Bill Belichick’s primary claim to excellence, other than the hardware, is probably being known as perhaps the greatest defensive mind that the game of football has ever seen. But among fans, he might be even better known as an absolute junkie for special teams. His first coaching job was as a special teams assistant for the Detroit Lions, and clips like this one remain famous nearly a decade later because of how clearly seriously it shows Belichick taking the minutiae of this phase of the game. In an ecosystem where a lot of offensive and defensive coaches don’t know much about any of the specialist positions beyond the players’ names, Belichick has always stood out as a guy who really cares about football’s third phase. In fact, Carolina media leveraged that reputation early in his first year to try and curry some good PR while the early season was going off the rails, with multiple outlets writing about his work encouraging punter Tom Maginness to revert to his Australian Football kicking style. Unfortunately, they neglected to mention that at that point in the season, Maginness’ numbers had not improved at all from the previous year (At the time, his gross average of 40.1 yards per punt was a yard worse than he had averaged in 2024), and thus set a precedent for the Pollyanna-ish way that the major media outlets covering UNC sports have talked about Belichick’s regime since.
I digress. Despite my distaste for the punter, special teams was overall a positive point for last year’s UNC team. They ranked 25th in Special Teams FEI, mainly on the strength of having a very good kicker and not hurting themselves in any of the other phases the way that the offense and defense so frequently did — even though they weren’t outstanding in any area and were in fact below average in the punt game, they were okay enough to tread water and not lose field position. Despite this overall competence, and relative success compared to the offense and defense, special teams coach Mike Preifer was fired and replaced with his assistant, Billy Miller. Miller’s got some work to do this season to try and live up to what UNC was able to do last year — not just in terms of specialists, but also because he’s got to organize and optimize a roster with 60 new players for return teams so that the Heels are at least overall neutral in the field position wars. Here’s what he’s got to work with:
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Key Departures
The aforementioned Maginness has graduated and left American football behind. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how that makes me feel, so I won’t rehash it all here. On the other end of the punting game, both players that UNC relied on to return punts have also departed: wide receiver Vari Green is now at Boston College, and defensive back Will Hardy has graduated. Hardy was a decent returner, picking up 9 yards per runback, but neither was particularly explosive or irreplaceable. From last year’s kick return corps, wide receiver Shanard Clower stepped away from the program in spring practice and wide receiver Chris Culliver is now at Marshall. The pair combined for 9 of UNC’s 22 kickoff returns and got about 20 yards per return, which is below average but was the best that the Heels could do last year.
Long snapper Spencer Triplett has also graduated. To my recollection, the Heels did not have any operational issues on either punts or kicks, so that’s a credit to Triplett and another thing that can’t be taken for granted this year.
Key Returnees
I thought all three of UNC’s specialists would have been in the previous section, but earlier this month, placekicker Rece Verhoff returned to Chapel Hill thanks to the Colorado ruling on 5-in-5 eligibility and appears to be in line to reprise his role as UNC’s primary placekicker. Verhoff had a very good year in 2025 after transferring in from Marshall, converting 19/23 of his field goal attempts including an excellent 18/20 mark inside 50 yards. A conversion rate of 82% overall was good for 38th in the country, which is pretty good, but he also hit a staggering 10/11 between 40 and 49 yards and nailed a long of 57, which all contributed to his ranking 20th in Field Goal FEI. He also never missed an extra point, which isn’t quite a given with college kickers. He was just short of being named All-ACC last season because the conference had a bunch of very good kickers, but he should be a favorite to be all-conference this year.
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Running back Jaylen McGill, who handled the bulk of kickoff duties last year, is also back. He averaged 19.5 yards per return, which is well below average, so it’s no guarantee that he’ll be returning kicks again this year, but if nothing else, he doesn’t put the ball on the ground. And Gannon Burt, a long snapper who spent last year on the bench after transferring in from Florida, is probably the favorite to start at that position this year. There’s not much to know about him other than that Chris Rubio ranked him first in his class at the position back in 2023.
