The University of North Carolina is all in on Tar Heels football.
This seems to be the storyline going into the 2025 season, and there’s one big obvious reason for that. So obvious, in fact, that I don’t think it needs to be stated for the millionth time. Moreso than any other athletics season, the air around Carolina football has been different, and if you are one of those people that pays a lot of attention to college sports media, you’ve noticed it outside of the fan base as well. Some of the most
prevalent voices have come from ESPN, who on their College Gameday podcast they discussed Bill Belichick’s arrival in Chapel Hill, and where things go from here for Carolina football.
I do not want to recap everything said that is relevant to UNC, so if you would like to know more about what was said, I recommend checking out the article that On3 wrote about it. Instead, I want to focus on one specific quote from Dave Clawson:
“I really view this as North Carolina’s all-in moment in football,” said Clawson. “You know, I think they’ve always been viewed as a basketball school first. And, the level of investment they have in Bill, his staff, the strength staff, and the level of investment they have in the players is a lot different than the support that Mack (Brown) got.”
As fate would have it, a very similar comment was made by the guy that Belichick replaced, Mack Brown, on The Herd with Colin Cowherd:
“Chancellor Lee Roberts is committed to football big-time, for the first time in North Carolina history,” Brown said in an appearance on The Herd with Colin Cowherd. “They are really wanting football to be good, so they’re all in and that gives them a chance to be successful. Bill is arguably the best coach of any sport. When you win that many Super Bowls, whatever level, the man can coach.”
Carolina athletics has always been in a funny state where their best sports were nowhere close to their most profitable, though obviously basketball has been fruitful in its own way. There have been so many years where one of the Olympic sports or the basketball teams have won national titles all while football has been in a weird, frustrating purgatory. Yes, Bill Belichick is a signal that times are changing. There is no arguing that the commitment to bringing in one of the best football coaches of all time, giving him basically whatever he wanted, and pumping silly amounts of money into the program have indicated that the school finally wants to take this seriously. But the question that I have is: why now? Why did we have to endure Butch Davis, Larry Fedora, John Bunting, and a much older Mack Brown to get here?
The cynic in me will tell you that the reason football is being taken seriously now is money. It’s no secret that if Carolina rolls out a bad product that fans will just stop showing up to games. Mack Brown did a very good job of keeping everyone’s interest for a while — a little too good of a job, if I’m being honest, considering the results by the time he left — but it would’ve been too easy to turn fans off if the school didn’t hire a coach with an impressive resume to take things over. Factor in the fact that revenue sharing is now a thing, and schools are desperately trying to make sure that their financial situations are as pristine as they can be so that they can stay afloat while sharing money with student-athletes. Call it a coincidence that Belichick and revenue sharing are arriving at the same time, but again, the cynic in me thinks they go hand in hand.
But there is another part of me that doesn’t care what the reason is, if I’m being honest. UNC has some of the best fans in the country, and they have also had some really impressive players come through Chapel Hill that deserved more than they left with. Not taking football serious enough to take risks has been the Achilles’ heel of the program for decades, and it feels like we’re finally in a place where if everything is done correctly, maybe winning the ACC is within reach? Perhaps winning more than one bowl game within a 10-year span? These feel like small asks, if I’m being honest, especially since I expect the wheels to fall off of how Clemson is navigating NIL and the transfer portal any day now. There’s no magic button for football success, but I do think that there’s a little more optimism around the program now that things seem to be taken more seriously. That is all so many of us have really wanted.
Carolina basketball will always be my favorite team to root for, regardless of success on the football field. However, my desire for success on the gridiron — much like so many of you reading this right now — is as strong as it has ever been, if for no other reason than I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. Above all else, though, I just want to actually have fun watching this team. I have never said Bill Belichick and “fun” in the same sentence, but I do think there’s a chance that he can accomplish everything that I hope he will. Let’s just hope he doesn’t prove me wrong, because with all of the loud conversations to the program that are happening right now could turn nasty very quickly.
