{"id":1940149,"date":"2026-10-25T15:39:37","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T19:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/?p=1940149"},"modified":"2026-10-25T16:22:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T20:22:21","slug":"grades-snap-counts-mcdonald-leads-way-edwards-better-clean-than-when-pressured","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/?p=1940149","title":{"rendered":"Grades, snap counts: McDonald leads way; Edwards better clean than when pressured"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Derek McDonald\u2019s 82.8 defensive grade from Pro Football Focus was the highest of any North Carolina player in the 31\u201330 overtime loss to Syracuse, a full 6.4 points ahead of the next-best Tar Heel, while quarterback Billy Edwards Jr. finished near the bottom of the offensive rankings. PFF grades players on a 0\u2013100 scale, and the numbers show a Carolina team that leaned heavily on the pass, wore down its defense with a lopsided snap count, and struggled most when Edwards was pressured. UNC ran 70 offensive snaps to Syracuse\u2019s 89, and 49 of those 70 (70%) were pass plays against only 21 runs.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tarheeltribune.com\/2026\/10\/25\/grades-snap-counts-mcdonald-leads-way-edwards-better-clean-than-when-pressured\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Click here to read the full article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Derek McDonald\u2019s 82.8 defensive grade from Pro Football Focus was the highest of any North Carolina player in the 31\u201330 overtime loss to Syracuse, a full&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1940150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tarheeltribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/image-73.png?resize=1024%2C1024&ssl=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1940149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-north-carolina-tar-heels","wpcat-80-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1940149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1940151,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940149\/revisions\/1940151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1940150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1940149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1940149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1940149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}