Countdown to Kickoff: UNC’s Ongoing Search for ‘Dependable Players’

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Part of North Carolina’s mode of operation under coach Bill Belichick’s new regime includes an internal ranking system by which the Tar Heels earn a certain trusted and respected status among their coaches and teammates.

It’s a group recognized in uncomplicated Belichickian terms: dependable players. Snap by snap, drill by drill, practice by practice, and now game by game, UNC’s search for players who have proven dependable remains an ongoing process.

“We’re trying to grow our dependable players instead of whittling it down,” UNC assistant coach Garrick McGee said Thursday, when asked if streamlining the rotation at receiver might help untrack the Tar Heels on offense. “We want more dependable players. And I think that’s what the practice session is for. To show us and the coaching staff and Mike (Lombardi) upstairs that they can do what they’re supposed to do on a consistent basis. They understand what to do and how to do it. So we’re trying to make that list as big as we possibly can.”

The next such meaningful opportunity arrives for Carolina (1-1) on Saturday when Richmond (1-1), which competes on the FCS level, visits Kenan Stadium (3:30 p.m., ACC Network). The Tar Heels have their first home game since their disastrous season-opening loss to TCU amid the unmoored hype surrounding Belichick’s coaching debut. That 48-14 debacle averaged 6.6 million viewers on ESPN, making it the most-watched college football game on Labor Day since 2016, and sending the enormous buzz surrounding UNC’s Belichick experiment careening into ridicule.

Since then, Carolina has picked up Belichick’s first victory as a college head coach by defeating Charlotte 20-3 at Richardson Stadium, a win on the road with fireworks blasting off throughout the night and the largest on-campus crowd in the 49ers’ brief football history greeting the Tar Heels.

Defensive lineman D’Antre Robinson said his mates on the UNC defense “had a bad taste in our mouth” after TCU piled up 29 first downs and 542 total yards, while clicking off a whopping 7.5 yards per play in the season opener.

The Tar Heels responded by keeping Charlotte out of the end zone, marking the first time since the 2020 season opener that they held an opponent without a touchdown, and the fewest points they’ve allowed to a team on the FBS level in 24 seasons. UNC suffocated Charlotte to a total of 21 rushing yards on 29 attempts. And the Tar Heels’ defensive front gave up just 1.9 rushing yards per carry on non-sack attempts.

“I feel like from the first (game) to the second, we made a very big jump as a whole D-line,” Robinson said Thursday. “We’ve been coming into practice really focused on striking and clogging up the lanes, for the linebackers and everything. We feel like we didn’t do that good the first game (against TCU) and we made big progress in the second game. I feel like we continue to do that throughout the season.”

Carolina has been installed as a 21½-point favorite against Richmond by the sportsbooks that list betting lines for games involving FCS teams. Richmond began the new season ranked No. 25 (media) and No. 22 (coaches) in the FCS national polls, but fell out after a season-opening loss at nationally ranked Lehigh by a 21-14 margin. The Spiders won 14-10 last week at Wofford, and Saturday’s assignment here in Chapel Hill will be their third straight road game to start the 2025 campaign.

UNC and Richmond both have 30-something sons who call plays under their fathers. Steve Belichick, 38, is the Tar Heels’ defensive coordinator. And 33-year-old Jacob Huesman, son of veteran Richmond head coach Russ Huesman, is the Spiders’ offensive coordinator. This is the younger Huesman’s first season as the Spiders’ play-caller on offense.

On defense, Richmond ranks ninth nationally in total defense on the FCS level (allowing 228 yards per game), and seventh nationally in third-down defense (opponents are 6-for-25 in those situations). The Spiders went on the road and held Wofford to just 46 rushing yards and 158 total yards last week. Meanwhile, UNC’s offense has lagged and experienced an unremarkable start to the season, though quarterback Gio Lopez (17-of-25 for 155 passing yards, 44 rushing yards on nine carries) performed much more efficiently at Charlotte, while limiting mistakes with no turnover-worthy plays.

“I think it’s a lot of different guys coming together, and a lot of them are young,” McGee said, when asked what’s holding back the Tar Heels as an offense. “And they have to understand that one penalty, one missed assignment, one dropped ball can stop the drive. And understanding how important every single snap of the game is. This all starts on the practice field. When you get yourself to a point where you’re practicing and you can execute 10 or 12 plays in a row, without anyone making a mistake or dropping a ball, that’s when that carries on to the game. So that’s what we’re working on. Just trying to put them together, snap by snap.

“We need to get another week better. Understanding how games are played, how intense the games are played. How you have to focus and concentrate one snap at a time over and over. We need to be a week better than we were. We think from Week 1 to Week 2 we had more intensity in Week 2, but we need to be seven days better when we get out there.”

Through two games, only Stanford ranks lower among ACC teams than Carolina in total offense (262.5 yards per game) and passing offense (163.5 yards per game). The Tar Heels also aren’t setting things ablaze with their scoring offense (17 points per game, 15th out of 17 ACC teams) or rushing offense (99 yards per game, 13th out of 17 ACC teams).

Certainly, delivering more big plays on a consistent basis would be a benefit. UNC averaged 17.2 yards per play across its first six snaps on offense last week at Charlotte, boosted by Lopez’s 51-yard touchdown bomb over the top to Chris Culliver in the game’s opening minute, followed by his 24-yard pass play to Javarius Green soon thereafter. But the Tar Heels’ fast start screeched to an average of 3.8 yards per play across their final 52 snaps on offense, with only four more explosive plays on the night, none of which produced 20 yards or more.

It’s a two-game sample size for Lopez, offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens and Co. thus far on that side of the ball, but UNC has generated 15 explosive plays on the season — which are defined as passing plays of 15-plus yards or running plays of 10-plus yards — and only four of those have covered 20-plus yards. All of which has the Tar Heels parked 16th in the ACC and tied for 123rd nationally in scrimmage plays of 20-plus yards.

“I think the big thing we look for is just the execution and how our players are doing,” Bill Belichick said this week. “Are they running the route at the right depth. Are they using proper technique to get open. Are they blocking with proper leverage and hand placement and so forth. Are they defeating blocks or covering receivers the way they need to.

“It could look OK in a certain situation, but it’s really not because it’s not being done fundamentally properly. And eventually that’s going to get exposed, so we’re just really working hard to get better every day at everything we do. And there’s certainly been a lot of improvement, but we’re not where we need to be. And consistency’s a big part of it. And so we’ll continue to grind away and work on that. There’s no real shortcut to it. Sure, competition’s definitely a factor. But we can only control what we can control. But I think if we’re doing things right, then we’ll be able to compete against good competition. If we don’t do them right, then it doesn’t really matter probably much of who we’re against, we’re going to have some problems.”