UNC football is 1-0 to start the season, but an injury to starting quarterback Max Johnson has dampened the mood in Chapel Hill. The injury has also gotten a mixed response from sportsbooks over the team’s ACC Championship odds.
In the third quarter of North Carolina’s win over Minnesota, Johnson got sacked and fell awkwardly. In the worst of outcomes, he was carted off the field and did not return.
Before the season-opening game, the Tar Heels’ odds to win the ACC title hovered anywhere between +1600 to +3000, depending on the North Carolina sportsbook. We take a look at what happened to Johnson and what it means for UNC’s ACC Championship odds.
Max Johnson injury leaves team in the hands of Conner Harrell
The day after UNC’s road victory over Minnesota, the team announced that Johnson broke his right femur, ending his season. It was a devastating blow to North Carolina’s season (even with a win) and what could be Johnson’s last collegiate game.
Coach Mack Brown expressed optimism, though, after Johnson had two procedures on his leg in a Minnesota hospital and remains there for at least another week.
Brown expects Johnson to make a full recovery and have two seasons of college football in his future.
Johnson’s college career began in 2020 when he played for LSU. He starred the next year as a sophomore, throwing for 2,814 yards, 27 touchdowns, and just six interceptions in 12 games. From there, he spent the next two seasons with Texas A&M, playing 12 games over that span, before transferring once more to North Carolina.
While Johnson wasn’t a Heisman Trophy candidate like his predecessor Drake Maye, he was a college football veteran. And now, the team turns to Conner Harrell, who has just one start under his belt.
So far, the team is all in on him.
“He’s been told: ‘You’ve got it,'” North Carolina football coach Mack Brown told the Associated Press. “And the team’s been told: ‘Let’s rally around your new quarterback and let’s go, and let’s make this work.’ Like I said, he’s really good. So it’s time for him to go have fun and play good.”
Coming out of high school, 247 Sports listed Harrell as a three-star quarterback and the 33rd-best player at his position in the 2022 recruiting class. Rivals ranked Harrell as the 10th-best dual-threat quarterback in his class, too.
How NC sportsbooks view UNC football after Johnson’s injury
However, with a new and unproven quarterback at the helm, North Carolina football odds have taken a hit. And it’s reflected in their ACC Championship odds.
Fanatics Sportsbook NC had the Tar Heels at +3500 to win the ACC before the game against Minnesota. Now, despite the win, those odds sit at +4000. A Fanatics bookmaker tells NCSharp that “the market doesn’t view that big of a difference between Max Johnson and Conner Harrell” in UNC’s season outlook.
Caesars North Carolina had a rosier outlook on the Tar Heels going into week one. Odds stood at +2000 for a UNC ACC Championship, and they jumped to +3000 after Johnson’s injury. That jump could have been greater, but FSU’s awful start impacted the UNC line. “If Florida State won handily,” Ceasars tells NCSharp, “then the Tar Heels odds would have been much longer.”
BetMGM NC gave UNC football even better odds to win the ACC before week one, but they also posted the biggest shift in odds post injury. Before week one, you could take UNC to win the ACC at +1600. Now that line has shifted to +4000.
UNC odds buoyed by FSU debacle
There’s a world where those current odds are even worse. Florida State started the season as the No. 10 team in the country. Now, it is 0-2 and looks nothing like a potential playoff team. As noted above, if the Seminoles had started the season 2-0, they’d still be ranked in the top 10. They would command the best odds to win the ACC, pushing North Carolina’s odds down even further. As it stands, BetMGM now gives the Seminoles the same odds to win the ACC championship as the Tar Heels: +4000.
Still, UNC finds itself in an uphill battle to not only make the ACC title game, but to win it. The season rests in the arm (and legs) of Harrell, and sportsbooks don’t appear to have much faith in the redshirt sophomore’s ability to lead the Tar Heels to a conference championship win.
Image Credit: Abbie Parr / AP Images
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