Atmosphere at App State was electric, but UNC QB Drake Maye had even more juice
Drake Maye — the redshirt freshman quarterback with the Carolina blue royal bloodline and the rocket arm — might just be pretty darn good.
In Maye’s first-ever start away from home — a true road test against a fine Appalachian State team playing in front of a record Boone crowd of 40,168 — he came through like a champion.
Down 21-7 early, Maye led UNC to 34 straight points and an eventual 63-61, thrill-a-minute shootout victory over the Mountaineers. It was the highest-scoring game in terms of combined points in UNC history.
App State provided an electric atmosphere for a wild college football game, but had nothing in its arsenal that could stop Maye, who accounted for five touchdowns (four passing, one rushing) and 428 total yards.
Said Maye, shaking his head later: “That game was crazy.”
But App State also played with gusto in what was a monstrously entertaining four hours. The Mountaineers, who trailed 41-21 as the fourth quarter began, mounted a furious comeback and tied the score at 49-all with four minutes left.
Then Maye and UNC got the ball back. And on a third down where App State brought the house, Maye was able to loft the ball to a wide-open D.J. Jones for a 42-yard touchdown pass, getting hit hard just as he threw it. Maye ended up throwing for 352 yards and running for 76 more.
“The play that Drake made at the end of the game?” North Carolina head coach Mack Brown said. “What a play. He’s got a free man (coming at him), he knows he’s going to get hit right in the chest and he kept his poise..... Drake Maye is a special young guy.”
Maye said of the play: “I got power-drove into the ground and just floated one up.”
App State — which shredded the Tar Heel defense for six touchdowns in the fourth quarter — still wasn’t finished. The Mountaineers got another late TD with 0:31 to cut UNC’s lead to 56-55 and then decided to go for two points.
But App State quarterback Chase Brice couldn’t connect with a wide-open Dashaun Davis as most of the crowd groaned in disbelief. After UNC recovered the onside kick and ran it back for a touchdown, the game seemed to finally be out of reach. Yet it wasn’t — Brice threw yet another TD pass, his sixth, with 0:09 left.
That meant App State had to go for two points again, trying to send the game into overtime. This time Brice kept the ball and was tackled a yard short of the end zone, and the Tar Heels had survived, 63-61, in regulation.
A couple of random stats: App State scored 40 points in the fourth quarter. Yes, 40. UNC scored 22.
And the final score was only one point off of one of UNC’s most famous basketball games — the 63-62 win over Georgetown in the national title game in 1982.
Will Maye end up as the most-decorated member of his family to play in Chapel Hill? Maye-be. Maye-be not. It’s way too early to know. But he’s got a shot.
“When you’ve got a great quarterback, you’ve got a chance,” Brown said. “And Drake is a great quarterback, who will only get better.”
Drake Maye is the son of Mark Maye, the former UNC quarterback of the 1980s, and the younger brother of Luke Maye, who made the second-most famous shot in basketball history for the Tar Heels on the way to the 2017 national championship.
Maye, who grew up in Huntersville, played most of his high school career at Charlotte’s Myers Park and decommitted from Alabama to attend UNC, was a difference-maker in this one. The 6-foot-4½, 220-pound Maye battled all afternoon with Appalachian State quarterback Chase Brice (six TD passes, 376 passing yards).
Maye made almost every big play he needed to rushing for 4 yards on an early fourth-and-3, throwing three first-half TD passes to three different receivers and scoring on a 12-yard run in the third quarter. Throw in a two-point conversion run by Maye and the freshman accounted for 32 of UNC’s 63 points.
Maye made some mistakes, too. “Did he screw some things up?” Brown asked. “Yes.... But he’s got everything.”
Maye fumbled the ball away on a quarterback keeper up 13 points in the fourth quarter, making the game more interesting than it had to be. “A game-changer,” he said disgustedly. He also missed a couple of throws in the second half.
Early in the game, it looked like Maye was in danger of sustaining his first loss as the Tar Heel starter since replacing Sam Howell, who Maye still talks to twice a week. App State scored touchdowns the first three times it had the ball, beginning the game as it ended it — by eviscerating the UNC defense.
But after falling behind 21-7, the Tar Heels (2-0) got Maye’s second TD pass — a 10-yard strike to Kobe Paysour — that cut the App State lead to 21-14. And then, after the Mountaineers missed a 51-yard field goal, UNC scored again to tie the score on a 21-yard TD run from George Pettaway. The Tar Heels defense in the meantime was playing better, and Maye got UNC into the end zone again by managing the clock beautifully and firing a 10-yard rope to Bryson Nesbit with 0:01 left in the first half for his third TD.
By halftime, Maye had already gone 17-for-21 for 224 yards, three TDs and zero turnovers. Brice, meanwhile, cooled off considerably on a gorgeous, 73-degree day before he heated up to boiling in the fourth quarter.
It was the first time UNC had ever come to Appalachian State for a football game, and quite literally the biggest game the Mountaineers had ever hosted. Temporary bleachers were set up in one end zone to allow what is normally a 30,000-seat stadium more capacity. The school announced the record crowd of 40,168 — about 5,000 more than the previous high in Boone — for the stadium affectionately nicknamed “The Rock.”
“It’s so different than when I was here,” said Brown, who coached one year at Appalachian State in 1983. “They’ve turned this into a place that is very difficult to play.”
On the secondary market, general admission tickets were going for around $200 close to game time and reserved seats for $300. People were parking anywhere they could, creating their own spaces and walking 45 minutes in the crisp mountain air to Kidd Brewer Stadium when necessary. Black-and-gold overalls were the outfit of choice.
Although App State happily embraces the role of underdog in all of its matchups with Power Five teams, it wasn’t technically true this time. Oddsmakers had a hard time figuring this one out, with both teams favored at various times over the past three weeks. So this wasn’t anything like the time App State went to Michigan and beat the Wolverines 15 years ago.
That Michigan game was a monstrous upset. This one was a slugfest between two teams who were predicted to be evenly matched. Indeed, App State was favored by a couple of points in most of the final betting lines. App State, after all, had already beaten UNC in the teams’ most recent matchup — 34-31 in 2019.
But Maye made sure that wouldn’t happen again.
This story was originally published September 3, 2022 at 4:15 PM with the headline "Atmosphere at App State was electric, but UNC QB Drake Maye had even more juice."
