UNC Football Catch-all | Bill Belichick Era underway

[Peppers49]

I know I am beating this poor horse to death but I truly do think we’re far more devoid of coaching and scheming than we are of talent, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Our composite talent ranking has us 31st in the country which, against this cupcake schedule, should easily have us bowl eligible and then some. Our transfer portal class was ranked 8th. I don’t think we are some ultra talented team by any means, don’t get me wrong, but we are more talented than most of the teams on our schedule. The coaching, game planning, scheming, and in game management are far bigger albatrosses for us than our raw talent IMO.

We obviously don’t have the most talented roster in the world, but it’s not like we were at a major disadvantage on that front against most of the teams on our schedule. According to the 247 composite rankings, only Clemson had more raw talent:

2025 College Football Team Talent Composite

In order to create the most comprehensive Team Recruiting Ranking without any notion of bias, 247Sports Team Recruiting Ranking is solely based on the 247Sports Composite Rating.

247sports.com

 

[CFordUNC]

i’m not a chip kelly fan, i think BOB or Daboll are probably the only chances for this to work (and it’s not going to work) but we’re already paying Freddie Kitchens 1.15 million and he’s truly incompetent

I had that same thought about Brian Daboll but I bet he’ll get an NFL OC job in short order this offseason. Bill O’Brien would be interesting, too, but I bet BC gives him one more year.

Even though I posed the question about Chip Kelly I’m not even sure that it’s what either him or Belichick would want anyway. Kelly wants to run an up-tempo, no huddle, zone read offense that runs a ton of plays. Belichick wants a methodical, ball control, risk-averse offense that runs limited plays. Neither one has any incentive to change their preferences for the other; they are both older, incredibly wealthy, their football legacies are essentially cemented, and neither of them need this job. Bill especially does not strike me as someone who cares enough about winning at UNC to completely change 180° his entire football philosophy on which he has staked his entire football livelihood for seven decades.

 

[Peppers49]

I hear you, but I'm just offering possible solutions to this current trainwreck. Trust me, I'd much prefer us to be done with this whole sordid affair yesterday. I don't think it's going to work out for us. But since we clearly aren't going to cut bait yet, I'd at least like to see us try to make it work by pulling out whatever possible remaining stops we might have, and since our offense is positively dreadful, and because Chip Kelly is known as an offensive playcalling mastermind at the collegiate level, I thought it worth asking the question.

Yep, if we are going to continue with this farcical experiment for another season then we could do so much worse than the guy that called plays for the national champions just last season lol. That would be a great hire considering the circumstances.

 

[CFordUNC]

We obviously don’t have the most talented roster in the world, but it’s not like we were at a major disadvantage on that front against most of the teams on our schedule. According to the 247 composite rankings, only Clemson had more raw talent:

2025 College Football Team Talent Composite

In order to create the most comprehensive Team Recruiting Ranking without any notion of bias, 247Sports Team Recruiting Ranking is solely based on the 247Sports Composite Rating.

247sports.com

Totally agree. This is one of my biggest gripes, among the many that I have, about the whole Belichick thing. Belichick can’t fail the players. Only the players can fail Belichick. It’s such an irritating notion that absolves our $10 million head coach of responsibility for this disaster of a season.

 

[CFordUNC]

nah but i understand fans wanting to believe so called recruiting rankings. if any fans in the country should be gun shy about the bs involved in being over-ranked it should be unc fans. our ol and dl lines are bad my guy....like very bad but lets bring in more overpriced coaches and get the same results like we have for the past 20 yrs.

I understand the skepticism about recruiting rankings, and I share your belief that rankings are not the be all end all. But it is a common misconception among fans that recruiting rankings are commonly erroneous; they are not, in the aggregate. Yes, they definitely overrank or overrate players every single year who turned out to be busts. But the hit rate that these recruiting services have on correctly identifying and labeling higher level prospects at the four star and five star level is pretty good. In other words, if the recruiting rankings would indicate that UNC has the 31st most talented roster in the country, certainly that does not mean that there are only 30 teams that are better than UNC or that would beat UNC head-to-head. It just means that the cumulative amount of talent on the UNC roster as scouted and rated by people who do it for a living, is indicative of a team that should be winning far more games than it loses against this current schedule. So if the team is so badly underperforming its expected ability, then it is a pretty good indicator that the coaching is what is failing them, not the talent or lack thereof.

