By BJ Bennett
SouthernPigskin.com

Follow us at Twitter.com/SouthernPigskin.  Become a fan at the SouthernPigskin.com Facebook Page

Sam Howell is a superstar. He has the production to prove it.

North Carolina quarterback Sam Howell has already made history, with a legacy that stands out and, in some ways, stands alone. He is one of the most productive quarterbacks ever in the ACC, one of college football’s leading names and one of the top prospects for the 2021 NFL Draft. He has not yet taken a single upperclassman snap. Howell, quite remarkably, already has 7,227 passing yards and 68 passing touchdowns. He also has six rushing scores and two touchdown catches. This is an All-American candidate with all-time potential.

What Howell has done simply hasn’t before been seen. He is just now settling in.

Howell’s year one debut truly was historic. He led the ACC with 280.1 passing yards per game and 38 passing touchdowns, beating out Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, among others, in topping those categories. Notably, Howell completed over 61% of his passes, averaged 8.6 yards per pass attempt and had a touchdown-to-interception ratio of better than five-to-one. He recorded six 300-yard games and one 400-yard showcase. In Howell’s first season, he finished ranked in the national top ten with a passer rating of 160.25.

For point of reference, here is the full list of true freshman quarterbacks who have thrown at least 35 touchdown passes this millennium: …Howell. Two redshirt freshmen reached that mark, Sam Bradford and Jameis Winston, both of whom went on to win the Heisman Trophy, play for national championships and become number one overall picks in the NFL Draft; additionally, both Bradford and Winston threw more interceptions than Howell did in those respective years as well.

Immediately, and not long after Howell was playing high school football, he was the offensive centerpiece for a rising contender in his division. Beyond simply not costing North Carolina football games, Howell, even as he was still adjusting to the next level, was winning them. That process, 7-6 to 8-4, continued into year two. Howell has teamed with head coach Mack Brown and offensive coordinator Phil Long to become one of the best players in the country and one of the best players in the country right away.

Down the home stretch of his freshman year, Howell was simply as good as it gets. For November, for example, his passer rating improved to 183.95. Howell finished off that month with 401 yards and three touchdowns on 70% passing in North Carolina’s 41-10 win over rival North Carolina State. His grand finale was, in some ways, even more impressive; Howell set a new career-high with 73.5% completions, throwing for 294 yards, with three scores and a touchdown catch, as the Tar Heels scored the most points of any team in the postseason with 55 against Temple in the Military Bowl.

In 2018, North Carolina won two games. In 2019, with Howell leading the way, the Tar Heels won an forementioned seven.

It is not hyperbole to say that Howell had one of the best freshman seasons of all-time. The end result was a strong foundation on which to build, a record-setting season, ACC Rookie of the Year and third-team all-league honors, consensus Freshman All-American recognition and a Military Bowl MVP; that, for Howell, was only just the beginning. His sophomore season came with more of the same as Howell earned second-team All-ACC attention and was a Manning Award finalist.

Howell was one of the nation’s most productive players in 2020, completing 68.1% of his throws for 3,586 yards and 30 touchdowns. Once more, Howell ranked in the national top ten passer rating, jumping to an impressive total of 179.09. His completion percentage improved considerably from year one to year two, up from 61.4%, but so did his passing yards per game, from 280.1 to 298.8, and his yards per pass attempt, from 8.6 to 10.3. Hence the dramatic increase in passer rating by close to 20 points.

In a span of three games in the middle of last season, Howell threw for 443 yards and four touchdowns on 82% passing against Virginia and 550 yards and six scores, reaching the endzone rushing as well, on 71% passing versus Wake Forest. There were seven games in all of 2020 where quarterbacks threw for at least 440 yards and four touchdowns with 70% passing; Howell had two of them.

The overall numbers, for Howell, were incredible. Only Mac Jones, Kyle Trask and Zach Wilson passed for more yards than Howell and they were a Heisman Trophy finalist who just set a new single-season college football passer rating record, a Heisman Trophy finalist who just threw the most touchdown passes in a single season in SEC histor and were the number two overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. Correspondingly, North Carolina ranked fifth nationally in total offense with 537.3 yards per game.

Such production helped North Carolina to eight more wins and its first Orange Bowl appearance ever.

Howell, going back to the win over Wake Forest last season, is the only player this millennium with 550 passing yards, six passing touchdowns, 70% completions and a rushing score in a single game. He is also the lone Power Five signal caller in at least the last 20 years with 290 passing yards, three passing touchdowns, 70% completions, 50 rushing yards and a receiving score in one game, referencing his Military Bowl showcase as a true freshman.

With his next touchdown pass, Howell will become North Carolina’s all-time leader. He currently has the most scoring tosses ever, with 68, through a sophomore season in the ACC. Should Howell reach his underclassman average of 3,614 passing yards this fall, he, in just three years, will top 10,800 for his career, a number only Tajh Boyd and Philip Rivers have topped in league history. With 40 touchdown passes, and Howell threw for 38 as a true freshman, he would break Boyd’s career league mark of 107.

A highly-touted state prospect, Howell came to Chapel Hill and, right away, proved worthy of the hype. After a storied local high school career, 13,415 passing yards and 145 touchdowns, 3,621 rushing yards and 60 more scores, his legacy is now expanding on a national scale. With pre-season All-American attention and Heisman Trophy hype, Howell will open this season at Virginia Tech on a primetime Friday night. Howell has thrived in such a spotlight. In his last game at Lane Stadium, Howell three for 348 yards and five touchdowns.

Beyond just ability, Howell has a very real moxie to his game.

In his first-ever college contest, Howell rallied the Tar Heels back from a 20-9 fourth quarter deficit against South Carolina. He, for an encore versus Miami, led North Carolina on a game-winning 9-play, 75-yard drive late in the fourth quarter, a span which included a 20-yard strike on a 4th-and-17. Howell also famously orchestrated the 16-play, 75-yard march that brought the Tar Heels to within one-point of defending national champion Clemson near the end of regulation.

Sam Howell is a superstar. He has the production to prove it. Ahead of the start of his junior season, Howell is ready to take North Carolina even higher. For all of his talent, Howell now has 25 games of experience on his resume as well. Expectations are off the charts, with the Tar Heels in the top ten of the recently-released preseason polls.

History already made, Howell is ready for more. The process continues with a legacy right alongside.