Bill Belichick is broken and the Tar Heels can’t fix him

Any hopes that North Carolina would “figure it out” were dashed on Saturday thanks to a 34-9 drubbing at the hands of UCF. It was a performance indicative not only of everything wrong in this new era of Tar Heel football, but with Bill Belichick himself. A man who seemingly always had an answer in the NFL is completely lost in college football, and that’s poised to get worse now starting quarterback Gio Lopez suffered an injury at the close of the game, and his future status is in question.

There are a multitude of reasons UNC is so bad. The team is soft defensively, allowing 22.8 points her game. They’re non-existent on offense, ranked 108th in FBS. Belichick’s hand-picked transfer QB has been awful, the running game is pathetic, there’s ostensibly no pass rush, and the only bright spot is sophomore receiver Jordan Shipp. The Heels are now 12th in the ACC at 2-2 on the year, with their sole wins coming against mediocre competition in Charlotte and Richmond.

Advertisement

Not only is North Carolina bad, but Belichick has just lost it. There’s a large degree of misogyny baked in to the overwhelming hatred of Belichick’s girlfriend Jordon Hudson — but that doesn’t change the fact that the Belichick we saw lead the Patriots to six rings would never, ever spent time while his team was warming up chatting to his significant other on the sidelines and becoming a meme.

HE is doing this. HE is contributing to this. It’s ludicrous to remove his agency in all this and pretend he’s completely under the spell of his younger girlfriend. Belichick has changed in the saddest way. It’s like seeing your friend’s dad for the first time since the divorce, rolling up outside of school in a red Mazda Miata, wearing jewelry for the first time, reeking of newly purchased cologne, and doing finger guns at you and your friends. Belichick’s three-quarter life crisis is taking center stage, while the football team have all the discipline of a latchkey kid in a house full of snacks.

Belichick has been in relationships before, but there was always a separation of church and state when it came to how he managed the football team. That is gone, and North Carolina doesn’t have an answer for the man they brought in to turn things around, who is suddenly performing worse than Mack Brown did a year ago — while being a colossal distraction. The mere existence of Belichick on the UNC sideline is motivation for their opponents, and without him making the team better, all we’re left with is North Carolina being goofed on by everyone in the football world. Here’s what UFC posted after their win this week:

Belichick has become the failure everyone hoped Deion Sanders would be upon entering FBS. It’s a reality that North Carolina doesn’t just lack contingencies for, but represents an existential threat to the new focus of their athletic department. The hiring of Belichick was mired in a battle over the direction of UNC athletics. One that pitted the old-school legacy boosters who wanted to stay the course, and new blood insisting that the Tar Heels start to act like a top-tier athletic program by being aggressive, and throwing their weight behind a big-name coach. Four weeks in only one of these sides has a considerable amount of egg on its face.

Advertisement

There’s no question that changing a culture and building a winner takes time in college football, but Belichick wasn’t a hire designed to “take time.” From the second he was announced it started a timer, with the understanding Belichick would only be around for two or three years at most. The hope was that he could have a huge impact, attract players through the portal, build the culture inside the program — then turn it over to his son, Steve.

Instead we’re now left looking at the schedule wondering where the hell another win will come from. There are eight games remaining in 2025, and while nothing is insurmountable, there certainly isn’t a game left that this UNC team should be favored in.

vs. Clemson

at Cal

vs. Virginia

at Syracuse

vs. Stanford

at Wake Forest

vs. Duke

At NC State

Stanford might be the last best chance to win a game this year. Duke and Wake Forest are probably tossups. This is the ceiling the Tar Heels are at right now. Not pushing for an ACC championship, but maybe being on par to two in-state rivals. That’s how low the bar has gotten for UNC with Belichick at the helm.

There’s no amount of terse answers and sleeveless hoodies that can turn this season around. North Carolina is a dumpster fire, and they clearly didn’t get what they ordered.

Click here to read article