 

[gregh1]

I know I am beating this poor horse to death but I truly do think we’re far more devoid of coaching and scheming than we are of talent, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Our composite talent ranking has us 31st in the country which, against this cupcake schedule, should easily have us bowl eligible and then some. Our transfer portal class was ranked 8th. I don’t think we are some ultra talented team by any means, don’t get me wrong, but we are more talented than most of the teams on our schedule. The coaching, game planning, scheming, and in game management are far bigger albatrosses for us than our raw talent IMO.

That #31 is HS ranking, not their portal ranking. So it is pretty useless (if a team has many xfers). And the #8 ignores whether the recruits arrived Winter and were around for spring or missed it entirely.

Nathan Leacock, Jake Johnson, Chad Lindbergh, Shamar Easter are 4 or our top 7, all 4* in the mid-90's as highschoolers, but in the portal their ranking was just 86. Same with Max Johnson. Adrian Wilson and Peyton Waters are also guys who were 90's as HS, but 87/86 as transfer guys. Greg Smith's ranking dropped from HS to portal. Though D'Antre jumped up from HS to Portal 4*. Dixon jumped up to 4*, Pryce Yates also improved from HS to Portal, but of course he's hurt.

I don't think the D talent is underperforming or being under-coached. I don't know what to say about the OL, but coaching of Gio and schemes has obviously be awful. Just look at Gio's play vs dook, despite dook getting tons of pressure. Either Gio finally got over a 2.5-month long flu or the coaches finally learned to push the right buttons.

 

[CFordUNC]

That #31 is HS ranking, not their portal ranking. So it is pretty useless (if a team has many xfers). And the #8 ignores whether the recruits arrived Winter and were around for spring or missed it entirely.

Nathan Leacock, Jake Johnson, Chad Lindbergh, Shamar Easter are 4 or our top 7, all 4* in the mid-90's as highschoolers, but in the portal their ranking was just 86. Same with Max Johnson. Adrian Wilson and Peyton Waters are also guys who were 90's as HS, but 87 as transfer guy. Greg Smith's ranking dropped from HS to portal.

I don't think the D talent is underperforming or being under-coached. I don't know what to say about the OL, but coaching of Gio and schemes has obviously be awful. Just look at Gio's play vs dook, despite dook getting tons of pressure. Either Gio finally got over a 2.5-month long flu or the coaches finally learned to push the right buttons.

Are you sure that's HS ranking? I'm asking sincerely, I don't know- I am admittedly pretty fuzzy anymore on how these rankings work. I was thinking that the #31 ranking is an overall talent composite of our current roster as a whole, inclusive of incoming HS recruits, incoming portal transfers, and returning players.

2025 College ACC Football Team Talent Composite

In order to create the most comprehensive Team Recruiting Ranking without any notion of bias, 247Sports Team Recruiting Ranking is solely based on the 247Sports Composite Rating.

247sports.com

 

[gregh1]

Are you sure that's HS ranking? I'm asking sincerely, I don't know- I am admittedly pretty fuzzy anymore on how these rankings work. I was thinking that the #31 ranking is an overall talent composite of our current roster as a whole, inclusive of incoming HS recruits, incoming portal transfers, and returning players.

2025 College ACC Football Team Talent Composite

In order to create the most comprehensive Team Recruiting Ranking without any notion of bias, 247Sports Team Recruiting Ranking is solely based on the 247Sports Composite Rating.

247sports.com

I'm sure, based on clicking on a bunch of the profiles and seeing guys like Nathan Leacock go from 94 to 86 and seeing O'Steen go from 70's to mid-80's, etc.

ETA - it can work both ways of course. Daniel King is an N/A on the list, but I think his xfer grade was decent. Just saying it's not a useful metric and I don't think we have the 31st best team in the country talent-wise.

 

[Ramrouser]

Kelly is the only type of OC Belichick would completely trust to run the offense. He's not turning the offense over to some hot shot young college OC whom he doesn't have years of personal experience and friendship with or if that person doesn't have experience in the NFL. I'm sure Belichick could excuse Kelly from most of the recruiting duties the way Mack did for Chiz.

