When North Carolina football coach Bill Belichick envisioned how his first college football game would go, he probably didn't think Kirk Herbstreit's dog, Pete, would be taking over the color commentary in the fourth quarter.
Unfortunately for Belichick and the Tar Heels, that's exactly what happened on Monday, and it wasn't because UNC was embarrassing TCU. In fact, aside from the respective first drives of the teams, the Horned Frogs utterly dominated North Carolina, spoiling Belichick's debut.
As a result, Herbstreit and Rece Davis appeared to have run out of things to talk about late in the game. So while they essentially counted down the seconds to the merciful end of a one-sided game, the conversation turned to Herbstreit's dog, whom Herbstreit tapped to take over the headset.
“You call the rest of the last two minutes; it's all you, kid,” Herbstreit said to Pete. Herbstreit then took off his headset and placed it on Pete's head, although Pete had little productive to say, but he did pant into the microphone before Herbstreit took his headset back.
“Well, the wheels are off,” Davis said with a laugh.
Kirk Herbstreit’s dog got to call a play for the TCU-UNC game 😅 pic.twitter.com/k6W6bnDxi8
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) September 2, 2025
The bright side for Belichick and North Carolina football is that it couldn't have gone much worse than Monday, and that there is a lot of room for improvement. And it would be shocking if the Tar Heels didn't greatly improve as the season goes along.
As the broadcasters pointed out, UNC added 70 new players to its roster this offseason, which is an extraordinarily high number even in the transfer portal era. Many of those new arrivals are true freshmen, who are not typically ready to play Power-4 football immediately anyway.
TCU, to its credit, is also typically a good team. Last season, the Horned Frogs went 9-4, with two of those losses coming by a combined four points. And just three years ago, TCU made it to the national championship game.
North Carolina will certainly hope that a step down in competition, at least temporarily, can help stabilize the early part of what could be a rough season. Next up is Charlotte on Saturday night. UNC then hosts FCS Richmond before going on the road to play at UCF.
