UNC Football Catch-all | Bill Belichick Era underway

[CFordUNC]

And yet it is you questioning the messenger here. There was a lot of talk about Morris and Lombardi etc. I simply pointed out the timeline doesn't support that narrative. Nothing more. Out.

Yeah, super duper sorry that I'm questioning the message and agenda of a random internet message board poster who is a previous poster returned under a new username! I am so sorry that I'm not willing to taking his 4,000 word manifesto as the gospel truth instead of seeing what my lying eyes have been telling me about our football program for the last 11 months.

I have no idea how you managed to spend an entire career in the media and yet somehow you are apparently too sensitive or too thin-skinned to have your perspective or viewpoint challenged (respectfully challenged, I will note) by people on an anonymous internet fan forum. You seem to take every single rebuttal as a personal affront. It's bizarre. Man, we are all just a bunch of long-suffering but passionate UNC football diehards shooting the shit in some tiny insigificant corner of the internet. None of this is that serious.

 

[gregh1]

Ok. He posted a timeline with facts. Do you dispute them? If you want to focus on one how about Chandler Morris? It was reported ML said he was not good enough. ML was not hired yet according to that timeline. If he is making things up I would love to know that. So far nobody disputes the info?@

Can you repost the whole thing here or DM me? It isn't like you are reposting IC staff's content.

 

[gregh1]

I have a feeling you guys will feel a lot better about everything Saturday night.

Too soon. Seriously, i don't even want to think about the duke or ncsu games. Their defenses aren't going to be Wake's D, but they're likely to put up points and we're likely to not put up points.

 

[stankeylegjones]

The problems that I have with all of the whining, goalpost-shifting, and excuse-making about the timing of Belichick's hire as it pertains to the transfer portal are as follows:

1. Scott Frost and Jake Dickert were hired at essentially the exact same time as Belichick, inherited much worst roster situations than did Belichick, and yet somehow, someway were still able to assemble teams this year that brutally kicked the ever loving shit out of us.

2. Virginia went 3-9. 3-9. and 5-7 in their first three years under Tony Elliott and he was a dead man walking this season. They have had a *much* worse roster over the last 3 years than UNC, and UNC beat them like rented mules last year in 2024. Yet this offseason, they completely retooled their roster with a head coach essentially facing lameduck status. They are a win away from the ACC title game, and two wins away from the College Football Playoff, mostly with a bunch of guys who played at the likes of NC Central, North Texas, New Mexico, Fresno State, Elon, UNLV, Morgan State, UCF, and UAB last season.

3. Nobody forced Belichick and Lombardi to run off guys like Beau Atkinson, Jacolby Criswell, Travis Shaw, and other conttibutors from Mack Brown 2.0.

4. Nobody forced Belichick and Lombardi to essentially turn over the majority of the roster *AFTER SPRING PRACTICE*.

5. Nobody forced Belichick and Lombardi to run off Ryan Browne.

6. Nobody is forcing Belichick and Lombardi to continue to play Gio Lopez in a lost season when we have two young studs waiting in the wings.

7. Nobody forced Belichick and Lombardi to come in and fire quite literally the entire player personnel and recruiting support staffs on day 1 without having their own people lined up and ready to go.

I get your point, and definitely agree that the portal was not any kind of success for BB/Lombardi this past year. With that said, doesn't point 3 kinda run counter to your point 1? Some have found great success very early on, some have found great success a bit later.

 

[stankeylegjones]

The problems that I have with all of the whining, goalpost-shifting, and excuse-making about the timing of Belichick's hire as it pertains to the transfer portal are as follows:

1. Scott Frost and Jake Dickert were hired at essentially the exact same time as Belichick, inherited much worst roster situations than did Belichick, and yet somehow, someway were still able to assemble teams this year that brutally kicked the ever loving shit out of us.

2. Virginia went 3-9. 3-9. and 5-7 in their first three years under Tony Elliott and he was a dead man walking this season. They have had a *much* worse roster over the last 3 years than UNC, and UNC beat them like rented mules last year in 2024. Yet this offseason, they completely retooled their roster with a head coach essentially facing lameduck status. They are a win away from the ACC title game, and two wins away from the College Football Playoff, mostly with a bunch of guys who played at the likes of NC Central, North Texas, New Mexico, Fresno State, Elon, UNLV, Morgan State, UCF, and UAB last season.

