The Tar Heels staff is slowly but surely coming together as Bill Belichick and Michael Lombardi thoroughly analyze the candidates for each position. Today, the team appears to have settled on an offensive line coach with a ton of experience at the college level.
According to ESPN college football insider Pete Thamel, the Tar Heels are expected to hire current Western Kentucky offensive coordinator Will Friend as the team’s offensive line coach. In his lone season with the Hilltoppers, Friend also coached the offensive line for an offense that scored just 24.9 points per game, totaled just 373.5 yards of offense per game and ran for just 108.9 yards per game. While that may seem concerning, his track record as an offensive line coach speaks for itself.
Prior to arriving in Bowling Green, Friend was the offensive line coach for one season at Mississippi State. His offensive line unit ranked 69th in run blocking and 48th in pass blocking according to PFF’s grades for a team that ran for 146.8 yards per game and allowed 68.0 tackles for loss and 26.0 sacks.
Before that, he spent two seasons on the plains with the Auburn Tigers. Both of his units were solid pass-protecting groups but had their issues in run-blocking for offenses that simply were not great. The opposite was the case in his previous stop, Tennessee, where they were one of the worst pass-blocking teams in the country and a solid run-blocking group despite having stars like Trey Smith, Wanya Morris and Darnell Wright.
Prior to those stops, Friend spent three years as the offensive coordinator and offensive line coach for Colorado State and coordinated an offense in 2017 that scored 33.4 points per game and averaged 492.5 yards of total offense per game. His offensive lines grade out incredibly well in both areas in his first two seasons in Fort Collins but did struggle a little bit in pass protection in that 2017 season.
His most successful stint as an offensive line coach came in his three seasons with Georgia from 2011-14. The Bulldogs' offense got better in each of the four seasons that Friend was there and the offensive line was a big part of why the team finished top 35 in points per game, improved in passing yards in each of the first three seasons and ran for 164.0 yards in each of those four seasons.
In total, Friend has coached nine different offensive linemen who have made it to the NFL.
This is a solid hire based on his experience, but it is hard not to be a little concerned with his recent track record. The hope is that being in a much easier conference to compete in than the SEC and having play-calling off his plate can allow him to return to the success he had early on in his coaching career. The team is also hoping that his recruiting prowess, which is his biggest strength, will transfer as well.
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