Greg: A Bad Loss in Perspective

The long and winding road to North Carolina’s season opener, a journey that began just before Thanksgiving and ended on Labor Day, provided a juggernaut of positive headlines and media spotlight that rivaled and likely surpassed any other extended period in UNC athletics history. That Bill Belichick, the eight-time Super Bowl champion, had even considered setting up shop in Chapel Hill was intriguing enough, although the primary allure was whether arguably the greatest football coach in the history of the sport could make a successful jump to the college game, especially given his advanced age.

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Within the UNC community, Monday night’s primetime kickoff represented more than just Belichick’s arrival and the start of the 2025 football season. It marked a concerted effort, from top to bottom, by all involved to elevate the Carolina football program to national relevance. Sure, the financial commitment has been a focal point as NIL and revenue sharing has upended the intercollegiate landscape, but this was a new vision of what UNC football – and by extension, the entire athletic department – could be in the modern era. Instead of football serving primarily as a revenue stream for a robust Olympic sports network while the men’s basketball program remained perched above, the self-imposed governor that had kept football idling for decades would be dismantled. Sometimes it’s necessary to spend money to make money.

As country music star and former Tar Heel linebacker Chase Rice told a packed crowd at Polk Place at the opening of his concert during pregame festivities on Monday, “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen Carolina do.”

Then kickoff came and a beatdown ensued on national television. TCU was favored to win, yet few expected a 48-14 dismantling as the outcome. What did the loss tell us? It told us that this was not going to be a quick rebuild, not that Belichick suggested it would be, even behind the scenes. It told us that coaching acumen alone is not enough overcome the talent deficit on the roster. It told us that just because Belichick and general manager Michael Lombardi possess vast experience in player evaluation and value formulation, that came at the NFL level, which is a different ball game than the college ranks. It told us that Nick Saban, arguably the greatest college football coach of all time, was correct last week when he said Belichick’s transition to the college game was going to be a work in progress.

The loss also confirmed that the intense media spotlight that has hovered over Chapel Hill for the past nine months was primed for both celebration and failure. There’s a reason drivers slow down to peer at car crashes. The sports nation took a long laugh at Monday’s result, taking to social media to post memes of the UNC head coach working as a grocery store bagger with captions reading, “Bill Belichick’s career without Tom Brady.”

The critical fervor sparked embarrassment and frustration, understandably so, for the Carolina fan base. However, there is some truth to the notion that media attention, in any form, is preferable to indifference. UNC football fans know that better than most.

There’s also the odd matter of hard and fast reactions providing definitive declarations about the Belichick tenure and UNC’s failed experiment after just one game. Sure, this train could end up in a ditch somewhere down the line, but let it get out of the rail yard first. What’s transpired since Belichick first put his name in the hat is only the foundation, yet many gleefully celebrated the failures of a renovation when the scaffolding had only just been erected.

While Belichick and UNC may have little in common aside from the former’s father coaching at the latter 70 years ago, one unifying characteristic is an ability to breed envy and fury in their rivals and observers through their achievements. The Tar Heel football program has rarely resided in that position and the mere possibility of Carolina football living up to its sleeping giant moniker from decades past is unsettling for those who believe that UNC has had enough success across the athletic department as it is. Some of those same individuals shoveled dirt on the athletic department a decade ago before the NCAA concluded that its years-long academic investigation failed to uncover any violations.

Now comes the hard work. The hype has dissipated, and the expectation of success has diminished. What lies ahead is more scrutiny than praise. UNC was picked eighth in the ACC’s preseason poll and needs to make some significant strides to surpass that threshold by season’s end.

The good news is that eyes will remain glued to the Tar Heels, for intrigue more than anything else. The ACC’s new multi-media revenue policy is now in effect, which will split media revenue into two pots: 40% will be distributed equally to each member of the ACC and 60% will be distributed based on viewership. Of the 60% portion, 75% will be shared based on football and 25% on men’s basketball.

Early ESPN ratings returns had UNC-TCU viewership at 6.1 million, which is roughly double what a typical UNC-Duke basketball game draws. That’s key revenue generation for an athletic department that’s now all-in on football, regardless of the outcome on Monday night.