Few have swapped Páirc Esler for the Aviva Stadium, but on Saturday, former Down minor footballer Adam McCann-Gibbs will do just that when he makes his debut for the University of North Carolina (UNC) in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic.
It was his skill with the O’Neill’s size five, however, that set him up for gridiron success. A graduate of the Leader Kicking programme that has fed a growing number of Irish players into the US college football system and, for some, the NFL, the 18-year-old from Newry didn’t have far to look to see what was possible for a young Irish lad hoping to make it stateside.
“Charlie’s obviously been a big inspiration for me,” he says of his fellow Down man Charlie Smyth, who also came through the pathway set up by brothers Tadhg and Darragh Leader, who recognised that Gaelic footballers, with a little bit of training, had the potential to make fine punters in American football.
Smyth signed for NFL side the New Orleans Saints in 2024 and enjoyed a breakthrough season in 2025.
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“He only lives 10 minutes from me,” McCann-Gibbs says. “He’s sort of helped me through this, we’ve been in contact a lot.
“Having that two, three years’ experience under his belt, being able to learn from what he’s been doing, and listening to him, it’s been really inspiring. And obviously, he’s a local lad, like myself, so it’s always really good to see him do well.”
Picking up a new sport in your late teens, when many of his team-mates and opponents would have started aged six, McCann-Gibbs had a lot to learn, and fast, when he joined UNC in January. Luckily, there, he has one of the best in the business at his disposal in Bill Belichick. If you want to learn right from wrong in American football, a Super Bowl-winning head coach isn’t a bad contact to have.
“He’s been amazing,” McCann-Gibbs says of Belichick, who led the New England Patriots to six Super Bowl titles, with Tom Brady among his stars. “You’re blown away whenever he goes up in a team meeting, everyone shuts up really quickly. You’re able to learn from the guy who’s at the top of his game.”
He adds: “One thing he talks a lot about is just the process of doing everything, everything good has [a process] behind it ... that’s what we stick by.”
UNC’s preseason fall camp was a chance for McCann-Gibbs to drill those processes before the rubber meets the road on Saturday at the Aviva, where they kick off their season against Texas Christian University.
Having attended last year’s Aer Lingus College Football Classic between the Kansas State Wildcats and the Iowa State Cyclones, his first time at an American football game, McCann-Gibbs is aware of the spectacle that awaits.
“It’s an amazing feeling knowing that you’re able to go home and potentially make your debut in front of a home crowd. I have a lot of family coming, a lot of friends, a lot of people from home who texted me in the last week, so yeah, it’s just a really special moment and I’m trying to enjoy it.”
He adds: “I didn’t want to look too far ahead in the last couple of weeks, so really, I’m just going to be in the moment. I haven’t really thought what I’m going to do, or what is going to happen. I’m just going to try and live in the moment and enjoy it for what it is.
“It’s going to be special with my family there; running out and seeing all the Irish fans and all the American football fans. It’s going to be a really good moment.”
