By R.L. Bynum
CHAPEL HILL — For Billy Edwards Jr. to flash his elite quarterback skills on the field, flashcards to learn a new offensive system are important.
As a player who began his college career with a redshirt season at Wake Forest before playing three seasons at Maryland and an injury-shortened year at Wisconsin, the 6–3, 228-pound graduate student has turned adapting to a new program into a science.
Edwards, 23, quickly learned Offensive Coordinator Bobby Petrino’s system, and his consistency during spring practice and preseason camp earned him the starting job for Saturday’s noon ET opener in Dublin against TCU at the Aer Lingus College Football Classic (ESPN).
The learning curve started back in January, and Edwards said absorbing a new playbook has become almost a personal ritual. In the last year, he estimates that he’s created around 1,000 flashcards.
“Trying to write it all down,” Edwards said during a Monday press conference at the Kenan Football Center. “The guys in the quarterback room, we’re all different learners, and for me, I’m like a rep guy. I need to write it down 1,000 times. I want to see it. I want to go walk through it by myself.”
Edwards credits his parents for that approach to preparation. His father, Billy Edwards Sr., coached high school football for more than three decades, and his mother, Elizabeth, still works as a teacher, a combination he said shaped how he studies the game. Edwards Sr. was the defensive coordinator at Lake Braddock in Springfield, Va., when Edwards Jr. played there.
“I think I’ve got a blend of those two,” Edwards said of his parents. “I go out and get physical reps, but I have a little bit of a type A personality. I like to be organized, have my stuff in order. So, I definitely have some of my mom in me. I think that’s where I get all the flashcards, and I go home and take a million of her office supplies to make sure I got all the stuff I need to learn a new system.”
That preparation has translated into an emphasis on decision-making that Edwards said has defined his approach at every stop of his college career. Consistency, he said, has been the common thread.
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“I think that was the biggest thing going into it, of what I’ve learned throughout my time in college, whether it was at any of my three previous stops, of just being consistent as a quarterback, making the right decision,” Edwards said. “Sometimes that means throwing the ball away. Sometimes that means running out of bounds for a gain of one, just trying to put the offense in the best situation, eliminate the negative plays.”
Coach Bill Belichick credited the extended offseason program for putting this year’s quarterback competition on a different footing than a year ago, when Carolina’s ultimate starter Gio Lopez didn’t arrive until the summer,
“Being here all spring was a big advantage for him, so we’ve had him since January, all the way through the spring, all the way through the summer,” Belichick said. “All the quarterbacks have gotten a lot of reps. They’ve gotten a lot more reps than where we’re at this time last year, when our two quarterbacks really hadn’t taken any reps up until the start of training camp in August.”
Over 28 career games, Edwards has completed 62.1% of his passes for 3,435 yards, 19 touchdowns and 10 interceptions, with a passer rating of 126.8. His best season was 2024 at Maryland, when he connected on 65% of his passes for 2,881 yards, 15 touchdowns and nine interceptions in 11 games.
One phrase in particular has stuck with him since he first heard it as a younger player, and it has become something of a personal mantra as he settles into his new role: mitigating risk. Belichick also emphasizes doing that to avoid bad plays.
“Coach Belichick always says we can go forward, and the only way we can go forward is by not going backward,” Edwards said. “So, just really eliminating the negative plays, trying to consistently put us in the best looks possible, whether it’s check runs or getting us out of a play.”
That emphasis on protecting the football is not lost on Belichick, who has drawn on his own coaching history to help Edwards and the rest of the quarterback room. Asked whether Belichick had shown the quarterbacks video of Tom Brady from his New England days to illustrate the point, Edwards did not hesitate.
“Oh yeah, absolutely,” Edwards said. “The biggest thing too that he always talked about with Tom Brady was, when the defense gave him opportunities for big plays, he made him pay. When the defense made [a mistake], he turned it into an ugly one for them by exploiting it and getting a big play or getting an explosive or making the right check.”
Edwards said Belichick pulls the entire quarterback room aside to explain a video of a Brady play together, regardless of who is running with the first-team offense that day.
“He’ll pull us all aside and make sure if I’m in there, [making sure] that we’re all getting the coaching point,” Edwards said. “It helps when he can go back in his arsenal of film and pull out arguably the greatest quarterback of all time doing it, whether it was preseason game week one or they’re playing in February for the trophy.”
For a player who will start for a third program, watching that video carries a particular resonance.
