Bad to worse for Bill Belichick: Dabo Swinney, reeling Clemson rout UNC as Heels hit new low in 2025 season

For the third time this season against Power Four competition, Bill Belichick’s team failed to show and was outclassed by their opponent, another colossal step back in a mass rebuild underway at North Carolina that is quite costly for the Tar Heels.

Saturday’s 38-10 beatdown at the hands of Clemson might’ve been UNC’s worst performance yet, even after the 34- and 25-point squashings by TCU and UCF left many questioning how Belichick’s squad could be this bad. This time around, fans were heading for the exits in the second quarter inside Kenan Stadium after a myriad of miscues and coverage breakdowns in the secondary led to several big plays from the Tigers.

Steve Belichick coaches UNC’s defense, while Brian Belichick instructs the secondary and safeties, a royal family of sorts who have not produced this fall on that side of the football outside of the staff’s wins over Charlotte and Richmond.

Amid its worst start since 2004 at 1-3 after Week 5, Clemson’s Dabo Swinney pinned his team’s early struggles as a “coaching failure” and said he was “pointing a thumb” at himself this week in hopes of energizing his players.

By the end of the first quarter against North Carolina, the Tigers had accumulated 253 yards of total offense with touchdowns spanning 75, 35, 45 and 23 yards, a great sign for a team that came into the contest slotted 13th in the ACC in explosive plays this season without much production to speak of from Cade Klubnik and the passing game. 

Twenty-eight points in the opening frame from Clemson was the most a Belichick-coached team had ever given up in a quarter, all this happening after an extra week to prepare for an offense that has struggled throughout the campaign.

Swinney, whose team took their foot off the accelerator in the second half, found accountability for the first time this season in prep for the Tar Heels, while the opposition’s tailspin hit another low point.

“I hire everybody, empower everybody and equip everybody and when players don’t play to their potential, to me, that’s (on) coaches,” Swinney said this week. “That’s on us. Our problems really are football stuff.”

Belichick mentioned several times during the offseason — and earlier this week — that he respects what Swinney has built at Clemson and planned to take a few pages from his college playbook on how to build a program. After losses to LSU, Georgia Tech and Syracuse early this fall, this wasn’t the Clemson that Swinney had become accustomed to during his successful tenure.

“We need a win a lot worse than he (Belichick) does,” Swinney said this week.

Belichick’s first three games against Power Four teams

Bye week didn’t help Tar Heels

Belichick stressed a return to football basics during a pregame interview with the “College GameDay” crew, saying his team’s open date before playing Clemson came at a good time after a 2-2 start.

It sure didn’t look like anything had changed from the Tar Heels’ previous outing.

“We spent a lot of time the first week on fundamentals and then the second week obviously getting ready for Clemson,” Belichick said Saturday morning. “We just need to play with more consistency, do the fundamental things better … block, tackle, throw, catch, cover, so forth.”

Belichick didn’t panic after the blowout loss to UCF and seems to understand this is going to take time in Chapel Hill. Belichick, who’s signed through the 2029 season, now has to pick up more pieces following this disaster at the hands of Clemson.

“It’s a little bit of a process, but we’re grinding away,” Belichick said prior to his team’s 25-point hold in the first quarter Saturday. “And I’m sure we’ll get better each year here.”