UNC Navigating Indefinite Timeline on Pryce Yates’ Return to Action

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — For all the defensive linemen North Carolina picked up on college football’s free-agent market through the winter and spring transfer portal cycles, none arrived with more proven pass-rushing credentials than Pryce Yates.

But the former Connecticut defensive end has yet to play in a game for the Tar Heels due to injury, and coach Bill Belichick acknowledged on Tuesday that Yates indeed remains out of action for an indefinite timeframe.

Yates has been working back from a concussion suffered during the preseason, per multiple sources. Last week, he missed UNC’s season-opening loss to TCU and the team’s road victory at Charlotte five nights later. For Yates, it’s the recurrence of an issue that also shelved him at the start of last season. He missed UConn’s first six games of 2024 due to the effects of a concussion suffered in training camp, and didn’t make his season debut with the Huskies until Oct. 19.

“It’s definitely hard to put a timetable on it,” Belichick said Tuesday at Kenan Football Center, when asked about Yates’s expected return. “I know that he’s working hard to be back, and I know that our medical staff is doing the same thing. We’ll just have to kind of take it day-by-day, and see how things progress. But when he’s ready, he’ll be ready. And I know he’s doing everything he can to be ready. But he just hasn’t been cleared yet.”

UNC (1-1) plays host to FCS program Richmond (1-1) on Saturday at Kenan Stadium. The Tar Heels are coming off a 20-3 defeat of Charlotte, which marked the first time since the 2020 season opener that they held an opponent without a touchdown, and the fewest points they’ve allowed to a team on the FBS level in 24 seasons, since October 2001.

Still, Carolina defensive coordinator Steve Belichick’s unit certainly could use the services of the veteran Yates, who supplied 12½ sacks and 29½ tackles for losses in 32 games at UConn across the previous three seasons. In December, he delivered a sack and three tackles for lost yardage on his way to collecting Defensive Most Valuable Player honors in the Fenway Bowl, as the Huskies beat the Tar Heels to end last season.

Through two games this season, UNC starting defensive ends Melkart Abou-Jaoude (6.3 percent) and Smith Vilbert (4.5 percent) have produced paltry pressure win rates, per the advanced metrics from Pro Football Focus (PFF). That data measures how often a pass rusher wins a matchup against an offensive lineman, and is calculated by dividing the number of those wins by the number of total pass rushes. A defender can record a pressure win by forcing a hurried throw, hitting or flushing the quarterback, or disrupting the passing lane, for example.

By comparison, former UNC defensive ends Kaimon Rucker (18.6 percent), Beau Atkinson (16.1 percent) and Des Evans (12.1 percent) finished last season having accumulated better PFF pressure win rates by considerable margins.

In terms of traditional statistics, the Tar Heels rank tied for No. 123 nationally (or tied for last) in the FBS with one sack on the season through two games, and tied for No. 110 with an average of four tackles for losses per game. During the weekend, linebacker Andrew Simpson finally snapped UNC’s sack-less streak to open the 2025 season, when he dropped Charlotte quarterback Conner Harrell for an 11-yard loss on a third-and-20 situation in the third quarter.

The tandem of defensive coordinator Steve Belichick and defensive line coach Bob Diaco represents the Tar Heels’ third different combo in charge of those areas in three seasons, following Gene Chizik and Tim Cross (in 2023) and Geoff Collins and Ted Monachino (in 2024).

UNC’s defense suffocated Charlotte to a total of 21 rushing yards on 29 attempts during the weekend. And the Tar Heels’ defensive front gave up just 1.9 rushing yards per carry on non-sack attempts, and was solid enough to contain the 49ers’ passing attack without having to blitz much (five blitzes in 33 drop-backs).