3. Nobody forced Belichick and Lombardi to run off guys like Beau Atkinson, Jacolby Criswell, Travis Shaw, and other conttibutors from Mack Brown 2.0.

4. Nobody forced Belichick and Lombardi to essentially turn over the majority of the roster *AFTER SPRING PRACTICE*.

5. Nobody forced Belichick and Lombardi to run off Ryan Browne.

6. Nobody is forcing Belichick and Lombardi to continue to play Gio Lopez in a lost season when we have two young studs waiting in the wings.

7. Nobody forced Belichick and Lombardi to come in and fire quite literally the entire player personnel and recruiting support staffs on day 1 without having their own people lined up and ready to go.

Regarding the players being run off, I'm not sure how accurate of a statement that is. Most of them already had deals in place prior to BB even being hired - according to IC. Not to mention, it would be hard for anyone to turn down a legitimate chance at a title in their later career.

Point 4, image how fucking bad they looked after spring practice to turn it over to this

Point 6 is my biggest gripe at the moment. Play the freshmen so we can see what they can do.

 

[Peppers49]

I think you remain way too focused on what "the media" is reporting/has reported and not focused enough on looking at the actual product on the field. I don't care about Chandler Morris or who reported what. I care that we had a better quarterback on the roster in Jacolby Criswell and ran him off, then paid Ryan Browne to come here for spring ball before running him off as well, then took a G5-level quarterback who is not even remotely serviceable at this level (nor do we even do anything whatsoever schematically to try to help him), and now we have two games left in a completely lost season where we have at least 2 young quarterbacks on the roster whom we could play while still preserving their redshirts and we refuse to do so.

You seem to have a lot of dismay at what you consider to be unfair, inaccurate, or agenda-driven media. I have a lot of dismay at what I consider to be arrogance and hubris and complete disinterest in doing anything different to try to change things up on the part of our staff that is directly leading to one of the most miserable UNC football seasons any of us have ever seen. I think that's a big reason why you and I don't see eye to eye on this whole thread topic- I think we are directing our ire and casting blame at two completely different things.

I saw a comment from Ben Sherman a few weeks ago that I thought summed up the frustration about the media coverage pretty nicely: it’s a high-profile, highly visible experiment that is going sideways in just about every way possible both on and off the field. Of course the media is going to jump all over it lol.

If any of our fans are mad at constantly seeing negative headlines then they need to direct the blame at UNC and Belichick/Lombardi. They were the ones that egged on all of the publicity and then turned around and put a dumpster fire product on the field.

 

[OGtruthhurts]

amen...the only blame should go to bb and fam/friends...along with idiots who hired the old con man

 

[CFordUNC]

I get your point, and definitely agree that the portal was not any kind of success for BB/Lombardi this past year. With that said, doesn't point 3 kinda run counter to your point 1? Some have found great success very early on, some have found great success a bit later.

What I'm trying to get at there (and probably doing a bad job of articulating it) is that the excuse that Belichick inherited some moribund awful UNC roster just isn't accurate. By no means did he inherit a great roster, but he inherited a roster that at least had really good pieces like the ones I mentioned above that we could have tried to build around and supplement with whatever additions from the transfer portal, instead of running them off. In particular, Jacolby Criswell should have been someone that they wanted to keep around at least through spring practice, given that he was the starting quarterback, to see how he might be able to fit into their scheme.

Similarly, in my opinion, we had player personnel and recruiting department staffers already in place- people who were already intimately familiar with the college game, and even more so, intimately familiar with UNC and our recruiting territories- that we could have at least leaned on that first offseason instead of firing them all on essentially day 1 with nobody to replace them for months. We essentially had Michael Lombardi running a one-man recruiting department during the entirety of the first transfer portal window opening.

 

[Milk and Cookies]

You agree with the OP that the problem is lack of passion on the part of the players? Or you feel it is entirely coaching? I feel like the talent computation should be weighted massively by QB, for the entire team, but especially O. And I feel like bad playcalling which doesn't optimize your talent's abilities can drag a team into the basement. Given this QB and scheme I don't think more effort or passion from the players would change anything. Where would you rank Gio, i'd put our overall O not far behind his ranking just because QB is engine.

No, I don't agree with OP necessarily. And I think player passion also falls under the coach's responsibility.

Regarding Gio I agree with most of your point here. One small addendum for me is that I'm not entirely sure Gio is our best QB on the roster. So that's also the coach's responsibility to get the most out of the talent in your QB room and I'm not sure Lombardi's kid is best suited for that role.

