CHAPEL HILL — After his first season at North Carolina, Bryn Renner paid his own way to the Manning Passing Academy in Louisiana, where he just wanted to watch, “observe and help out any way I could,” he said.

By then, the Tar Heels’ quarterback hadn’t yet thrown a pass in college. Yet he followed former UNC quarterback T.J. Yates down to the camp, in part just to see what it was all about.

Now Renner is back at the Manning Passing Academy, this time as an invited counselor. He’ll spend the next three days helping teach youth football players, and he’ll also have a chance, too, to spend some time with Peyton and Eli Manning.

“It’s a great opportunity just to ask questions and kind of learn from two of the best in the game,” Renner said Thursday, on his way to the airport before taking off for the camp. “I mean, it’s a huge, huge honor and a huge privilege to be around a lot of quarterbacks. …

“And (the Mannings are) really receptive of you asking questions and just learning about the quarterback craft.”

Renner is one of three local quarterbacks who will work the camp as counselors. N.C. State’s Mike Glennon is also there, as is Duke’s Sean Renfree. Of the three, though, Renner might be the one with the most to gain from learning a thing or two from the Manning brothers.

Renner will enter his junior season at UNC amid a completely new offensive system. The up-tempo spread that Tar Heels coach Larry Fedora worked in the spring to install is radically different than the more traditional, pro-style offense in which Renner operated a season ago.

“They’ve obviously adjusted to (different) offenses before in the past,” Renner said of the Mannings. “And I’m going through the same transition with a new offensive coordinator and really just want to ask some questions maybe about that and how they handled it and how they dealt with it.”

Renner has been attempting to lead the Tar Heels’ offensive skill players through player-only workouts during the summer. The team’s running backs, receivers, tight ends and quarterbacks have often gathered, he said, to practice the new offense on their own.

The Tar Heels are planning to begin preseason practice on Aug. 3.

“Spring ball was a huge plus for us, that we could get in there and learn,” Renner said. “But I think it really took (the offense) just to get together this summer and do it on our own without coaches there. That’s the best time that we learn as players, is when we have to hold each other accountable for knowing the system.”

Renner himself with spend parts of the next few days coaching. But while he’s teaching, he’s also hoping to learn some things, too. On the way to the camp, he thought about what awaited him there. For a college quarterback, he said, “There’s not a better opportunity in the country, I don’t think.”

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