For a precious few minutes, Bill Belichick was on top of the college football world. The stars were out for the NFL legend's UNC debut against TCU on Monday night, from Lawrence Taylor to Michael Jordan, everyone desperate to finally get a glimpse of what arguably the greatest coach of all-time would have in store. And at first, the answer was thrilling: The Tar Heels marched right down the field on their opening drive, then forced a three-and-out on their first defensive possession. Turns out this college thing isn't so tricky after all, right?
... not so fast, my friend. The next 50 minutes or so were downright ugly: UNC couldn't hold up on either line of scrimmage, allowing 258 yards rushing and getting starting QB Gio Lopez battered (and eventually injured) in a 48-14 loss that somehow felt even more lopsided than that score would suggest. The Heels didn't just look undermanned; they looked underprepared, leaving Belichick to fume on the sidelines without an easy answer in sight.
All offseason long, Belichick and his girlfriend/assistant/publicist/svengali Jordon Hudson did everything they could to control the narrative around both this team and its coach's transition to the college game. The press appearances were managed within an inch of their lives, the practices shrouded in secrecy — to the point where Belichick wouldn't even let his players have numbers on the backs of their jerseys, lest any prying eyes catch wind of what UNC had planned for this season.
Which was effective in creating an air of secrecy around this team all spring and summer. Even the most plugged-in of insiders seemingly had no idea what to expect on Monday night, from depth chart to scheme to everything in between. But you can only hide for so long; eventually, toe meets leather, and your team needs to actually play a football game in front of fans and television cameras. And what we saw on Monday night was what we should have realized all along: That this is a program mired in mediocrity more or less starting from scratch, and that — no matter how badly Hudson, GM Mike Lombardi and others have tried to spin it in the media for months now — Belichick is facing an uphill battle he very well may not win.
No one should be surprised by how poorly Bill Belichick's UNC debut went
Really, it shouldn't have taken more media access for us to temper our expectations for the Heels this season. Mack Brown left behind a sagging program, one that went 6-7 overall and 3-5 in the ACC in 2024. There was precious little talent on either side of the ball, and there was even less after a transfer exodus following Brown's firing. The offensive line was rebuilt on the fly, returning just one starter from last year and relying heavily on G6 up-transfers. And there were no dynamic talents at the skill spots: Leading returning rusher Davion Gause had 326 rushing yards last season, while leading returning receiver Kobe Paysour had 365 receiving yards.
The picture on defense was somehow even worse. Per ESPN's Bill Connelly, only three of the 16 defenders who saw at least 200 snaps last year returned, and transfers from UConn and Delaware were the only remotely known quantities on the defensive line. Remove the Belichick gravitas and all the commensurate hype; just looking at the situation on paper, why would anyone expect this team to be any good right away?
What we saw on Monday night was what we should've expected all along, a team going through profound transition that doesn't have the horses to compete on either side of the ball. They aren't strong enough in the trenches, and they aren't explosive enough on the perimeter, especially on offense. They look like ... a program in year one of a rebuild, which is precisely what they are.
All of which would be fine; again, Brown was asleep at the wheel toward the end of his tenure, and this was always going to be more than a one-year lift. It's hardly Belichick's fault that his name brings with it such lofty expectations. What's far more troubling than the product on the field right now is the attitude of Belichick and those around him, one that sure doesn't seem conducive to winning at the college level in 2025.
Bill Belichick needs to master a whole different set of rules if he wants to succeed in Chapel Hill
The talent deficiency would be understandable if it were being paired with sound decisions off the field. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case: Belichick let his son, Steve, run the defense, while letting failed NFL coach Freddie Kitchens serve as offensive coordinator. His new GM — an increasingly important position in the college game — was Lombardi, a man who hasn't served in any meaningful non-Belichick position since a disastrous one-year stint running the Cleveland Browns back in 2013.
Lombardi had no shortage of tough talk over his first offseason in charge, telling anyone with a microphone (including, repeatedly, the Pat McAfee Show) that he and Belichick were building a 33rd NFL team in Chapel Hill. All of which did a great job of masking the fact that ... well, there's really no reason to think that Lombardi knows how to evaluate talent, nor does he have any experience in getting said talent to commit to a college program in the current age.
Belichick's camp is desperate to spin his arrival as a paradigm shift, but simply throwing Super Bowl rings on the table doesn't hit the way it once might have. The kids don't really care, not when there are more prestigious programs offering them more money to play elsewhere, and there are a zillion hungry coaches looking to eat Belichick's and Kitchens' lunch if they're not careful. The PR strategy that Hudson and Co. have tried to employ belies a real lack of respect for what they're walking into, an unfounded belief that they can simply show up and make everything alright. Putting a bad product on the field in Week 1 of a rebuild is one thing; arrogance is another, and it'll be fascinating to see whether Belichick, Hudson and Lombardi are capable of taking a long look in the mirror.