UNC QB Surratt, 12 others will miss games for selling gear

The suspensions come down after the UNC self-reported the violations that came from players selling team-issued Nike Jordan Brand shoes following the end of the 2017 season.

Senior defensive end Malik Carney and sophomore quarterback Chazz Surratt are the biggest losses for the Tar Heels. Carney started every game for UNC, while Surratt started seven and competed in nine as the team's leading passer.

"We are disappointed," director of athletics Bubba Cunningham said. "Chancellor (Carol) Folt, coach Fedora and I have high expectations of all of our students, coaches and staff, and we expect everyone to embrace and abide by all team and NCAA rules. We always will strive to get better."

UNC requested and the NCAA approved staggering Fox and Carney's suspensions to limit the impact of the loss of two anticipated starters in the same unit, citing "the health and safety of the students."

Head coach Larry Fedora emphasized that each year players are taught by compliance about the rules regarding gear handed out to the team. "Specifically, that the sale of apparel and equipment is an NCAA violation. Every single player signs an agreement acknowledging those rules," he said. Cunningham brought up the role that the football coaching staff also plays in reinforcing the importance of the rules.

"I am certainly upset by our players' actions and how their choices reflect on them, our program and the university," Fedora said. "These young men knew better. These young men knew the rules and are being held responsible for the poor choices they have made. Accountability is an important core principle in this program. We will learn from this and aim to do better in the future."

"I have been told (that I can't sell my gear) multiple times," quarterback Nathan Elliott said.

After 150 pairs of Nike Jordan brand shoes were distributed to players, 15 pairs were sold, and nine pairs have still not been recovered by the university.

Cunningham explained that UNC reacted quickly to seeing a social media post and receiving an email to the UNC AD account about the shoe sales in January -- "within 12 hours of finding out about it" -- and had the shoes which were being sold collected from the student athletes and football staff members.

Fedora said he met with the players who are suspended early in the week before the entire team reported for camp (last Thursday) and told them what their suspensions were, then the head coach met with the entire team. He said he has not addressed the suspensions with the team since camp began.

The process of managing reps in spring ball and in training camp, plus the practices in between games from which players are suspended, is something that Fedora and his staff have been working on for months, even before they knoew how the NCAA would rule. For now, all players – suspended and not – are working through training camp in the same way they would otherwise.

"We're in our install periods now. We're installing all of our schemes on offense, defense and special teams," Fedora said Monday. "Everybody gets all of that. We don't change anything rep wise up until the first scrimmage. After that, we will start pulling back reps from some of those guys that won't be in some of those games and we'll be adding reps to other guys."

Fedora described a quarterback battle when he last spoke about his team publicly at ACC Kickoff, the day the news broke about the NCAA violations. On Monday he confirmed that with Surratt's suspension, Nathan Elliott is the quarterback for North Carolina's first game.

Elliott started UNC's final three games of 2017, leading the team to two of its three wins last season, and threw 10 touchdowns with 926 yards on 75 completions on 146 attempts.

"We've had conversations with all the guys. We've known about it, and we've moved on," Elliott said. "Last year (when the team suffered a lot of injuries) kind of prepared us for this in a way. We were playing with a lot less players last year. With this, guys aren't going to be out the whole season. We're just going to keep moving forward."

Fedora, too, sees that the difficulties of last season – playing without as many as 20 players due to injury en route to a 3-9 record – as practice for a team that will be without several of its members to start this season.

"In relating the things that happened to us last year, it's another form of adversity, and our guys are doing a great job of that," Fedora said. "They all know what's going on. They've all been aware that there could be some penalties, so our guys are prepared for it."

Now that the penalties are announced, Cunningham and Carolina feel a sense of finality that did not exist last time the program and athletic department violated NCAA rules.

"We had the whole thing wrapped up in four days and turned that into the NCAA," he said. "We turned everything in back in January and February, got the final adjudication of secondary violation from the NCAA. So this case is closed and as soon as the suspensions are served, that'll be the end of it."