Bill Belichick is the greatest coach in NFL history. Six Super Bowl rings are hard to argue with.<\/p>\n
And you\u2019d think taking a step down the theoretical ladder, from the pros to college football, would make him even better. At least, that\u2019s what the University of North Carolina thought.<\/p>\n
Nope.<\/p>\n
Instead Belichick\u2019s Tar Heels have quickly turned into a laughing stock, with the pre-season hype train going off the rails after just five games.<\/p>\n
Watch an average 6 games per week and every game of the NFL Postseason, LIVE with ESPN on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth remembering the last few years of Belichick in New England – when he had complete power over the team, but no Tom Brady – weren\u2019t great. In fact, he drove the franchise into a ditch which it\u2019s only now pulling itself out of.<\/p>\n We\u2019re not saying he lost his fastball, but he lost a few ticks off it, at least.<\/p>\n Still, surely Belichick would be able to outcoach most of his college rivals. He certainly believed so, claiming his Tar Heels would be \u201cthe 33rd NFL team\u201d.<\/p>\n In the sense that they\u2019re even more depressing than the worst team in the NFL, maybe.<\/p>\n They\u2019re not even the 33rd-best college football team; nowhere close.<\/p>\n North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick, left, watches during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Clemson, Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025, in Chapel Hill, N.C. (AP Photo\/Chris Seward)Source: AP<\/p>\n Instead Belichick\u2019s side sits 2-3, which doesn\u2019t sound terrible unless you know the rhythms of a college football season.<\/p>\n Teams in the biggest conferences – power conferences, in CFB lingo – play a 12-game schedule with either eight or nine conference games, and three or four out-of-conference games.<\/p>\n Generally, you play the out-of-conference games first. You might play one or two teams of a similar calibre, or an in-state rival, but for the most part these are warm-up games. Bigger teams will often pay smaller teams to come and play them, effectively buying wins (unless something goes terribly wrong).<\/p>\n North Carolina\u2019s two wins are over Charlotte, a relatively new program from a lower-tier conference who have never been any good (UNC won 20-3), and Richmond (UNC won 41-6).<\/p>\n No, that\u2019s not the AFL\u2019s Tigers, but a school from a lower division; the equivalent of an AFL team playing a VFL team. The result means next to nothing, and the Charlotte win isn\u2019t much better.<\/p>\n Jags stun Chiefs with late winner | 01:52<\/p>\n The other games, though, have been embarrassing defeats in prime TV slots. The networks figured everyone would want to watch Belichick\u2019s team, not realising they\u2019d be broadcasting a series of car crashes.<\/p>\n In his very first game, North Carolina lost 48-14 – the most points a Belichick team had ever allowed in a game – as TCU outgained them by 320 yards.<\/p>\n After the two wins over easy-beats, the opposition got tougher, and the results got worse – a 34-9 loss to UCF, followed by a 38-10 loss to fellow underperformers Clemson (who led 38-3 before a garbage time score).<\/p>\n So in their three games against even remotely similar opposition, Belichick\u2019s team has been demolished.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not just the fact they\u2019re losing. It\u2019s the way they\u2019re losing. Not just the huge scores conceded by a renowned defensive coach – but a team playing nothing like a \u2018Belichick team\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite having one of the greatest football coaches of all time, the Tar Heels are a poorly coached football team,\u201d US sportswriter Rodger Sherman explained on his Substack<\/a>.<\/p>\n He added, in a separate post on their opening game<\/a>: \u201cThey were undisciplined and fundamentally unsound, missing tackle after tackle. They botched snaps and handoffs. Their run fits were atrocious, and they repeatedly left TCU receivers uncovered.<\/p>\n \u201cStarting QB Gio Lopez threw a \u201cfirst time playing Madden\u201d pick six, one of two defensive scores for TCU. And as the game slipped away, UNC seemed to disintegrate in real time, allowing 41 straight points, jogging through the whistle on TCU touchdowns.<\/p>\n \u201cBelichick said all offseason that one fun thing about coaching college players is that they\u2019ve learned fewer bad habits. I don\u2019t know, Bill! Looks like your guys have a few!\u201d<\/p>\n Belichick brought former NFL colleague turned analyst Michael Lombardi with him to UNC as their general manager, after a long stint in the media.<\/p>\n And like many who\u2019ve gone from inside the game, to outside the game and then back inside, it doesn\u2019t seem to have worked.<\/p>\n Head coach Bill Belichick of the North Carolina Tar Heels walks off the field after losing 34-9 against the UCF Knights at FBC Mortgage Stadium on September 20, 2025 in Orlando, Florida. Julio Aguilar\/Getty Images\/AFPSource: AFP<\/p>\n The Tar Heels\u2019 biggest problem is they\u2019re simply not good enough, and that goes back to recruiting.<\/p>\n Theoretically, a coach of Belichick\u2019s calibre would be a draw for high schoolers and college transfers. But modern college football doesn\u2019t work the way it used to; legal ways to pay players mean the most successful schools scout the right players and then pay the big bucks.<\/p>\n For example Texas Tech, a perennially average performer who couldn\u2019t even break into the game\u2019s elite when Patrick Mahomes was there, is suddenly a conference favourite thanks to billionaire Cody Campbell who has invested hundreds of millions into their facilities and NIL (name, image and likeness) player contracts.<\/p>\n The Tar Heels have a few problems here – they don\u2019t have the money, what money they do have comes from boosters who care as much about basketball as football (they\u2019re the school of Michael Jordan), and once Belichick and Lombardi arrived they went after the wrong players.<\/p>\n One unnamed college coach at a school in a weaker conference than North Carolina told The Athletic<\/a> he was shocked by the Tar Heels competing for the same level of players as them.<\/p>\n \u201cDid they actually understand the landscape they were in? Did they understand that they\u2019re in the ACC, not like Conference USA or the Sun Belt? Like, we got beat by North Carolina on a bunch of kids,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, why the f\u2014 is North Carolina beating us on kids? When I keep running up against the same P4s (power conference schools) over and over again in recruiting, I\u2019m like, all right, they\u2019re gonna suck.\u201d<\/p>\n Denver Broncos prepare for winless Jets | 00:50<\/p>\n A dramatic week in Chapel Hill, where Belichick\u2019s status at the program has been questioned, has seen another worrying story emerge.<\/p>\n