Bill Belichick’s coaching debut vs. TCU was a disaster. He should’ve stayed away | Opinion
Bill Belichick’s Pro Football Hall of Fame plaque is already written, but the final paragraph on his coaching career will read, “Stayed too long.”
On Monday night, college football’s latest desperation Hail Mary coaching heave disguised as a great experiment made its debut in front of a list of luminaries from sports that it required a red carpet and the crew from “Entertainment Tonight.”
Lawrence Taylor, Mia Hamm, Julius Peppers and other Tar Heel celebrities reportedly showed up at Kenan Stadium, along with FOB (Friends of Belichick) Randy Moss and Aaron Boone. They were all eclipsed not by the GOAT, but the other Jordon.
Only the freak show that is Bill Belichick’s 24-year-old girlfriend, the third-place finisher in the Miss Maine pageant Jordon Hudson, could turn more heads than UNC alum Michael Jordan, who also appeared at his alma mater on Monday.
For the second time in the past three years, TCU and coach Sonny Dykes were on the other side of the most anticipated debut by a head coach in recent memory. In ‘23 it was Deion Sanders and Colorado at TCU. In ‘25, it was Chapel Bill. Just slightly different personalities.
And just slightly different results. After UNC took the opening kickoff and walked down the field for a touchdown, TCU ripped The Hoodie to shreds to win the season opener 48-14.
It’s one game, but if you are North Carolina, this was the worst case scenario. A national TV audience tuned in to watch your team beaten into your own yard for three-plus hours.
Belichick is now 12-23 in his last 35 games, which includes the 2022 and ‘23 seasons in New England.
The easy shot here is to say Belichick will never regain what he had because he doesn’t have Tom Brady. The math and the data certainly support that position.
This is not about no longer having a Hall of Famer at quarterback. This is about a coach refusing to acknowledge what his old boss used to say: “At some point you have to get off the train.” Former New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells was known to say that about coaching in the NFL, but the sentiment applies to all of football.
Every NFL team tried to tell Belichick his time on the train was over. It told him in each of the past two coaching cycles that his services were no longer needed. He is simply too arrogant, and full of himself, to know when it was time to quit.
Oldest coach in college football
Belichick is 73, and the social misfit but brilliant coach took the North Carolina job because he has no idea what else to do with his life. He’s the oldest coach in major college football, and far too old to be experiencing a mid-life crisis.
Commentary on his dating life withstanding, he’s in an end-of-life crisis. Coaching the Tar Heels to the Gambling Addiction Isn’t A Problem Bowl isn’t going to fix it.
He coached one of the great dynasties in the history of any sport, but all coaches have an ending. Seldom are they pretty. The same goes for players, too.
Because exits in sports seldom are graceful. They’re normally just flat. Awkward. Sometimes sad, and embarrassing.
Take Michael Jordan’s real exit. The final frame of Jordan’s career has been sold as his NBA Finals-winning jumper to beat the Utah Jazz in 1998. His real final frame is just a regular season game, the end of his two playoff-less years he spent with the Washington Wizards.
That’s how careers in sports normally finish. Seldom does the player or coach know when it’s time to get off the train.
Leading up to kickoff of Belichick’s debut at Chapel Hill, college football, this community and certainly the TV networks were thrilled with the prospect of this grouchy old man turning an irrelevant football team into something worth watching.
Carolina football has for years been one of those programs that should be better than what it is — something to do before the Tar Heels’ basketball team starts.
Bill Belichick won’t last five years at North Carolina
Belichick is expected to sprinkle his football genius and turn North Carolina into the New England Patriots. He will be lucky to turn the Tar Heels into the Cleveland Browns, the team he first coached. He lasted five years in Cleveland, from 1991 to ‘95, and had one winning season before he was canned.
His run in New England made everyone forget that tenure.
Belichick will not last five years at this job. Flipping a program like North Carolina, especially in this era of college football, is for a younger man.
He’s 73, but he can’t give up the thing he loves most, and he found a desperate sucker in Carolina.
He will one day be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but the final act of his career won’t be a reason why he’s there.
This story was originally published September 1, 2025 at 10:38 PM.
