Greg McElroy defends North Carolina vs. TCU as a Top 10 nonconference game in 2025

The college football season is rapidly approaching. Ahead of it, analyst Greg McElroy looked at what he thinks are the 10 best nonconference games of 2025, including the TCU Horned Frogs at the North Carolina Tar Heels.

A choice that normally would catch fans a little surprised, McElroy explained on Always College Football that there’s a good reason why this is the ninth-ranked nonconference game for him. That’s the new North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick.

“We’ll go to TCU at North Carolina,” Greg McElroy said. “This will be Labor Day Monday. Now this is interesting exclusively for one reason. It’s because Bill Belichick will be patrolling the sidelines for the North Carolina Tar Heels.”

As an NFL coach, Bill Belichick is legendary. He won six Super Bowls as a head coach and played in nine. He won another two as a defensive coordinator. He’s also third on the all-time wins list with 302 while his 31 postseason wins are first all-time. Now, for the first time coaching in college, there’s more than a little interest surrounding the Belichick experiment at North Carolina. That makes his first college game worth watching.

“Now, I think part of it, those of you who are watching that aren’t diehard fans of college football, you’re probably sitting there thinking, ‘Yeah, I want to see Bill Belichick. I want to see him on the sidelines. This is crazy.’ Guy’s got six Super Bowls,” McElroy said. “And now he’s coaching college football for the first time in his career. That is intriguing for everybody else.”

On the other side of the coin, TCU is an interesting team in its own right. Coached by Sonny Dykes, a longtime college coach, the Horned Frogs are hoping to make noise in 2025. It’s their fourth season under Dykes and they’ve been inconsistent since his first year there when he took TCU to the College Football Playoff and eventually the national championship game. After a strong finish in 2024, they’ll want to make noise with a statement to open next season.

“What’s lost in the equation is that TCU, I think, has a chance to be a real player in the Big 12,” McElroy said. “And a darkhorse Playoff contender. So, a nice matchup and a stern test for Bill Belichick in his first game as the head coach at North Carolina.”

North Carolina and TCU are set to kick off their seasons on September 1st in Chapel Hill. In the meantime, both teams are going to still have a couple of months to get ready for the matchup.