Dave Canales is the new head coach of the Carolina Panthers, and quarterback Bryce Young “is a huge piece” of why he is.

“The more that I got ready for this interview and started watching Bryce,” Canales said at his introductory press conference on Thursday, “looking at my notes from his eval – that’s just a year ago we’re evaluating him as a player, as a person, all the information that we could — I just got more and more fired up about the opportunity to have this amazing talent.

“And he’s the guy. He’s the right guy that we all talk about when we have that quarterback, that face-of-the-franchise type of player. And that got me really excited.”

Carolina chose Alabama’s 2021 Heisman Trophy winner at No. 1 in the 2023 NFL Draft. The Panthers posted a 2-15 record, the worst in the NFL in the 2023 season as Young started all but one game, which he missed because of an ankle injury.

Along the way, Carolina fired coach Frank Reich 11 games into the campaign and had special-teams coordinator Chris Tabor finish the season as the interim coach.

“Now he’s got a full season – 16 out of 17 games – under his belt of NFL experience,” Canales said in an interview for the Panthers’ official website. “That’s irreplaceable. The coverages he had to see, the decisions he had to make, the speed of play, it’s like I got this bonus year to come in here and kind of build off of that.”

Canales comes aboard in Carolina after working as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ offensive coordinator in 2023. The Bucs beat the Panthers twice in NFC South games during the season – 21-18 on Dec. 3 and 9-0 on Jan. 7. Young completed 26-of-49 passes for 272 yards with no touchdowns and one interception.

Despite those stats, Canales is confident in Young’s future with Carolina.

“The sky’s the limit for him,” Canales said. “I think the important part to understand is for Bryce to just do your one-11 on the offensive side. That’s it. He’s been a winner in high school. He won at Alabama. And when we build the team the right way, he’ll be a winner here because he knows how to do that, and he’s got the right makeup to handle those high-pressure situations. We watched him for years do it.”

The Panthers have not had a winning record or reached the playoffs since the 2017 season. In the six seasons since, Carolina has had six head coaches – three of them interim after the head coach was fired during the season.

Canales said Young’s growth would be the key to avoiding that fate.

“I want him to know that I have his best interest at heart,” Canales said. “I want him to be the best possible version of himself. That’s the same approach that I’ve taken since I’ve been coaching positions in the NFL. That’s really the approach that I want to take with him.

“Some of the other things that kind of come to mind thinking about the quarterbacks I’ve worked with over the last couple of years is we’re going to become what Bryce is great at in the pass game. We’re going to grow to the capacity that he can handle.”

Canales spent 14 seasons working with Pete Carroll – one season at Southern Cal and 13 with the Seattle Seahawks.

In Seattle, Canales spent eight seasons as the wide-receivers coach, three seasons as the quarterbacks coach and two seasons as the passing-game coordinator before leaving for the Buccaneers.

In his three seasons as a quarterbacks coach and one season as an offensive coordinator, Canales has produced a Pro Bowl quarterback in each – Russell Wilson and Geno Smith in Seattle and Baker Mayfield in Tampa Bay.

For Smith and Mayfield, Canales played a part in each quarterback’s revival. Smith was six years removed from his previous NFL opportunity as a No. 1 quarterback when he re-emerged with the Seahawks in 2022. Mayfield had played for both Carolina and the Los Angeles Rams in 2022 before starting every regular-season game and two playoff contests for Tampa Bay in 2023.

“It starts with relationships and trust,” Canales said of helping quarterback’s play their best. “It starts with hearing their story and them hearing mine. I think when we can level there and they understand that I’m there for them. I was able to do that as a position coach, and then last year first time as a coordinator, to become whatever pass game fit Baker Mayfield, to become what fit Geno Smith. It really started with Russell, becoming what fits Russell Wilson and then representing that for the staff. We had a couple of coordinators come in there, and I would step in and say, ‘OK, these are the things that Russell’s great at,’ and then kind of build it around those things.

“I’m excited to do that with Bryce.”

As he did in Tampa Bay, Young will call the plays for the Panthers’ offense.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.