The first year of the Bill Belichick experiment at UNC has not gone how a lot of people were hoping.
For Belichick, Mike Lombardi, and the coaching staff, they have not been able to overwhelm college coaching and scouting with NFL knowledge like they though they might’ve been able to do. The roster they’ve built this year just simply isn’t good enough and they haven’t been able to overcome that via coaching experience.
For Carolina fans, and especially the booster and board of trustees members who
rammed the hire through, they thought they would be getting legendary ball coach Bill Belichick, who would be able to scheme against any college team and pretty quickly get the team in ACC title contention.
None of that has really happened, and worst of all, the Tar Heels have been outcoached and looked sloppy in some games, which was the one thing even the biggest doubters of the hire didn’t think would happen. It seems unlikely at this point that any result this Saturday could lead to the people that made this hire pull the plug, but a loss to NC State would only continue the growing unrest.
One big way to ease any potential tensions would be for Carolina to go into the offseason on a high note and beat the Wolfpack. That’s why Belichick and company putting in a sterling coaching performance and outcoaching the Tar Heels’ rivals is my hope and X-Factor for this week’s game.
The last couple games against Wake Forest and Duke have featured not only UNC losses but some head scratching coaching decisions and undisciplined football. There was the roughing the kicker penalty on a missed field goal that instead led to a Blue Devils’ touchdown thanks to the first down, and then got fooled by a fake field goal when the Tar Heels could’ve vitally held Duke to three points.
Against Wake, Belichick made a fairly baffling decision in declining a penalty that would’ve had the Demon Deacons at 1st & 15 instead of 2nd & 8 in the red zone. Wake immediately scored on the next play, having started at the 12 yard line instead of the 17.
That’s been the most frustrating part of this first season is that a lot of the little things haven’t been ironed out. In the NFL, Belichick was famous for his attention to detail, and at least from the outside, that stuff hasn’t been there for UNC. That’s why I think that if the Tar Heels can come out this weekend and catch NC State off guard and punch them in the mouth in ways the Wolfpack weren’t expecting, it would do a lot to ease some people’s worries.
To be honest, until Belichick is holding an ACC Championship trophy, I’m going to remain skeptical that this hire is going to work in any real way, so even a win this weekend wouldn’t ease my fears all that much. It would still just be nice to see this legendary coach genuinely outcoach their biggest rival to end the season.