Basically at the end of the day its on the coach. Sure, team leaders can squeeze some extra effort out of their teammates. The turnover gods could have shone more of a light on us at spots. One less injury here or there could help. But when you're 129 out of 136 and you're paying for the 9th most expensive coach in the game....its the coach. There is NO other reason to explain why the performance is quite THIS bad. If we were a school starting a football program from scratch with the amount of resources we've spent I would expect better than 129 out of 136.

 

[Peppers49]

Similarly, in my opinion, we had player personnel and recruiting department staffers already in place- people who were already intimately familiar with the college game, and even more so, intimately familiar with UNC and our recruiting territories- that we could have at least leaned on that first offseason instead of firing them all on essentially day 1 with nobody to replace them for months. We essentially had Michael Lombardi running a one-man recruiting department during the entirety of the first transfer portal window opening.

What’s funny to me is that some of our fans are somehow using this line of thinking as a defense of Lombardi and Belichick.

“Yeah the portal class sucked but that’s because they weren’t familiar with how college roster building works so we have to give them a pass”.

That’s the crux of the problem lol. College football is completely different than the NFL, and it’s painfully obvious that these two clowns are way out of their depth here.

 

[GoHeelsweeeehoooo]

To me the million dollar question is have Belichick and Lombardi learned anything this season and can they make the changes needed in the off-season to fix this team?

 

[heel79]

Can you repost the whole thing here or DM me? It isn't like you are reposting IC staff's content.

Send me email by DMl. Will do in an hour.
CFord. That is why I gave Morris example. Easy to check. But just as you blamed me for attacking media yu attacked poster and not content. I was ready to fire BB on Wednesday after Clemson based on media reportijg.
The vacation.
Team in mutiny.
Coached fleeing.
Buyout talk initiated by BB.
The Morris story bothered me because of ML comments.
It would be a problem for me if we went after gio when better QBs available.
Theres more.
I spent 36 years trying to get the story right.
So yea, it bothers me, particularly when the national media picks up this BS and runs with it.

And my point here was not about the media but about the Morris situation that apparently was easy to disprove for any media that bothered.


Google Chandler Morris Lombard and see what sports illustrated wrote. This stuff matters.

 

[PTOHeel]

Just an aside. I was curious to see the discussion about BB and the Giants. It seems like the title and picture is just click-bait. They discuss the Giants job and a variety of potential coaching candidates but BB's name never comes up.

 

[CFordUNC]

Send me email by DMl. Will do in an hour.
CFord. That is why I gave Morris example. Easy to check. But just as you blamed me for attacking media yu attacked poster and not content. I was ready to fire BB on Wednesday after Clemson based on media reportijg.
The vacation.
Team in mutiny.
Coached fleeing.
Buyout talk initiated by BB.
The Morris story bothered me because of ML comments.
It would be a problem for me if we went after gio when better QBs available.
Theres more.
I spent 36 years trying to get the story right.
So yea, it bothers me, particularly when the national media picks up this BS and runs with it.

And my point here was not about the media but about the Morris situation that apparently was easy to disprove for any media that bothered.

I truly, humbly, sincerely mean this with all due respect, but it's really tough to take you seriously when you continue to believe that folks like me are "savaging" or "attacking" other posters (your words, not mine) simply by expressing disagreement with, or rebuttal to, their written viewpoints. On this thread and on this topic I have gone out of my way to be respectful in my dissent and disagreement (and was even rewarded with being told to go fuck myself!). I don't know what else I can do, short of effusively praising the ground Belichick walks on, that you might find satisfactory. I think it's pretty clear where you and I both stand on this topic, so I reckon we don't need to continue rehashing it. You believe that the media is mean and unfair to Belichick and is the source of a lot of what has made this season so unpleasant. I believe that this season is unpleasant because our entire staff is wholly unqualified and unprepared to build a college football program. We're both stubborn Robeson County boys so we sure as shine ain't gonna change one another's minds.

 

[gregh1]

People contrasting BB with Dickert, Frost, and others keep forgetting how much of our contributors were not here til summer. The players missed spring conditioning, reps, gelling, the coaches obviously missed an opportunity to see what they had.

Offensively we barely had a team in the spring. Most teams had their QBs and OL in the spring, we were missing healthy Max, Gio, King, Jakai, Hall, O'Steen, Jordan Owens, Shamar Easter, Benjamin Hall. Banfield was banged up all spring apparently too.

