Heel Tough Blog: Tar Heels Set to Host Transfer QB This Week

Andy Altenburger- Icon Sportswire

While the Tar Heels may have found their starting quarterback in the portal in the form of South Alabama transfer Gio Lopez, the team might not be done just yet at that position in the portal.

According to a report on Sunday afternoon from Chris Hummer and John Talty of CBS Sports, the Tar Heels will be hosting Georgia transfer quarterback for a visit on Wednesday. Rashada, the top transfer quarterback that remains available in the portal, entered the portal back in December with three years of eligibility remaining.

Rashada, who is actually a higher rated portal prospect than Lopez, is a former 4✮ prospect from the 2023 class who committed and signed with Arizona State out of high school. As a true freshman in Tempe in the fall of 2023, Rashada started the first two games of the season, throwing 403 yards and posting a 3-1 touchdown-to-interception while completing 56.7% of his passes. After losing the second game to Oklahoma State, Rashada was benched in favor of Trenton Borguet and Drew Pyne, who would split the job all the way until the season finale when Rashada would re enter with a less than stellar performance (10-22, 82 yds, TD, 2 INT, 6 rush, 18 yds). 

Last winter, he entered his name into the portal and transferred to Georgia where he would not see the field, even after an injury to starting quarterback Carson Beck in the SEC Championship Game. Following the conclusion of the season Rashada entered the portal again but was unable to find a new home, leading him to push his recruitment to the spring. If he is to visit Chapel Hill on Wednesday, that would be just his second visit of the offseason, joining a recent trip that he took to Western Kentucky.

More than likely, this interest is purely for depth purposes at the quarterback position. The room that is down to just two scholarship quarterbacks who were with the team in the spring following the transfer of Ryan Browne back to Purdue. One of those two is senior Max Johnson, who would be a perfectly fine backup if, as Andrew Jones of Tar Heel Illustrated said on Friday on WFNZ in Charlotte, he wasn’t still walking with a limp. Because of that, it feels like the team want to avoid a situation where true freshman summer enrollee Au’tori Newkirk has to play this upcoming season. It also never hurts to take a shot on a former top 100 recruit when you have the chance to.