College Football HQ

National reaction after Bill Belichick's shocking college football debut

What everyone is saying after Bill Belichick coached his first college football game. It... didn't go well.
James Parks|
Reactions are pouring in from Bill Belichick's college football debut after North Carolina got demolished by TCU.
Reactions are pouring in from Bill Belichick's college football debut after North Carolina got demolished by TCU. | Bob Donnan-Imagn Images

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North Carolina Tar Heels

All eyes were on Bill Belichick as the eight-time Super Bowl champion made his college football debut, leading North Carolina against TCU with the primetime Monday night slot all to himself to make a good first impression.

That... didn’t happen.

Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong, as Belichick and the Tar Heels fell flat on their face, finishing on the wrong end of a 48-14 shellacking that was frankly an embarrassment both for the coach and the North Carolina program.

It started out well enough, as new quarterback Gio Lopez led the Tar Heels on an 83-yard drive in the first quarter, resulting in Caleb Hood’s touchdown and an early 7-0 lead.

Maybe this could work after all, was the general consensus among college football watchers.

Then, the Horned Frogs had their turn, and they never looked back.

Josh Hoover hit on a 27-yard touchdown pass to tie the game six minutes later, Bud Clark intercepted Lopez and ran for a 25-yard score, Kevorian Barnes ran for a 75-yard TD, Trent Battle added another from 28 yards, Lopez lost a fumble that went 37 yards the other way for a TCU touchdown, and Hoover threw a second TD before exiting.

TCU’s offense picked up where it left off from last season, when Hoover led college football’s eighth-ranked passing attack while putting up career numbers in terms of yards and touchdowns.

That unit looked intact again, as Hoover went 27 of 36 passing for 284 yards with 2 touchdowns before being pulled as the game got out of hand in the Frogs’ favor.

Let’s take a look at some of the reactions to Belichick’s college football debut...

Folks, it was bad

Maybe it wasn't going to be perfect as Bill Belichick started out his college football tenure, but nobody at North Carolina thought it was going to be quite that bad right away.

That was forgettable

Okay, maybe that's something of an overreaction, but that's what Week 1 is for, right? North Carolina definitely feels embarrassed with everyone interested in college football watching this standalone game, but no decisions of that kind are being made at this point. But if it doesn't improve?

Yikes

That's definitely a unique perspective, and recalls what was an active offseason for Belichick amid all the publicity and tabloid coverage of his relationship with his girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, and her various misadventures as his unofficial publicist and muse.

Early hopes

North Carolina marched out to an early 7-0 lead on TCU, but it didn't take long for the Horned Frogs to figure out what the Tar Heels' offense was doing, and made some quick changes to their game plan.

Oh man

It might be a little early to close the book on Belichick at UNC, but that won't stop the memes from pouring in after this disaster.

Put her in, coach

The Jordon Hudson jokes will be incessant, but more important will be the early criticism of how North Carolina prepared for, and executed in, this game.

That might be a little much

The general consensus around Belichick that emerged online during Monday's game was that it was Tom Brady who did all the heavy lifting in the Patriots dynasty, not Belichick, who hasn't been quite the same since parting with his legendary quarterback.

This was never going to be immediate

Even with college football rosters changing more so every year now than ever before thanks to the transfer portal, you still can't expect an entire program to turn it around quite that fast.

Especially considering just how much turnover the Tar Heels had in Belichick's first offseason.

Were they even trying?

It's hard to square the performance, and the effort, of what we saw on the field with this being a Belichick coached team. The game plan, the fundamentals, the execution; all were lacking.

Up there with Belichick's worst games

Belichick has been around for a quite a while, and seen most of what a football coach can see on the field, but what happened in his UNC debut was up there with his very worst moments.

This was the worst, ever

No Bill Belichick coached team ever allowed that many points in his long career on the sideline, but his first exposure to college football proved to be the nadir for his legacy.

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James Parks
JAMES PARKS

James Parks is the founder and publisher of College Football HQ. He has covered football for a decade, previously managing several team sites and publishing national content for 247Sports.com for five years. His work has also been published on CBSSports.com. He founded College Football HQ in 2020, and the site joined the Sports Illustrated Fannation Network in 2022 and the On SI network in 2024.

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