Via Inside Carolina
North Carolina junior defensive end Donte Paige-Moss has notified the school of his intention to enter the NFL Draft, according to a UNC official.
Paige-Moss, who posted 29 tackles, two sacks and four tackles for loss in a backup role in 2011, tore the ACL in his right knee during the Independence Bowl last week.
The Jacksonville, N.C. native had his biggest year in 2010, starting 12 games and recording 49 tackles, 13.5 tackles for losses of 77 yards and 7.0 sacks.
Paige-Moss was a five-star recruit and All-American out of high school, but made headlines with a couple off-the-field issues during his freshman year. A month after enrolling in 2009, he was charged with misdemeanor simple assault following an altercation with a teammate, though the charge was dropped and he was disciplined internally. In the 2009 regular season finale against NC State, a post-game altercation led to him being suspended by then-head coach Butch Davis for the team’s bowl game.
This is not a surprise. It might not be the best idea in the world seeing that Paige-Moss was not even a starter and he will be recovering from a torn ACL which could impact his pre-draft workouts. However, it is clear based on previous incidents and recent tweets from Paige-Moss(some coming from the locker room during the bowl game while his knee was being examined) expressing dissatisfaction with fans and coaches alike that he would probably not give the new coaching staff a shot. For Paige-Moss to enter the NFL Draft with a fresh knee injury speaks volumes of his desire to leave Chapel Hill as soon as humanly possible.
Coaching transitions are often dotted with players leaving the program. Paige-Moss is the first in UNC’s transition to Larry Fedora. He likely won’t be the last.
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we’ll be just fine
Hey, that opens up a football scholarship; maybe we’ll get a team player with Donte’s scholarship!
Best of luck to DPM, but I’m not exactly shedding too many tears. Looks like Reddick is staying, which is much more important.
good riddance.
He was a pox and embarrassment.
good riddance…classic under achiever. Will be lucky to get drafted at all.
After those stupid tweets following the bowl game, I would say he saved Fedora some valuable time.
Really!?… Tweeting while in locker room about being dissatisfied about us? Sounds like he is one of those chest pumpers that irk me so. Makes a tackle, dances around like he won the lotto, then goes AWOL the next play. Maybe he’ll take along a few of his “buds.”
Is anybody actually hopeful about football? I feel like we’ll be sitting here 10 years from now talking about the 50 losses we accumulated in the upcoming decade, and we’ll talk about how hopefully it’ll turn around.
50 losses over the next decade would be at minimum .615 and the best stretch of football at UNC since Dick Crum. Thank God we did not have social media then. Can you imagine what LT and Kelvin Bryant were doing?
I feel like that’s the ceiling for where we’re heading. I don’t think 4-6 losses per season is success. It’s a big enough program that we should be able to compete for the ACC championship. I’m biased by being a basketball-first fan, but mediocrity and basement-dwelling are basically the same to me.
I’m optimistic. I think we made good hires at AD and head coach, and that will show up sooner than you might think. I’m actually excited to have a staff of college coaches, rather than ones who think we’re running an NFL training camp. I think the move to a spread offense is long overdue here, and we can certainly recruit the talent to outperform our historical average.