User:Wbrown16/Sandbox

Background
Taylor Jonathan “T.J.” Yates was born May 28, 1987 in Marietta, Georgia. He is the son of John and Carol Yates. Yates played at Pope High School and was the starting quarterback only his senior year. His original goal was to play collegiate basketball but instead took up football his senior year and was good enough to gain scholarship offers from numerous schools including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Yates also contemplated walking on to the highly successful North Carolina Tar Heels Men's Basketball team but decided he should commit his time to football.

High School
T.J. Yates began his high school career as a freshman quarterback on the Junior Varsity team for Pope High School. After his freshman season, Pope changed coaches which led to a change in offense from a Spread offense to the Wing-T, which is similar to the single-wing formation. Because of this change, Yates decided to focus more on basketball and to give up football. In the summer after his junior season, Pope High School coaches changed their offense back to a Spread offense which caught Yates’ eye. Yates decided he would play football his senior year, and quickly became a star. Yates completed 160 of 289 passes (57 percent) for 2,305 yards and 17 touchdowns. He also rushed for 292 yards and seven scores. Yates was also a punter for Pope High School his senior year and punted 34 times for 1,237 yards. Yates was named first-team all-region and the Cobb County Touchdown Club Offensive Player of the Year. Yates also earned Atlanta Metro First-Team All-Area honors. Yates ended up being ranked the number 60 player in Georgia by SuperPrep by the end of his season.

Freshman Season
Yates came to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and won the starting position of quarterback in summer workouts.

The first game of the 2007 season was against James Madison University and Yates had a star performance. He completed 13 of 18 passes (72 percent) for 218 yards, 3 touchdowns, and only threw one interception as the Heels won 37-14. Yates’ first pass as a college quarterback was to Brooks Foster and went for a 65 yard touchdown. For this performance he was honored as Atlantic Coast Conference Rookie of the Week.

In the next game of the season, Yates threw for a career high, 344 yards against East Carolina University, while throwing for 3 touchdowns. This was the first 300-yard passing game for a North Carolina quarterback since 2005 and was the 7th highest single game total in school history.

In this phenomenal freshman season, Yates passed for a North Carolina single season record 2,655 yards and 14 touchdowns. He finished 3rd in the ACC with 221.2 passing yards per contest and 8th in the league with a 123.62 passer rating. He ranked 4th all-time among ACC quarterbacks for passing yardage and passed Darian Durant to set UNC freshman records for completions against Wake Forest University. He joins Durant and Chris Keldorf as the only Tar Heel quarterbacks with two of the top ten passing yardage games in school history. For this remarkable season, Yates received First-Team Freshman All-American honors by Sporting News and received Honorable Mention Freshman All-America by CollegeFootballNews.com.

Sophomore Season
Yates came into the season looking forward to building from a very successful freshman campaign. In the first two games against McNeese State and Rutgers, Yates’ threw for a combined 442 yards, 5 touchdowns, and only 1 interception.

The third game of the season was against conference and division foe Virginia Tech. This was a very big game for the Tar Heels because UNC and Virginia Tech were picked to be the top two competitors in the Coastal Division. In this game, Yates got off to a hot start by throwing for 181 yards and 1 touchdown before leaving the game with a sprained left ankle in the third quarter. The Heels were up 17-3 at this point in the game, but once Yates became injured, they quickly lost control of the game and ended up with a loss of 20-7.

Through the next seven games, in which Yates sat out, Cameron Sexton filled in very well leading the team over programs such as University of Miami, UConn, and Georgia Tech while only losing two games in that stretch. Yates came back in the game against N.C. State on November 22, 2008 and was given a rude awakening by the Wolfpack as they defeated the Tar Heels 41-10 with Yates completing only 45.5 percent of his passes.

The next two games were very successful for Yates as the Heels defeated Duke University 28-20 in the regular season finale with Yates only throwing 4 incomplete passes and throwing 3 touchdowns with only 1 interception. In the 2008 Meineke Car Care Bowl, against West Virginia University, Yates played a very solid game completing 60 percent of his passes for 211 yards and 2 touchdowns. The one error that Yates made in this game proved to be very costly as he threw his lone interception of the day during the final drive with less than two minutes remaining in the game. This interception clenched the game for West Virginia as Pat White and the rest of their offense proceeded to run out the clock on the Heels and their season.

Upcoming Junior Season
After the 2008 campaign which registered 8 wins and 4 losses, with all 4 of those losses coming by a very small margin, the Heels look to compete for a spot in the ACC Championship Game and a potential berth in a BCS Bowl Game. Yates will have to step up as the leader of the offense that will include a very young receiving core, many of whom have little-to-no collegiate game experience. If Yates can become the leader he is expected to be, the Heels will have a very successful 2009 football season.

Career Statistcs
(as of December 27, 2008)