“It’s obviously done at the highest level, but this is how I’m getting coached,” Edwards said. “I’m getting all the same coaching points that this guy did, however many years ago. So, it’s fun, and it’s easy to go back there and watch Tom Brady film and try and learn from it and take everything you can from Coach Belichick, who obviously coached him for a while.”
Learning a new system for the second consecutive year is nothing new for Edwards, who has now played under multiple offensive coordinators across his college career. He said the process, while humbling at first, has become something he genuinely looks forward to.
“I enjoy it a lot. It’s a challenge,” Edwards said. “Whether I was at Maryland, we had a new offensive coordinator, or in my transfer decisions, it’s humbling when you come in at the beginning, and you get new terminology, and you get a new playbook. But I find it really fun.”
Part of that enjoyment comes from figuring out exactly what Petrino wants to see when he calls a particular play, a process Edwards described as building trust in real time.
“I’m always trying to get in Coach Petrino’s head of, hey, ‘When he calls this play, this is what I’m envisioning, this is why I want to call it, and this is what I want to get to if I don’t get the look that I want for it,’ ” Edwards said.
Edwards pointed to Petrino’s track record across several stops as evidence of what the offense is capable of producing once it is fully installed.
“I think just the ability to be explosive, and I think some of that comes in the small mundane plays,” Edwards said. “We’re not going to take a shot every play. But when you turn on the film of pretty much everywhere he’s been throughout his coaching career, whether he was the head coach or offensive coordinator, his offense has been explosive. They have found ways to be explosive.”
He described the offense’s built-in answers to whatever a defense presents as a deep and versatile toolbox.
“If we call this play and defense gives us what we want, boom, we know we have a chance for an explosive play,” Edwards said. “If they give us a look we don’t want, boom, we know we have runs to go to that we like against it, or pass checks to go to that we like against it.”
Edwards said the decision to enter the transfer portal one last time came down to opportunity.
“I was going into my sixth year. I’d been to a number of other stops, and really just looking forward to what opportunity could give me the best opportunity to grow,” Edwards said. “Coming here and working for a coach like Coach Petrino, and playing for a coach like Coach Belichick, those were obviously the two biggest factors for me.”
That search for opportunity, he said, has been a constant throughout a college career in all of his stops.
“I think everybody’s college careers are different; everybody’s, when you play, how you play, how it happens is different,” Edwards said. “But I think the one thing that I’ve always tried to do is just seek opportunity. When you seek the opportunity, and you prepare the right way, and those two meet, you have a chance to be successful.”
Edwards also detailed the left knee injury that shortened his last season at Wisconsin, a grade 3 posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) strain that sidelined him after only two games and required an unusual rehabilitation process.
“It was kind of like the quarterback battle, just trying to be consistent, trying to attack every day. There were good days, bad days in terms of my recovery last fall,” Edwards said, crediting strength and conditioning coach Moses Cabrera and the entire training staff. “They’ve helped me out a lot, and I feel great. I’m excited to go out there and play.”
He has not needed a brace since spring practice, a detail he pointed to as proof of how far the recovery has come.
“I’m excited to just go out there and compete again,” he said. “It’s been a while since I’ve been able to go out there and actually play some snaps, so I’m really looking forward to it.”
Among the familiar faces who made the transition easier is wide receiver Trech Kekahuna. Edwards said the two have built a bond that dates back to their days together at Wisconsin, and they’re both relatively new to UNC.
“We’ve had good days, we’ve had bad days, we’ve had good games, we’ve had bad games together,” Edwards said. “So I’m excited for the opportunity to go out there and compete with them.”
As one of the older players in the quarterback room, Edwards said he leans on lessons from veterans who mentored him earlier in his career, including former teammates Taulia Tagovailoa at Maryland and Sam Hartman at Wake Forest. Now he’s the veteran in the group.
“The biggest thing those two taught me was just being authentic. Don’t try to be anybody that you’re not. Just be consistent in who you are and be comfortable in your own skin,” Edwards said. “There’s going to be days where I’m going to put my arm around a guy, but then there’s going to be days where I’m going to have to confront and demand and maybe get on him a little bit.”
That approach extends to how Edwards reacted when he learned he had won the starting job, a moment he described as more business than celebration, and he didn’t even tell his dad the news for a couple of days.
With the job now his, Edwards said the focus has shifted entirely toward Saturday’s opener against TCU.
“The decision was made; now back to business, back to getting ready for TCU,” Edwards said.
He hopes all those flashcards net immediate results in Ireland.
Photo via YouTube screenshot
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