 

[Peppers49]

I'm sure, based on clicking on a bunch of the profiles and seeing guys like Nathan Leacock go from 94 to 86 and seeing O'Steen go from 70's to mid-80's, etc.

ETA - it can work both ways of course. Daniel King is an N/A on the list, but I think his xfer grade was decent. Just saying it's not a useful metric and I don't think we have the 31st best team in the country talent-wise.

It’s a flawed metric but it’s still a somewhat useful data point. You’d be burying your head in the sand to just totally dismiss it.

 

[heelinhell]

Well for starters I would say we need to conduct a thorough coaching search and make a serious hire. Should be an obvious first step for any program looking to improve but for some reason we haven’t done that the last two times we’ve had an opening.

I know we’ve discussed big picture expectations for UNC football recently but I get that it’s a bit abstract, so I’ll use a more tangible example: NC State.

Nobody thinks they are anything more than a slightly above average program at best, but they have still been a clear cut above UNC for quite awhile at this point. That’s not even up for debate imo. Can we at least strive to be better than that? Give me one good reason why we couldn’t be.

I think our poor record vs ncst leads you to think that ncst has been a clear cut above UNC "for quite awhile" without debate.

Since 2015 we have 8 more wins than ncst in ACC play. That is certainly nothing to brag about, but essentially each program has been mediocre for the last 10 years.

You say conducting a thorough coaching search and making a serious hire is the solution. We have had dozens of different coaching hires in our history and yet we remain what we have always been, a 7-5 program.

Is there any reason to expect that after making dozens of bad hires over the last century that we can suddenly begin making good hires ?

Google Search

 

[C-Money]

Wonder if there is a chance we could get Chip Kelly as OC for next year? He just got fired by the Raiders. Would be a grand slam.

A splash OC target is available for UNC football but Bill Belichick must stay away

This would be an absolute horrible idea for Bill Belichick and the UNC football program.

keepingitheel.com

 

[Peppers49]

I think our poor record vs ncst leads you to think that ncst has been a clear cut above UNC "for quite awhile" without debate.

Since 2015 we have 8 more wins than ncst in ACC play. That is certainly nothing to brag about, but essentially each program has been mediocre for the last 10 years.

You say conducting a thorough coaching search and making a serious hire is the solution. We have had dozens of different coaching hires in our history and yet we remain what we have always been, a 7-5 program.

Is there any reason to expect that after making dozens of bad hires over the last century that we can suddenly begin making good hires ?

Google Search

Whatever man lol. You are clearly hell bent on wanting the football program remaining a joke for whatever reason. Congrats for being on the winning side there I guess.

 

[gregh1]

It’s a flawed metric but it’s still a somewhat useful data point. You’d be burying your head in the sand to just totally dismiss it.

So how does this line up with your premise that Lombo is awful? Which one is it - this team is talented (cuz that list is littered with xfers and new recruits at the top, 12 of the top 20 were "signed" under him) or Lombo sucks at talent acquisition despite all that talent?

 

[IllegalMotion9999]

Dude, I posted in here that I took Heels to cover against Dook and got the push. So not everybody thought Dook was going to blow out UNC.
Dook at Kenan during the day is far different from playing the Woofies at CFS at night.
At 4-6, Heels had at least something to play for, maybe get to even record and bowl bid. Now, Heels are sure to have a losing season and I would imagine a lot of players already have one foot out the door.
Envisioning a beatdown like two years ago.

 

[heel79]

Totally agree. This is one of my biggest gripes, among the many that I have, about the whole Belichick thing. Belichick can’t fail the players. Only the players can fail Belichick. It’s such an irritating notion that absolves our $10 million head coach of responsibility for this disaster of a season.

Yet BB without fail has said repeatedly the staff has to do better job coaching. It's been a consistent theme. He has talked about mistakes made and the need to learn from them.

 

[Peppers49]

O

So how does this line up with your premise that Lombo is awful? Which one is it - this team is talented (cuz that list is littered with xfers and new recruits at the top, 12 of the top 20 were "signed" under him) or Lombo sucks at talent acquisition despite all that talent?

Not the point I was trying to make. I don’t think that this roster is particularly talented in the grand scheme of things, I just think that it has more than enough talent to beat more than 4 teams on a schedule that’s as weak as the one we played this season.