Speaking of players who transferred in last year but didn’t play, punter Jacob Horvath could be the starter at his position this year. Horvath was a Second Team All-Big South-OVC performer for FCS Eastern Illinois in 2024, averaging 44 yards per punt with a whole bunch of 50-plus-yarders. I’m given pause by the fact that he couldn’t beat out fellow Aussie Maginness last year; it might mean that he’s got a slower operation or is liable to get returned on by higher-level competition. But there is a good track record there; that average would have ranked in the FBS’ top 30 that year.
Key Newcomers
If Horvath doesn’t get the punting job, it’ll belong to a freshman from Northern Ireland named Adam McCann-Gibbs, who was originally committed to Penn State before Belichick and staff got him to flip last fall. Kohl’s Kicking, one of the two big special teams camp organizations in the country, had McCann-Gibbs ranked 15th in his class as a kicker and just outside the top 100 as a punter, but he’s listed as a punter on UNC’s roster. He’s got an athletic build, at 6-0, 210, but there’s not much more I can glean about him.
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He’s joined in the special teams room by fellow freshman David Green, who’ll be a little closer to home. The High Point product was ranked 2nd nationally in his class by Kohl’s, so while he’ll probably sit behind Verhoff this year, he seems ready to contribute if eligibility stuff gets wonky. He could honestly be UNC’s primary kickoff specialist anyways; Verhoff was only okay at both creating touchbacks and limiting return yardage and Kohl’s raves specifically about his kickoff ability in their write-up.
That said, the front-runner for kickoff specialist is probably Aeron Burrell, who transferred in from LSU after two years as the Tigers’ kickoff specialist. I’m sure he came to UNC for an opportunity to win placekicking duties, but again, with Verhoff back in town that’s probably not happening. But there’s no denying that he’s very good at his specialty. He’s been one of the country’s top touchback artists the last two years, with only 29 returns against him in that time on 140 kicks.
Now, I think touchbacks the way they currently work in college football are wildly overrated because mathematically kick returns are a better outcome for the kicking team than the receiving team. But coaches, even otherwise analytically forward-thinking ones, are so risk-averse that the threat of a return touchdown makes them heavily value the ball going out the back of the end zone. The few of Burrell’s kicks that were returned last year were taken for about 22 yards per attempt, which is pretty good for the return teams, but that’s probably on LSU’s coverage more so than him — kickoff specialists have much less control over the return game than punters.
I’m sure there are newcomers who could be in line to return kicks and punts, but I don’t really know who they might be. I’d expect to see Trech Kekahuna, the Wisconsin transfer slot receiver, get a shot at punt returner; he fits the archetype and returned kickoffs for the Badgers his first two years. The freshmen behind him, Jaden Jefferson and C.J. Sadler, could also be options there. There are probably defensive backs in the mix as well; I’d look out for Ade Willie.
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Outlook
As I said, even with Verhoff’s return, Billy Miller has a whole lot of work to do in rebuilding the rest of UNC’s special teams, from the return game to finding a punter to organizing kick and punt coverage teams just to get to the net neutral that UNC managed last year, let alone being able to consistently flip the field and win the field position battle the way that the Heels will need to if they want to win more games than they did in 2025. I’m admittedly curious to know what about Preifer’s performance last year was unsatisfactory, for a special teams unit that was admittedly unspectacular last year but seemed far from the team’s biggest issue — especially because Belichick didn’t go hunting for a coach with a history of game-changing like he did on the offensive side but just promoted an assistant with scant college coaching experience. Is he looking for more big plays, like return scores and blocked kicks? It’d be contrary to his prior philosophy of using special teams for the marginal wins, but it’s possible. Or was he just unsatisfied with holding serve in the return games rather than having a distinct advantage? That’d be more fair, but it also sets a very high bar for Miller with no established star returners or gunners on the roster.
There are a few pieces and a lot of mystery here; the reports I’ve seen out of fall camp have been much more focused on offense and defense and even if we knew the names of everybody who’d be starting at K, P, PR, KR, and LS next Saturday we still wouldn’t have much of an idea of how they’d perform against live competition. Verhoff, at the very least, gives the unit one stable element. The rest, we’ll have to wait and see.
