What Jordan Shipp said at ACC Kickoff podium
· Yahoo Sports
On Friday afternoon, North Carolina took the stage on the final day of ACC Kickoff, the conference’s annual preseason media event, joining several other teams.
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Head coach Bill Belichick, along with players Melkart Abou-Jaoude, Christo Kelly and Jordan Shipp, represented the Tar Heels as they fielded questions about the 2026 season.
UNC is looking to bounce back from a disastrous 4-8 finish in Belichick’s first year in college football. Three of those four wins came against teams with losing records: Charlotte (1-11), Stanford (4-8) and Syracuse (3-9). The other was against Richmond, an FCS opponent.
Here is the full transcript from Shipp’s main-stage news conference:
Coach Belichick just said, hey, we are so far ahead from where we were last season. How do you dictate what to bring along from last season versus the necessary things that you have to capitalize on and flush out from last season?
To start off, I feel comfortable with either four — six of the guys, add DJ and Andy in there as well. I feel comfortable with all those guys. They bring different things. Billy is an older guy. A lot more experience. He’s seen a lot of different defenses. He’s played a lot of different football. He’s played a lot of football.
Of course, there are some things we did good last year, but we’re not trying to hone on that. We want to flush it all. It’s a new start. We’re worried about what can we do to be better this year? What can we do to win the day-to-day? What can we do — today is an off day, but what are you going to do to get better for the next day we work out? Are you going to do recovery, go get treatment? What are you going to do?
That’s all our main focus is: What are you going to do to be better and be prepared for when the season comes around?
Q.Coach talked about this still being an open competition at quarterback. You’re working with a lot of different guys. What are you taking away from them? How is that challenging you not knowing right now who exactly that starter is going to be in September?
Then you got Miles as another older guy, very athletic guy, cannon of an arm. He can make all the throws. He can do everything. Then you got Tori. He just plays free. He plays backyard football. You always love that.
Then you have Trav. He is a younger guy, but he is a younger guy that is not scared to make mistakes. He’s going to make mistakes pushing ball down the field, and he’s going to learn from those mistakes, and he’s going to be a great player whenever they give him the keys, and he’s go going to run away with it.
In terms of challenge, I don’t look at it as a challenge. Whoever is out there, obviously they’re out there for a reason. So let’s just go out there and work and let’s bring some wins back to Chapel Hill.
Piggybacking off of that last question, having built all of those different options, how has it helped your skill being able to make those catches from all those different guys?
Yeah, just being able to adapt. Not everybody — everybody throws the ball differently. For one, Tori is left-handed. Gio is left-handed. I’m already used to that.
It’s just go make the play. It doesn’t really matter who is throwing the ball. It matters if you are going to make the play or not. The stat sheet doesn’t say, oh, you dropped the ball because this happened. It just says you dropped the ball. So just don’t drop the ball. That’s the biggest thing. Don’t drop the ball. Don’t drop the ball. Yeah.
We know about last year, four wins, but you still was able to lead the team in touchdowns and reception yards. I just want to know about the frustration you guys dealt with in the locker room, especially with you dealing with the different types of quarterbacks? What are your team goals for 2026?
In terms of frustrations, nobody likes to lose. I wasn’t the only one frustrated. Everybody was frustrated, but we understood that those frustrations needed to be pointed in the right direction. Us sitting in the locker room pointing fingers, that’s not going to help us go anywhere.
We all had to rally against each other — or rally with each other because it seemed like everybody was kind of against us. Everybody wanting to see Coach Belichick fail. Nobody wanting to see him be successful in his first year of college football. Nobody wanted to see that.
We learned that more and more. We seen there were articles coming out saying he wasn’t at practice during the bye week when we just got off the field, and he’s standing right next to me. Stuff like that. It just sounds dumb. That’s not true. Why are we even paying attention to that?
That kind of helped. On the outside it seemed like it was pulling us apart, but really it was gelling us together, because there’s not a lot of people that go through that like as a whole, as a team. Just having so many people just want to see your coach fail, and that just turns into wanting to see you fail. Anybody but Carolina, that’s all they wanted to see. But that’s not what’s going to happen.
Jordan, your teammates call you Mr. Carolina.Can you talk about what it feels like to be one of the premier faces of the program, and what kind of sense of responsibility does that mean to you?
First thing I got to do is thank God for that. I mean, that’s just — the fact that somebody could call you Mr. Carolina, like, it’s a joke and all and everything like that, but, I mean, just the fact that I’m even able to be looked at like that is nothing short of a blessing from God. Without Him, I wouldn’t be here or anything like that.
You got to start with that. Then, I mean, in terms of just Mr. Carolina, like, I’m from here. I live 20 minutes away. My high school is 15 minutes away. This is home. Carolina is home to me. There’s nowhere else I wanted to go. Everybody kept asking about the portal. I made it clear after the NC State game there was nowhere I was going no matter what was going on. We were going to figure out how to bring wins to Carolina because I bleed blue. It is what it is. I’m a Carolina man, Carolina guy, and that’s just what I am. Go Heels, through and through.
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This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: What Jordan Shipp said at ACC Kickoff podium