After nearly nine months of speculation and conjecture, Tar Heel football will finally forge Into the Great Unknown on Labor Day. And the spotlight couldn’t be brighter. With all the typical pregame festivities plus the Chase Rice concert in front of Wilson Library and a performance from the Marching Tar Heels, it should be one of the wildest environments ever seen in Kenan Stadium.
ESPN obviously wants to garner as many eyes as possible for the only matchup on Monday night and there is certainly
awareness of all the curiosity surrounding Bill Belichick’s college football debut. Not to mention it’s a tough first test for this Tar Heel band of brothers and their fearless commander. The Horned Frogs received four Top 25 votes in the preseason AP poll (four more than UNC), and, at the time of this writing, are a 3.5-point favorite with a 59 to 41 percent win prediction in favor of TCU according to ESPN Analytics.
Most talking heads and radio voices are saying the same thing: who knows what’s gonna happen because he is arguably the greatest professional coach of all time but he has never coached in college and it’s a totally different game. But is it?
Between the transfer portal and NIL, I would argue that it’s become pretty similar to the NFL. These aspects are basically like free agency wherein players can leave whenever they want and take their talents to the highest bidder or the greenest pastures.
Belichick has obviously embraced and recognized the importance of new media. If you have seen either of the two episodes of ‘The Come Up’ on YouTube you’ve noticed this. The behind-the-scenes footage is produced in the style of HBO’s Hard Knocks, a project which fell through. But with ‘The Come Up’, not to be confused with the upcoming in-season Hulu series, Coach Belichick takes a backseat to the players and their efforts and experiences. Between the player interviews, footage of practice, what they eat, how they work out, the incredible level of camaraderie, it is a virtual recruiting film for what Carolina football is like.
It may be with different ages, communication methods, and ability levels, but two things are indisputably constant. Leadership and football. If there’s anything we know about Coach Belichick, it’s his mastery of game planning.
I have heard and read interviews with NFL players who have played against Bill Belichick and several of them said something in the vein of: you could watch all the film in the world leading up to the game but when you were on the field, he would always throw something at you that you hadn’t seen before, especially on defense.
Bottom line is: do I think Belichick is going to scheme circles around the rest of the ACC? No. Do I think he is going to appear completely out of his element? No. Will this whole “experiment” work? Maybe? Buckle up. It should be an exciting ride.