Then you lose your 1st and 2nd string Centers last week of fall practice. It's no wonder the OL hasn't been good. Heck, we rolled out Eidan Buchanan as the starting LT. That is a giant sign the coaches were f'ing clueless - either due to lack of practices OR due to being horrible at their jobs (though Will Friend is a solid coach with a ton of experience).

I think it is easier to plug guys into a D than O and look how long it took our D to look cohesive. A ton of the D contributors weren't here in Spring - Vilbert, Gbayor, D'Antre, Gregory Smith, Isiah Johnson, Simpson.

A quick contrast - Jake Dickert brought 8 players from his former HC job, all were winter guys instead of spring.
Starting Center, starting RT, WR Carlos Hernandez who had two of their TDs, a few others starters and 2-deep guys.

And in Wake's starting lineup there is just a single player, a safety, who was added from the Spring portal instead of Winter.

Freddie has to go, but you gotta hope and pray that BB having most of his parts arrive in winter rather than summer would've helped. That's my hope for a reason why the the O and D will both be improved next yr.

 

[heel79]

I truly, humbly, sincerely mean this with all due respect, but it's really tough to take you seriously when you continue to believe that folks like me are "savaging" or "attacking" other posters (your words, not mine) simply by expressing disagreement with, or rebuttal to, their written viewpoints. On this thread and on this topic I have gone out of my way to be respectful in my dissent and disagreement (and was even rewarded with being told to go fuck myself!). I don't know what else I can do, short of effusively praising the ground Belichick walks on, that you might find satisfactory. I think it's pretty clear where you and I both stand on this topic, so I reckon we don't need to continue rehashing it. You believe that the media is mean and unfair to Belichick and is the source of a lot of what has made this season so unpleasant. I believe that this season is unpleasant because our entire staff is wholly unqualified and unprepared to build a college football program. We're both stubborn Robeson County boys so we sure as shine ain't gonna change one another's minds.

Good start would be to respond to what I say today and not a month ago.

 

[gregh1]

What’s funny to me is that some of our fans are somehow using this line of thinking as a defense of Lombardi and Belichick.

“Yeah the portal class sucked but that’s because they weren’t familiar with how college roster building works so we have to give them a pass”.

That’s the crux of the problem lol. College football is completely different than the NFL, and it’s painfully obvious that these two clowns are way out of their depth here.

I view it more like an excuse than a defense. I think BB knew the impact of blowing up the dept and how difficult portal'ing would be. Saban would tell him, Jedd Fisch would tell him, his son Stephen would tell him. I still feel like he views this yr as an entire rebuild. It is self-inflicted and I doubt it surprised him.

 

[CFordUNC]

People contrasting BB with Dickert, Frost, and others keep forgetting how much of our contributors were not here til summer. The players missed spring conditioning, reps, gelling, the coaches obviously missed an opportunity to see what they had.

Right, this quite literally proves the point I've been trying to make. The fact that most of our contributors weren't here until the summer, long after spring ball and offseason workouts, is an explicit indictment on how Bleichick and Lombardi have been running this program since day 1. It was their choice to jettison half of our roster in January and then jettison the other half after spring practice. It was their choice to run off a serviceable 6th year ACC starting QB. It was their choice to try to build an entire team out of the remnants of the spring transfer portal window, which every single other college coach in the country could have told them was the exact opposite of what they should have done. All of the above were their choices. Nobody forced them to do it. They did it because they thought that they knew better than everyone else in college football. And therein lies my primary dislike of them.

 

[CFordUNC]

Good start would be to respond to what I say today and not a month ago.

Words have meaning. This whole thread is a long-running conversation about our football season. Opinions that any of us expressed a month ago are useful in analyzing the opinions we express and the positions we take now. So, yeah, your whining about people "savaging" you or "attacking you" a month ago, or your telling me to go fuck myself a week ago, go a long way toward forming how I analyze and respond to your stated positions and beliefs today. In other words, I craft all of my responses to you holding the belief that you are likely going to be reflexively defensive.

 

[Enigma94]

BB probably should have tried to hang on to a few of the transfers out, but he was left a worse roster than Mack inherited. I'm also not sure how many of those players already had a foot out the door. I don't think trying to retcon Criswell into a serviceable player works either. He was bad when he was here and his stats at East Tennessee State are bad as well. I don't think plugging him into this offense fixes anything. BB and staff clearly had a broken approach to the portal last year, though, so hopefully they learned something because we are stuck with them for another year.