Bill Belichick has been the talk of college football in North Carolina from the second he was hired backed in December. It took one thee quarters on Monday night to remove that excitement and replace it with familiar groans of inevitability. Nobody expected the rebuilding Tar Heels to beat TCU, but by the same token nobody saw them getting embarrassed at Keenan Stadium, 48-14 — including allowing a shocking 21 points in the third quarter, a time most assumed the great Bill Belichick would make second half adjustments so his team could come back.
There is a fundamental reality to UNC’s loss: Rebuilding takes time, culture building doesn’t happen overnight, and fans with ludicrous expectations have to temper them — but at the same time the loss is emblematic of much of the Belichick era in Chapel Hill so far, the expected meeting the unexpected. The loss was expected, the beatdown wasn’t. Gruff Belichick was expected, the addition of girlfriend Jordon Hudson to the football program wasn’t. Competitiveness was expected, and, well, we didn’t get that either. TCU stunting on Belichick after the win and mocking him into oblivion? Okay, maybe that one was expected.
What precisely wen’t wrong on Monday? In a word: Everything. Gio Lopez, Belichick’s hand-picked transfer from South Alabama didn’t look remotely prepared for the moment. The dual-threat QB wasn’t threatening in either the passing game or running game, literally getting knocked out of the game with an injury, ending his Tar Heel debut a woeful 4-for-10, 60 yards and an interception, while registering seven carries for -10 yards. Carolina’s trio of running backs never stood a chance behind a porous offensive line, combining to registed 21 carries for a paltry 60 yards.
Somehow the defense was even worse. A bottom-half FBS defense a year ago was absolutely tragic in every phase against TCU, allowing 542 yards, while getting bodied in the run game as they allowed 258 rushing yards — and allowing a tragic 7-for-12 conversions on third down. This was supposed to be a phase of the game that could only go up under Steve Belichick, and instead he looked like a nepo baby incapable of formulating a plan to stop the Horned Frogs’ assault.
Of course, these are all elements of the game which can be read in a box score. Meaning gleaned purely through statistics. It’s impossible to quantify just how crestfallen Tar Heels fans are on Tuesday morning. This was a program that ostensibly sold its soul in order to win. The longstanding criticism of UNC football is that they never thought big enough, never capitalized on the stature of the university — that they were couched in small town thinking which always put a ceiling on their potential. In hiring Belichick they moved away from all that, abandoning the high-ideals of “The Tar Heel Way,” to bring in a man who is a proven asshole, but dammit if he isn’t a genius asshole.
It’s for that reason it was so objectively funny when Jordon Hudson began inserting herself into the program and making headlines alongside Belichick. The mere concept that a coach’s girlfriend, let alone one 48 years his junior would be acceptable to the golf-shirt wearing, pearl clutching Tar Heel elite was comical. When the pair trademarked “Gold Digger Jewelry” shortly before the season began it only got funnier.
The Belichick story has been mired in how much can Chapel Hill tolerate. This is the school’s first dance with a big-time head coach, and even by big time coach standards he’s really pushing the envelope. It’s one thing to be a crotchety old football coach who treats the media poorly in the NFL when you’re at the top of the mountain, but another entirely when you’re embarking on your college coaching career and playing the same games. If Carolina won on Monday night it would be a different story, but pulling a pathetic stunt like putting blank depth charts in the press box is beyond the pale when you’re this much of a loser.
Perhaps the worst part of this is that we have no idea how bad UNC could be in Belichick’s first year. On the whole the ACC looked fantastic in college football’s opening week, with FSU’s huge upset win over Alabama, Miami beating Notre Dame, and Clemson losing, but showing they belong in the national conversation by hanging with an elite LSU team.
The Tar Heels have two cupcakes coming up in Charlotte and Richmond, games that should easily put them back into the winning side of the ledger, but then they face UCF, which is a toss-up, before taking on Clemson on October 4. If things aren’t worked out quickly then that Clemson game could be a legendary Tar Heel beatdown.
While we can certainly understand why the Tar Heels lost on Monday, it doesn’t change what a massive body blow this was for the contingent of new-school UNC boosters that got their way in lobbying the school to take a risk on a guy like Belichick. This was supposed to be a game that proved that North Carolina football could take a step forward by changing the way it operated, instead it was business as usual — but this time without a man leading the program with charisma to smooth it over.
A patently stoic Belchick admitted his team’s problems after the game.
“We really need to work on everything. We have to do a better job of coaching and have to do a better job of playing in all three phases of the game…We’re a better football team than we showed tonight.”
It’s only Week 1, but Belichick better hope that UNC is a better football team than they showed on Monday night, otherwise this experiment could end before it ever really began.