Danny Kanell on Bill Belichick's North Carolina debut: 'It doesn't look like it's going to work this season'

The first game of the Bill Belichick era at North Carolina was… in one word… a nightmare. And that might be putting it nicely.

Although the Tar Heels marched down the field and immediately took a 7-0 lead, TCU scored 41 unanswered points to take a 41-7 lead over Carolina with 6:56 remaining in the third quarter. The final score settled at 48-14 in favor of the Horned Frogs, marking a rough start to the Belichick era in Chapel Hill.

North Carolina‘s 48-14 loss to TCU was the largest home loss by an ACC team in a season opener against an unranked team since Duke got shutout 38-0 by East Carolina on Sept. 2, 2000. It was not quite the first impression that the six-time Super Bowl-winning coach wanted to make.

CBS Sports HQ‘s Danny Kanell joined ESPN‘s Greg McElroy on the ‘Always College Football‘ podcast on Wednesday to discuss Belichick’s first impression on the sport of college football. In short, Kanell revealed that he doesn’t think it’s gonna work in Chapel Hill.

“I thought it was a massive flop that North Carolina put out in that performance,” Kanell said. “People were watching UNC, wondering what was going to happen with Bill Belichick. ‘Can this team be competitive?’ And you could have carried that on throughout the season, much like Colorado did with (Deion Sanders), if you win or if you lose close.

“To get dusted like that, I thought, was really rough. When you talk about good programs, you need your good programs to be good. With a name like Belichick, I would throw in Carolina this season. The ACC needed to do that to work. I know it’s early, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to work this season. If it doesn’t, I thought that was a missed opportunity for the ACC.”

North Carolina, however, will have a good opportunity to bounce back on Saturday when it travels to Charlotte. It will be the first away game of Belichick’s college football coaching career.

“You know again, we can control what we can control,” Belichick said on Wednesday. “We control how we prepare and how we play. However many people are or aren’t there, or whatever the weather is, and all those things we have no control over. We can just control our preparation, our performance, our attitude and how competitive we play. That’s what we’re gonna focus on.

“Whatever it is, it is. We honestly take the approach of we’ll play anywhere anytime. Day or night. Home, away, in a parking lot. In Ireland, North Carolina or in California. Wherever it is. We gotta be ready to play when the games are scheduled and we can control what we can control.”

Kick-off for Saturday’s game between the Tar Heels and 49ers is scheduled for 7:00 PM ET. The game can be seen on ESPN+.