his turn not once but twice, who didnât raise a fuss when he wasnât picked, who didnât demand a transfer in a player-coach meeting and whose parents didnât trash the school on a message board. Trubisky will face that pressure this week at the combine, next month at his pro day and in his several individual meetings with these in weeks before the draft. Fedora is sure Trubisky can and will rise to the occasion, and Trubisky has already fulfilled one of his coachâs prophecies.
âIf you didnât follow Carolina football closely and didnât see the controversy of the quarterbacks early on, you wouldnât have known who Mitch was before this year,â Heckendorf said. âI would go to recruits and say by the end of this season, everybody in the country will know who Mitch Trubisky is. I believed it with every fiber of my being.
âAnd sure enough, the season ends and everybody in the country knows who Mitch Trubisky is.â