Countdown to Kickoff: Bill Belichick Takes First Taste of Tobacco Road

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — For only the third time in North Carolina program history, and the first such occasion in more than 25 years, the Tar Heels have reached a three-game portion of their football schedule that contains three straight matchups against their in-state ACC counterparts.

And given the manner in which UNC’s 2025 schedule has been constructed, coach Bill Belichick’s first taste of Tobacco Road will serve to wrap up his first regular season in charge. A road assignment on Saturday at Wake Forest arrives first, with Duke and NC State following across the next two weeks.

If Belichick considers back-to-back-to-back rivalry games in November as an appropriate way to conclude a Carolina football season, or whether perhaps he might prefer to have them spread out instead, and sprinkled across the course of the schedule, makes for an immaterial proposition in his view.

“Not my decision,” he said this week. “They schedule them, we play them. So if we play Friday night, if we play Saturday morning, if we play Saturday night, whenever the games are — if we play Monday night, we play Monday night. Who we play and when we play them is really out of my control. We’ve just got to get ready to play, so I’m not going to worry about that.”

But that’s not at all to say the 73-year-old Belichick doesn’t recognize the long-running rivalries and longstanding traditions the Tar Heels are tapping into once again now. As a devoted genealogist of the sport — earlier this week, on Veterans Day, he found himself giving a sermon on the growth of college football after World War II — he certainly appreciates the shared competitive sporting histories that have connected UNC with NC State, Duke and Wake Forest since the late 1800s.

“I’ve been involved in a lot of them before,” Belichick said this week of rivalry games. “But I’d say the ones regionally are just different. Tobacco Road, we certainly talk about that with people who have played in a lot of these games or coached in them or been around them. So historically we’re catching up on it. But we even saw it in the Charlotte game (in early September), that it’s a little bit different when you play in-state.

“Every high school kid wants to win a state championship. And so when you’re playing at this level, it’s important to win in the state. Look, (Wake Forest is) a good football team no matter where they’re located. But we know it’s an in-state game, and it’s going to be tough. It’s at their place, and I’m sure there’ll be a lot of energy in the stadium.”

The Tar Heels (4-5 overall, 2-3 ACC) have a chance to secure their first three-game winning streak under Belichick on Saturday in Winston-Salem, N.C., at what’s now known as Allegacy Stadium. Wake Forest has been installed as a 6½-point favorite over UNC by the oddsmakers.

The Demon Deacons (6-3, 3-3) have won four of their last five games to become bowl eligible under first-year coach Jake Dickert. Wake Forest meets Carolina coming off a victory at then-No. 14 Virginia, a hard-earned 16-9 result that delivered the program’s first conquering of an AP Top 20 opponent on the road since 1979.

UNC needs to win two of these three rivalry games to unlock bowl eligibility for the seventh season in a row. The Tar Heels haven’t missed the postseason since the 2017 and 2018 seasons, which brought the end of former coach Larry Fedora’s watch.

The last time UNC played at Wake Forest, in November 2022, Drake Maye (448 passing yards) outdueled Sam Hartman (320 passing yards), Cam Kelly came up with an enormous interception during the game’s final five minutes, and Noah Burnette’s clutch field goal with 2:12 remaining lifted the Tar Heels to victory in a 36-34 thriller. That allowed Carolina to clinch the ACC’s Coastal Division title. Afterward, a beaming Josh Downs (11 catches for 154 yards, three touchdowns) emerged from the celebration in Carolina’s locker room, and took pride in showing off UNC’s division championship hardware.

It was a triumphant night highlighting another of former coach Mack Brown’s winning moments against the Tar Heels’ in-state rivals. His UNC teams went a combined 32-15 against NC State, Duke and Wake Forest across his two stints in charge of the program (1988-97 and 2019-24), including a 12-3 mark against the Demon Deacons.

Back in the present tense, Belichick made sure to emphasize “this week, it’s all about Wake Forest” in terms of framing the scope of UNC’s final three games to close this regular season. And Belichick used some trademark dry humor — “defensive guy, I like them,” he cracked — while detailing his respect for the coaching jobs Dickert has done at Washington State and now Wake Forest.

“We’re going to put everything we have into this game,” Belichick said, “and then next week we’ll move on to next week. It’s the same thing we do every week. But we’ve got to pour everything we have into Wake Forest. They’re a really good football team. It was a big win for them against Virginia.

“We’re back in the state, so we know that the intensity is going to be high for this game, as it should be. We look forward to it. Good opportunity. But a lot of respect for the program and for Jake, and the job that he’s done this year. It’s really been impressive.”