 

[SnoopRob]

I've read every single article on the coaching search, including that one. By far the best one is from Greg Barnes, which I am linking below.

I think you are ignoring some of the timeline here.

On December 1, 2024, Roberts and Cunningham (and others) held a five-hour zoom call with Bill. That is when the 400-page power point manifesto rumor started. Prior to that zoom call, Bill was not a serious candidate. After that zoom call, he was the leading candidate.

And this is where Roberts has to take the heat. This zoom call was BEFORE the leaks referenced in your article. Roberts could have said after the zoom meeting that Bill was not the guy. Instead, he let the wildfire spread, which then led to Roberts and Cunningham meeting with Bill in New York on Dec. 5th, the same day Preyer sent Bill a term sheet. Which then led to Roberts and UNC legal flying to Massachusetts on Dec. 8th to walk-back the term sheet and attempt to seal the deal.

Throughout this process, Bubba wanted to keep the options open in case Belichick fell through. For example, on December 7th, Roberts and Bubba met with Sumrall in New Orleans.

It hardly took Preyer leaking Bill to sabotage the Sumrall meeting. By Dec. 7th, the Tar Pit had already been discussing Bill for over a week and it was well-known that UNC was zeroing on Belichick by that time.

The key point is that Roberts decided on Dec. 1 that he liked Belichick. That was not some power play forced on him. It was a five-hour interview in which Roberts truly thought this grand experiment would work.

Greg: The Belichick Hire Backstory

Departing BOT chair John Preyer’s term exemplified his motto of disruptive change, none more so than with UNC's hiring of Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick.

www.on3.com

Where in that article does it say that Roberts liked Belichick after that call? I can't find that statement in the article and Roberts is only mentioned 4 times throughout the entire thing.

But it does say this...

Preyer’s actions, which eventually led to UNC System President Peter Hans temporarily suspending parts of the delegations of authority given to the Board of Trustees in February, sparked outrage among a segment of Carolina administrators and supporters and led to rumors of dual coaching searches running separately but concurrently. Sources close to the administration and familiar with the search process insisted that it was indeed an offer, which hurt UNC’s leverage in the Belichick negotiations and cost the school a chance to hire other top candidates, especially Campbell.

I'm not saying that Roberts may not have been persuaded that Belichick was a good hire, I'm saying that we can't assume that just because Belichick was hired. And given that he allowed Bubba to continue a normal search after that Dec 1 meeting, I would add that we can't assume that Roberts was all-in on Belichick at that time.

Roberts certainly deserves some of the blame for Belichick, but the vast majority goes to Preyer because he's obviously the one who, in reality, hired Belichick.

 

[SnoopRob]

Wonder if there is a chance we could get Chip Kelly as OC for next year? He just got fired by the Raiders. Would be a grand slam.

As a Raiders fan, I beg to differ.

 

[CFordUNC]

Yet BB without fail has said repeatedly the staff has to do better job coaching. It's been a consistent theme. He has talked about mistakes made and the need to learn from them.

I hear you, and I would absolutely like to believe that is true. But every coach who ever loses a game says in the postgame presser that they have to do a better job coaching. Every single one. I bet I could pull the transcript of almost every losing coach's press conference this season and 90% of them would say some variation of "we've got to do a better job coaching." I'm more interested in seeing things on the field change instead of lip service being paid to needing to coach better (examples being things such as not continuing to make the same bizarre timeout/clock management mistakes, not allowing the same players to continue commit the same boneheaded personal fouls, trying to change things up offensively by trying a new quarterback, etc.)

Trust me, I want this to work. I truly do. I know it seems like I get enjoyment out of criticizing Bill Belichick but nothing could be further from the truth. I get zero enjoyment out of UNC football losing games, and especially losing to teams like Wake Forest and Duke. The reason I'm so critical is because I feel empowered to do so given that everyone involved in this whole charade has said from day one that we weren't going to be outcoached, outschemed, out-game managed, we were going to run this thing like the NFL's 33rd team, etc. etc. I just feel that if they're going to have said all of those things, then they needed to have backed it up, and since they haven't to date, I feel compelled to be highly critical and skeptical. If they had come in from day 1 with some humility and acknowledged that they had a huge learning curve ahead of them, I'd be more tolerant of what we've seen.