Keeping a level head is easy for Sam Howell

When a player from a school that is not one of the traditional powers is good enough to win one of the nation's most prestigious awards, the school often mounts a huge publicity campaign to make sure the voters for said awards know about their guy.

Even bigger schools do this. Name recognition is important. Reminding voters about your player is, too.

When Sam Howell sat down with head coach Mack Brown this offseason, they were on the same page as to how his Heisman campaign might look.

There won't be one.

"We decided not to do it. I think it will all take care of itself," Howell said at ACC Kickoff on Wednesday. "When you look at the past few Heisman winners, it's usually the best player on the best team that wins the trophy.

"I just want everything to be about the team and I just want to make sure I give the team everything I've got on a daily basis. I don't want the team to think I'm worried about the next level or the Heisman Trophy. I just want to go out there every single game and give it all, leave it all on the field for my team."

The quarterback that will almost certainly end his career as the best in UNC history, the one who became the fastest in ACC history to reach 67 touchdown passes?

He doesn't care about any of that, he says. And his teammates back him up on that.

"He's always just been about team, togetherness. We were in there talking about all the accolades, all the stats, all the awards and stuff. That doesn't mean anything to Sam," senior linebacker Jeremiah Gemmel said. "Sam will go into a game and if he throws four interceptions and we win, like he will take that game over throwing for 500 yards and losing. He'd rather just win the games.

"I think everybody else on the team sees that. Some quarterbacks have egos and he could have the biggest ego of all. I think he's the No. 1 pick in the draft. This man could have the biggest ego out of everybody but he talks to everybody on the team and treats everybody the same, and I think that just brings the whole team together."

He's going to almost certainly be the ACC Preseason Player of the Year and would have been a First Team quarterback had another player named Trevor Lawrence not been around.

He's going to be leading a team that is the Coastal Division favorite and a dark horse pick to win the league.

But a hype campaign for a performance-based award? Not his style.

"I don't play the game for that reason. It really doesn't worry me or bother me at all, honestly," Howell said. "I play the game to leave it out there for my teammates every single week. We all work so hard. I might be the one getting all the recognition, but my teammates are the biggest reason I'm at where I'm at today and in this position. So I don't really worry about that."

Brown navigated this at Texas with multiple players, including Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams.

He's also well aware that as much as some players say they don't care about individual awards, there's a part of them that wants them. Or at least there was for Williams.

"When we went to Texas, the previous team was 4-7. Ricky (Williams) said 'The Heisman is not important.' Well, HeismanRickyWilliams was his email, so it was kind of important I think," Brown said, smiling. "I kind of noticed that as he told me it wasn't important."

But Brown also understands how the Heisman game is played. He knew Williams was his best player. They were playing Rice one game and Rice was coached by a friend of Brown's, Ken Hatfield.

Texas jumped out to a commanding early lead, but the week before, Williams had just 43 yards against Kansas State. So Brown left Williams in as he piled up 255 yards and apologized after to Hatfield, who obviously understood.

It's not just running up the score that's the issue, either.

"There's that fine line with (former Texas quarterbacks) Colt McCoy and Vince Young. When you're winning a game, how long do you keep them in for stats for the Heisman and when do you pull him out for safety and trying to get a backup quarterback ready to play? It's a delicate path that you have to follow," Brown said.

But ultimately, if North Carolina stumbles early, Howell's Heisman hopes will grow dimmer anyway.

One is dependent upon the other.

And neither is a guarantee. Young never won the Heisman, although he finished second behind Reggie Bush in 2005. McCoy didn't win it either, but he finished second in 2008 and third in 2009.

The most losses a team that had a Heisman Trophy winner has ever had is four, and that was back in 1969. Since 1990, only four players have won it on a team that had more than two losses all year. One of them was Williams in 1998 on a three-loss Texas team.

So for Howell to win the Heisman, or to be considered for it, UNC is also going to have to win.

"Sam is so good. He's about winning," Brown said. "Whether it's name, image and likeness, the awards you're going to get, it's about your ball, it's not about your brand. If we play well, if Sam is going to play great, if we play well enough as a team around him, and we have a chance to win a lot of games, he'll be right in the mix of that Heisman thing regardless of what we say or do. If we don't play well as a team, it will drift away."

And don't get him wrong, of course. It's not like Howell doesn't care about being successful on the field. Of course he does.

"I'm definitely just blessed by God in the position that I'm in. It's something I dream find of when I was a kid to kind of be in this position. It's not something I take for granted," Howell said. "There's been so many people that's kind of helped me get to where I am today. That's kind of just relying on my faith and my people, just trying to stay true to who I am. No matter where I go in life, just try to be the same person, try to be who I am on a daily basis."

Howell has a fun side, too. Well, sort of. He doesn't go out, he said, like plenty of college-aged kids do. But Tomon Fox said Howell will take the team on various outings, like going bowling.

Brown has talked all offseason about ball being ahead of brand, but Howell is worrying about keeping the main thing the main thing. He said it more than once on Wednesday.

"I don't get too caught up in what other people are saying. I'm just worried about what I think of my myself, what the people close to me say," Howell said. "That's the same mindset of my team. We've had a lot of hype as a team.

"The main thing we try to tell our guys: if people say we're going to win 10-12 games, it's not just going to happen. We have to put the work in every day, prepare like it's the biggest game of our life. That's my mindset as a person and as a team."

Having a quarterback like Howell certainly helps. After starting his first game, which was also Brown's first game as head coach in his second stint in Chapel Hill, it was clear UNC was looking at something special.

Coming off of a two-win season the year before, the young and talented quarterback took the field against an SEC team UNC was not supposed to beat and, utterly unfazed, led them to a win.

He defied the odds then. But last season was riddled with disappointments.

Can he do it again, in spite of not having all of the elite weapons at his disposal?

Maybe, but he'll at least help keep his team grounded along the way, which is what Brown wants.

"We've gotten hype. We've been hugged. We've had sugar thrown all over us," Brown said. "Let's clean it off, and let's get back to facts. We were fifth in the country when we went to Florida State, about 25th when we were leaving. That took about three hours to drop that far.

"There were two conferences that weren't playing when we were fifth in the country. I was trying to explain to them, You're not the fifth best team in the country. I tell them you're not the fifth best team in the country, but we got to play. Nobody is good enough anymore to go out there and stand around."