This Week in UNC Baseball: Opening Weekend

North Carolina’s baseball season opens on Friday with Indiana coming to Boshamer Stadium for a three-game series – the first time the Tar Heels and Hoosiers have met on the diamond. Inside Carolina’s Grace Nugent and Tommy Ashley spoke with UNC head coach Scott Forbes to discuss opening weekend and the lead up to the 2026 season. Forbes breaks down his process on lineup and pitching rotation decisions as well as the impact matchups have on those decisions, especially regarding certain positions on the field and in the rotation, and details who will start on Friday.

Finally, Forbes shares his memories of great moments in Carolina Baseball history, reliving the Chad Flack walkoff down in Alabama and Vance Honeycutt’s shot that beat West Virginia in Boshamer two years ago.

Watch the full interview above and scroll down for key excerpts and the audio version…

Opening Day Finally Here

Scott Forbes: “It’s never just another week when it’s Opening Day.  Coach Fox used to always say you try to keep this feeling all year, the excitement with Baseball is unique from that standpoint that we train, train, train, scrimmage, scrimmage, scrimmage, go home for Christmas break, come back and do the same thing. You finally get to play somebody else. 

“I’ve just made myself enjoy it more instead of focusing on the ‘busyness’. So I’m excited to get going. That’s for sure.”

Preparing Mentally for Opening Weekend

Forbes: “We work on that all the time. We are process oriented – Coach Saban’s next play mentality – but we try to simulate it the best we can. You can’t simulate the other uniform. You can’t simulate the fans. We try to make practice as hard as we can. I tell our players if we’re doing things like we’re supposed to be doing it here, and we’re meeting the standard, and that means we’re practicing, we’re prepared, then in the games as the coaches, we just should watch…

“It’s exciting just to see how they’re going to do once they all come together as one, even though they’ve been together. You really don’t know. You have an idea if you’re returning eight of your nine position starters, but not many people do that anymore, so I’m most excited to see how they handle all that. Then how can we as a coaching staff help them learn to handle it better and better as we go, because you want to be your best in those big moments.”

The Work to Get the Lineup Set

Forbes: “I feel like I do have the best coaching staff in the country. We get along extremely well, we meet (and they) give their opinions on the lineup. Same thing with the pitching. You want to have an idea, and you also want to know who might be off the bench first in a big situation, a pinch it or getting a bunt down.

“My job is to know our team, understanding that things are going to change, and you might have more depth certain years and other years, and that’s a good thing. You have to figure it out. Is this more of a matchup game?  Are there injuries to deal with?  So managing that and trying to put the best line up you can, to give you a chance to win that day.

“We value defense so high here, we’re not going to play anybody defensively that we feel like can’t make the play routinely. We’ve had some left fielders here that could really hit, but they still made the routine play. So looking at the the total aspect of that, and then how do we beat the starter? I’ve always been big on trying to beat the starter, get him out of the game, and then we can pinch hit based on matchups if we need to.”

Tyler Howe Earns Starting Spot

Forbes: “It’s hard to say too much when you haven’t done it. No freshman has ever done it. We had an idea that Vance (Honeycutt) was going to be a good center fielder, even if he wasn’t hitting. So for Tyler, credit to him. He is a plus defender. He’s a plus base runner. He can really handle the bat in situational hitting. He can hit and run. He’s got good bat to the ball skills. By no means am I saying he’s going to go out there and do what Dustin Ackley did his freshman year. But he’s very capable, and he has earned a spot in the lineup on opening day.

“With some guys, your gut tells you they’re going to be to handle that. And with some, it’s going to be interesting to see how they handle it. Tyler, and I could be wrong and have been wrong before, but he won’t be fazed. He’s just an old school baseball player. It reminds us a lot of like a Kane Kepley type. He doesn’t run like Kane — not many people do. But just a baseball player. He played left, center, right. He’s left left, so he’s not going to play third, short or second or catch, but he’s also a really good first baseman. The more time he spent there, if we have an injury or if we need him there, he reads a dirt ball as well. He handles lefties so far pretty well, but he’ll be in the lineup opening day, and even if he’s not in the lineup every day, he’s going to be one of our guys.”

Deciding The Pitching Rotation

Forbes: “You meet about it and you trust your coaches and value their opinions tremendously. You know they’re in the bullpen more. They’re spending more time with them. Ultimately, I have to make the final decision. I know we’ve got depth, but (a starter like Jake Knapp is) hard to replace early on. I think there are a lot of unknowns with our staff, even though it’s talented, we’ve got guys that haven’t done it and done it on the big stage. 

“It’s not just the pitch ability, it’s holding runners. Do we trust them in bunt defense, that we need to get an out at third base? So we did settle in on our rotation, and it could change, obviously. We’re going to go to DeCaro Friday, Boaz Saturday, and Lynch Sunday, and TBA during the week. We will get through the weekend and go from there. We have got a lot of capable midweek starters, and then everybody else will be in the bullpen ready to go.”

Outfield Three

Forbes: “I think our outfield play has a chance to be really good. I think guys have improved. Tyler Howe, right now because of his arm, because of his defensive ability, will start the season in right field.  Owen Hull, he’s so talented. He can really run. He’s big like Vance. He doesn’t run like Vance, but he runs like Kepley. He can roll. I think he can be a really, really good center fielder. He’s continued to improve. 

“And then all of our left fielders, you’ve got Michael Maginnis, who transferred from Georgia State, played there every day. Carter French, he played here every day. Sawyer Black had a good preseason. Jadyn Nunez… the competition is fierce out there in these corner spots right now, because they all can defend good enough to play. Perry Hargett, he got hit by a pitch but I think he’s going to be ready to go this weekend. He’s improved, and he’s got speed. 

“I think you could see our best outfield defensively from innings seven through nine, potentially, if we’re ahead. That best outfield right now is probably Carter French, Owen Hull and Tyler Howe, but the separation is not that big. I feel like we can play other guys in left field and still be plenty good, but I do feel like that is an elite defensive outfield, which you’ll see at times.”