CHAPEL HILL, NC — From start to finish, the whole thing was weird.
Watching Bill Belichick follow North Carolina out of the tunnel for the season opener against TCU was jarring even the better part of a year after his arrival, demanding you finally come to grips with the fact that this is something that’s actually happening: Belichick. College football. North Carolina.
Part of your brain saw Albert Einstein walking into a new position teaching high school algebra. Another part saw Johnny Unitas as a backup for the San Diego Chargers. Something just did not compute.
The reception wasn’t surprising, though. From the sold-out ticket allotment through the community’s frenzied excitement surrounding his debut, the atmosphere inside Kenan Stadium — flashing lights, choreographed blackouts, even Michael Jordan in a luxury box — reflected the unrestrained jubilation over the school’s football-forward decision to hire a six-time Super Bowl champion as the coach of this perpetually underachieving program.
But good vibes don’t win football games. For Belichick and UNC, the party ended not long after kickoff, in a brutal blowout loss that managed to erase nine months of hope and hype in a single 60-minute package.
Facing off against an established Power Four winner with a moderate chance of making the College Football Playoff, the Tar Heels scored a touchdown on the opening possession but were quickly overwhelmed by the Horned Frogs, who scored the ensuing 41 points and won 48-14.
The 48 points were the most UNC had allowed in a season opener in program history. Not once in his 511-game career as an NFL head coach had a Belichick team allowed that many points.
On the heels of a dismal end to his NFL career, Monday night’s matchup gave Belichick a prime opportunity to start rewriting his narrative. Instead, the debut was an unmitigated debacle that triggered something close to sympathy, if not simple concern: Are you sure there isn’t something else you should be doing? Is this really what you want to do? You could’ve just retired, you know?
Belichick’s broad legacy may be secure; his unparalleled NFL achievements should grow, not diminish, with time. But first impressions matter, even for head coaches with an unmatched collection of Super Bowl hardware.
Held against the backdrop of his NFL success and all the attention paid to his arrival, this was one of the worst introductions by a new head coach in Power Four history. Rather than basking in adulation, the GOAT of NFL head coaches spent his Labor Day wearing a blank stare on the sour end of an embarrassment.
‘They did a lot more things right than we did,’ said Belichick. ‘Give them credit, they were the better team.’
While the Tar Heels should improve, Belichick’s initiation to the Bowl Subdivision will stoke the cynical perception of his alignment with UNC as more of a publicity stunt than the result of a nuanced search for former coach Mack Brown’s successor. Regardless, Belichick is being paid $10 million per season to deliver a winning product, not just sell out a home stadium that began to empty out early in the second half.
‘There are no shortcuts,’ he said, and then in true Belichick fashion, mumbled that the Tar Heels were ‘moving onto Charlotte,’ next week’s opponent.
TCU might be poised for a renaissance three years after making an unexpected run to the national championship game in coach Sonny Dykes’ first season. This is more likely a team that contends for nine wins, hovering around the back end of the US LBM Coaches Poll without making a noticeable dent in the playoff race.
Monday night doesn’t provide a clearer picture. Even with a lengthy runway to prepare for the opener, UNC allowed the Horned Frogs to resemble the many NFL opponents that took turns humbling Belichick’s teams over his post-Tom Brady tenure with the New England Patriots.
‘We all felt a little disrespected,’ said TCU coach Sonny Dykes. ‘There was a lot of conversation and none of it was about us.’
TCU finished with 542 yards, 258 yards coming on the ground and 284 through the air, on 7.5 yards per play. The Horned Frogs ran 72 plays and gained 29 first downs. The offense had six passing plays of at least 15 yards and six carries of at least 10 yards.
The Tar Heels managed only 222 yards, with over a third of that total coming on the opening drive. After that initial touchdown, UNC failed to gain another first down until just over three minutes left in the first half.
‘They were clearly the better team tonight,’ Belichick said.
Lopez, named the starter last week, finished 4 of 10 for 69 yards with two turnovers. The former South Alabama completed just one pass after the first drive and was replaced by backup Max Johnson in the third quarter. Johnson was much better, completing 9 of 11 throws for 103 yards, sparking an early quarterback controversy for Belichick to address before meeting Charlotte in five days time.
The play from UNC was chaotic, full of sloppy snaps, sloppy tackling, sloppy angles, sloppy line play and sloppy play-calling that greased the wheels for the Horned Frogs’ blowout. Part of this messiness can be attributed to a massive roster overhaul that brought 70 new players into the program, many after the end of spring drills.
But plenty of other first-year coaches in the portal era have conducted similar offseason renovations and hit the ground running — and Belichick didn’t inherit a proven loser but a program coming off six bowl games in a row. That makes the Tar Heels’ ugly, often undisciplined performance more concerning.
‘I thought we were prepared for the game,’ said Johnson. ‘We’ve been working on our fundamentals this whole last year. But we’ve got to do a better job executing.’
There was a pick-six in the second quarter – a huge momentum swing – to put TCU ahead 17-7. There was the inane decision to punt on fourth down at the TCU 46-yard line with just over a minute left in the first half, which resulted in a botched snap and a 26-yard punt that helped the Horned Frogs drive for a field goal as time expired.
There was a backbreaking 75-yard touchdown run on the first play of the second half to push the score to 27-7. There was a 20-yard completion on third-and-20 on the Horned Frogs’ ensuing possession that resulted in a 28-yard touchdown run on the next play.
UNC took over and promptly turned the ball over again after Lopez was sacked and fumbled, with the loose ball scooped up by senior defensive end Devean Deal and returned 37 yards for yet another score.
Johnson stemmed the Horned Frogs’ run with a short scoring pass with under a minute to go in third quarter. Tossing garbage-time touchdowns aside, the Tar Heels were outgunned, outmanned, outplayed and outcoached for every meaningful moment outside of the first three minutes of the first quarter.
‘We’ve got to communicate better with what we’re doing,’ said Johnson. ‘We’ve just got to do a better job of going out there and competing every single play, throughout the whole game.’
From here, the Tar Heels continue through a schedule that includes preseason ACC favorite Clemson in early October but is otherwise manageable, with matchups against California, Virginia, Stanford and Wake Forest seemingly paving the way for six wins and bowl eligibility. But that’s good news and bad: Belichick’s team might be able to take advantage of a flimsy schedule, but the lack of marquee competition will make it harder to overcome the stink of this opener.
UNC hired him as a shortcut to relevancy, but trending online after losing by 34 points in front of a national audience isn’t what the school had in mind. But that’s where we are one game into this experiment, with Belichick humbled, stands empty, excitement erased and the Tar Heels facing the possibility of a long, long season. There’s never been a debut quite like this.
‘We’ll keep working and grinding away,’ Belichick said. ‘We’ve got to correct some of the mistakes we made. We had too many self-inflicted wounds. We’ll start with that.’