For those tuning in on Monday night to see how Bill Belichick would fare making the transition from the NFL to college football, you experienced a drastic case of whiplash. Pregame, the buzz for the legendary coach’s debut was off the charts, and bedlam broke out at Chapel Hill following the seven-play, 83-yard opening touchdown drive that gave the Tar Heels an immediate 7-0 lead over TCU. Then, in the blink of an eye, “The Hoodie” turned into a pumpkin.
Forty-one. The Horned Frogs rattled off 41 unanswered points en route to a 48-14 bludgeoning of Belichick and UNC.
This wasn’t just your run of the mill beatdown, it was an embarrassing defeat in Belichick’s debut that saw fans file out of Kenan Memorial Stadium midway through the third quarter.
If you were looking at this game through the lens of a New England Patriots follower, hoping to see that the old dog still has a few tricks up his sleeve and somewhat relive the glory days of the dynasty, you instead got a reminder why Belichick isn’t lurking around 1 Patriot Place anymore.
Admittedly, it’s just one game that we’re analyzing here with Belichick’s Tar Heels, but being so soundly overmatched did have an ominous feeling of his final seasons in Foxborough.
In the post-Tom Brady era, Belichick’s Patriots went 29-38 between 2020 and 2024 in the regular season. They failed to reach the playoffs in all but one season (2021) and that year were blown out in TCU-type fashion in the wild card round by the Buffalo Bills, 47-17. In those final four seasons, Belichick’s Patriots endured a total of nine losses by at least three scores, which includes that loss to Buffalo.
By the numbers: Why Bill Belichick’s UNC debut was a disaster for the ages at North Carolina
Shehan Jeyarajah
Belichick’s final four seasons with New England
|
2023 |
4-13 |
No |
|
2022 |
8-9 |
No |
|
2021 |
10-7 |
Yes (Lost in wild card) |
|
2020 |
7-9 |
No |
This losing margin on Monday was the second-largest of his coaching career. The rest of the top five came during the post-Brady window we’re discussing. Meanwhile, the 48 points allowed were the most ever in his career.
So, what similarities can we draw from this sluggish start at UNC and his dwindling years with the Patriots? Belichick the personnel man may be too reliant on Belichick the coach. Yes, we know that Mike Lombardi is technically the Tar Heels GM, but it’s Belichick running the show. As he made this transition to UNC, the program brought in a total of about 70 players who weren’t on the roster a season ago. That’s an almost unheard amount of turnover and to expect this makeshift roster to contend out of the gate as a cohesive unit is nonsensical.
It reeks of the nonchalant approach New England took in the NFL Draft in his final years with the expectation that he could take lower-level talent and coach them up to a respectable, competitive player almost instantly. Cole Strange out of Chattanooga? Sure, take him No. 29 overall and we’ll coach him up into being a first-round talent. Fast-forward to today and that 2022 first-rounder is off the team and is on the Cleveland Browns practice squad. That line of thinking proved to be unsuccessful, led to his departure from the Patriots, and the organization is still feeling the ramifications to this day.
Beginning in 2017, Belichick (who also served as the Patriots general manager) oversaw seven NFL Drafts before the two sides parted ways. He drafted a total of 63 players. Of those players, three were named a first-team All-Pro, all of which came on special teams. One piece of that trio (Braxton Berrios) earned that honor with another club. Moreoever, only two of those players were named to the Pro Bowl — punter Jake Bailey in 2020 and Mac Jones as an alternate in 2021. On top of the draft, New England also had a shrewed reputation under Belichick on the free agent market as well, rarely addressing glaring needs with upper escholon talent.
For a while, that approached worked out find, particularly with Tom Brady masking many of the warts due to his generational talent. Without that, however, Belichick struggled to live up to his legendary reputation in his final seasons with the Patriots, and it appears to still be the case at UNC. For him to claw out of this hole, he’ll have to lean more toward bringing in elite talent to complement his coaching ability and not the other way around.
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