The North Carolina football program started the Bill Belichick era with a whimper. UNC got blown out 48-14 by TCU in Belichick's first game as head coach of the program. A blowout loss is the last thing that most Tar Heels fans expected ahead of the 2025 college football season. So what happened?
Belichick did not hold back when describing what went wrong against TCU.
“They outplayed us, outcoached us, and they were just better than we were tonight,” Belichick said. “That's all there was to it. They did a lot more things right than we did.”
The legendary head coach went on to describe all of UNC's failures during Monday's pitiful performance.
“Too many three-and-outs, too many long plays on defense, two turnovers for touchdowns. You can't overcome that,” Belichick said. “We just can't perform well doing some of the things we did. We've got to be better than that. We had too many self-inflicted wounds we have to eliminate before we can even worry about addressing our opponent.”
UNC's first drive of the game resulted in a touchdown. But it was all downhill from there.
North Carolina football looked unprepared during Belichick's first game as head coach
Belichick's squad did not score again until the third quarter, and the game was already out of hand by that point.
The Tar Heels played some sloppy football on Monday. What's more worrisome is that UNC looked unprepared for the moment, which comes down to coaching.
“I thought we were prepared for the game,” UNC backup quarterback Max Johnson said. “We prepared for a week and a half for TCU specifically, but we've been working on our fundamentals for a year now. We need to do a better job executing.”
Belichick added that his team is better than they showed against TCU. But he did challenge them to prove it on the football field.
“We're better than what we were tonight, but we have to go out there and show that and prove it,” Belichick said. “Nobody's going to do it for us. We're going to have to do it ourselves, and that's what we're going to do.”
The Tar Heels do not have long to regroup.
Next up for UNC is a road game against Charlotte on Saturday.
