North Carolina will have a new starting quarterback in 2026.
Gio Lopez, who started 11 games for the Tar Heels in 2025, intends to enter the transfer portal, a source briefed on the decision confirmed to The Athletic on Monday.
Lopez, who arrived in Chapel Hill last spring as a transfer from South Alabama as part of head coach Bill Belichick’s Year 1 roster overhaul, threw for 1,747 yards and 10 touchdowns with five interceptions while rushing for three more scores. North Carolina went 4-8 and missed a bowl game.
The decision by Lopez to enter the portal comes a day after the Tar Heels took a commitment from former Wisconsin quarterback Billy Edwards Jr.
There was plenty of optimism, both inside and outside the Tar Heels’ program, when Lopez arrived last April. He had a solid starting debut for South Alabama in 2024, throwing for 2,559 yards and 18 touchdowns and rushing for 463 yards and seven more scores in 11 starts for the Jaguars. Multiple Power 4 programs showed interest in Lopez after the 2024 season, but he remained with South Alabama through the winter transfer window before entering the spring window and signing with the Tar Heels.
However, nothing about North Carolina’s 2025 season went according to plan after Belichick and his staff brought in more than 70 new players on the roster. There will be plenty more turnover on North Carolina’s roster in 2026, as 24 scholarship players from the 2025 team have entered the transfer portal since it opened on Friday.
Lopez, who was believed to be making around $2 million at UNC in 2025, will look to join his third team in three seasons. He has two years of eligibility remaining.
Edwards had an injury-riddled 2025 at Wisconsin. The former Wake Forest and Maryland quarterback was brought in to be the Badgers’ starter but suffered a knee injury in the season-opening win over Miami (Ohio). He returned three weeks later for Wisconsin’s Big Ten opener against Maryland but played just six snaps. According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Edwards suffered a grade 3 PCL strain, a ligament tear that increases instability in the knee, and it caused him to miss the remainder of the 2025 season. Wisconsin landed a commitment from Old Dominion transfer quarterback Colton Joseph over the weekend.
Edwards entered the portal on Friday and committed to North Carolina after visiting the campus on Sunday. He will be a sixth-year senior in 2026 and has one year of eligibility remaining.
Lopez will be North Carolina’s third scholarship quarterback to enter the portal since it opened. Sixth-year senior Max Johnson, who spent two years in Chapel Hill and served as Lopez’s backup quarterback in 2025, and true freshman Bryce Baker, a four-star signee and Belichick’s first high school quarterback recruit at UNC, are also in the portal.