One of the biggest games of the college football season is coming to Chapel Hill on Monday. ESPN College Gameday previewed the contest Saturday morning, with its hosts giving their thoughts on Bill Belichick and North Carolina football’s potential success under the legendary former NFL coach.
Rece Davis recently interviewed Belichick, who is preparing for his college football coaching debut against TCU on Monday night at Kenan Stadium.
“I’m going to try to focus on my job and help the team in areas that I can with decision making or maybe a strategy change or something like that, if that’s appropriate,” Belichick told Davis, when asked to predict his emotions. “Players are gonna have to go out there and make the plays. I won’t be able to do any of that for us, which is probably a good thing, and we’re all going to need to do a good job for it to all come together.”
Belichick also said the first game is always a “tough” day. Teams prepare as best they can and then they make adjustments moving forward.
Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban and ESPN broadcaster Pat McAfee both said they believe Belichick — whose goal is to turn UNC into the 33rd NFL team — can succeed with the Tar Heels. The biggest question is timing.
“I think it’s going to work, but I think [with] 70 new players on the roster — Bill’s strength as a coach, to me, is developing players; how you engage with, how you inspire them, how you influence and how you impact their development to improve,” Saban said. “It’s very difficult to do when you have that many new players in this short of time to get ready for a season and get ready for a game. He’s going to have success at North Carolina.”
McAfee and Kirk Herbstreit echoed Saban’s thoughts, noting that players want to follow a guy whose resume includes six Super Bowl rings and whose staff includes guys who coached some of the greatest players in the sport.
“All those things will work. How long will it take to get everybody going in the same direction? We shall see,” McAfee said.
South Alabama transfer Gio Lopez was recently named UNC’s starting quarterback, and is expected to be a mobile QB.
TCU, meanwhile, returns Josh Hoover. In the last two seasons, Hoover threw for 6,155 yards, 42 touchdowns and 20 interceptions.
Hoover was 51 yards shy of 4,000 passing yards in 2024 and completed 65% of his passes.
“Can they understand what it takes, especially defensively, because Bill Belichick and his son, Steve, are getting ready to go up against a TCU offense with a quarterback that’s played a lot and they go tempo,” Herbstreit said. “Will they be able to get everything ready in Week 1 against that kind of tempo and an offense that really gets into that attack mode?”
The Tar Heels welcome the Horned Frogs to Kenan Stadium at 8 p.m. Monday. It will be the only game on Labor Day, with TCU entering the game as a 3.5-point favorite.