In a season opener where much can go wrong, UNC must beat USC. Here are 5 reasons why.

North Carolina coach Mack Brown has been around long enough to be wary of football openers.

Too much can go wrong. Too much is unpredictable. Mistakes happen. The final score, good or bad, can be misleading.

So it will be when the Tar Heels open the 2023 season Saturday against South Carolina, a matchup that has ESPN’s GameDay headed to Charlotte to provide the hoopla and should have plenty of chatter about the chances of UNC’s Drake Maye winning a Heisman Trophy.

The Tar Heels began the 2022 season by easily beating Florida A&M. A lot of players made it on the field at Kenan Stadium in what amounted to an unofficial preseason game – something Brown wishes college teams were allowed.

Not South Carolina. The game at Bank of America Stadium, called the Duke’s Mayo Classic, will bring together two quality teams from two power conferences. The Heels are ranked 21st in the preseason AP poll. The Gamecocks finished 8-5 and No. 23 in 2022, Shane Beamer’s second as head coach, destroying Tennessee and then beating Clemson in the final two games of the regular season.

“He’s got so much energy and so much momentum going,” Brown said of Beamer, the son of former Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer.

Both teams want a winning start to 2023. Here are five reasons why the game is more important to North Carolina than South Carolina:

1. The ACC vs SEC thing

A lot is being made about how much money the Big Ten and SEC schools make each year, and the financial divide with the ACC. A lot of squawking about that gap has come out of Tallahassee, Florida., but is a sticking point for other ACC schools.

On the football field, any ACC win over an SEC team is a good win. Brown, since returning to UNC, is 1-2 against the SEC – beating South Carolina in 2019 in Charlotte, losing to Texas A&M in the Orange Bowl the next season, then losing to South Carolina in the 2021 Duke’s Mayo Bowl in Charlotte.

ACC vs SEC: It’s a prestige thing.

2. Drake Maye & the Heisman

Want to see Heisman Trophy hype wither quickly? Be a candidate and lose the opening game.

UNC’s Drake Maye is a Heisman candidate and a legit one. No UNC player has won a Heisman – Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice was second in 1948 and 1949 – but Maye has the ability, smarts and competitiveness to garner votes.

That is, if UNC wins. A lot. Fall flat in the first game -- in your hometown, no less -- and some Heisman voters could quickly look the other way.

“To win the Heisman, you’ve got to win,” Brown said. “Drake knows it’s all about winning, not about anything else. It’s not about hype. It’s about winning.”

3. A front-loaded schedule

Brown has talked about the first chunk of the Heels’ schedule almost as a collective: South Carolina, Appalachian State, Minnesota.

Yes, he said, it would be nice to open the season with a win. But a losing start?

“A win would set the tone, a loss doesn’t kill you, because a lot of people think you’re going to get beat, anyway,” Brown said. “We then have App State coming in and we only gave up 61 to them last year, so they’re not a threat, right? And then Minnesota coming in, who was 9-4 last year and won a bowl game.

“The great thing about our schedule is we’ll know who we are after Week 3 before starting conference play and going to Pittsburgh.”

4. Winning over recruits

It’s about recruiting. It’s always about recruiting.

Last month, Fuquay-Varina safety Malcolm Ziglar sat at a table with three caps in front of him: UNC, South Carolina and Notre Dame. The four-star recruit committed to UNC, smiling and slipping into the cap at the announcement.

Score one for the Tar Heels. Despite losing out on Ziglar, the Gamecocks are rated 19th nationally for the Class of 2024 by one recruiting service – UNC is 25th.

College coaches are always looking for an edge in recruiting. Winning can do that.

5. A fifth for Mack

It’s the fifth season at UNC in “Mack Brown 2.0 “ It’s his team, built with his recruits.

Brown has Maye, but Maye will be getting ready for his first NFL season this time next year, adding to the urgency to put together a special season.

The Tar Heels were on the verge of a big season in 2022 – 9-1 overall, 6-0 in the ACC and Coastal Division champions – before a stunning loss to Georgia Tech at home derailed things and was the start of four consecutive losses.

At 71, in what has become a young man’s profession with so much tied into roster management, transfers and NIL, Brown could be nearing the end of his Hall of Fame coaching career. If so, he wants to go out strong.

“To me, we’ve got the pride back in North Carolina football,” Brown said at the ACC Kickoff. “If you don’t have expectations you haven’t done a very good job. This is what we came back to do.”