What Bill Belichick Would Need to Do to Win Over a Skeptical UNC Fan

The useful part

At the very least, I hope to show that my disdain is in good faith, and not permanent. Belichick started proving, to me at the very least, that he wasn't good for this job well before he got blown off the field in his first game. Winning some games against last year's schedule would have proved me wrong, and I would have been forced to admit that he might actually have found a way to game college football, the same way he gamed the pros for so many years.

How it works

• It could, at the very least, be emblematic of the reasons we love sports: a symbol of the values of teamwork, dedication to self-betterment, expertise, and confidence.
• If this program under Belichick is to be something worth showing up for, it's going to have to show some commitment to humility.
• Given that Belichick isn't going to change how he treats media unless he starts winning all of a sudden, the biggest indicators, to me, would come with new hires for the positions of general manager and...
• Larry Fedora, for all intents and purposes, lost the fans and then his job when he contradicted on-campus research about concussions and said he'd never visited UNC's arboretum.
• Sep 28 How Bill Belichick Lost to Bye Week Sep 28 The UNC Sports Week ahead:

What to take from it

It's one thing to have a team that plays the villain because it's successful, like Belichick's Patriots or the Vegas Golden Knights of the 2010's. But, because I was right, that didn't happen. Thus, simply reaching the level of those peers, if that's even an attainable goal, isn't going to be enough to justify everything else that has come with the Belichick regime at UNC.

Example or evidence

• Mack Brown lost the fans and his job when he revealed that he would hold the job as long as he could, even as he cratered it, rather than the plan of rebuilding it and stewarding it for a better future that...
• As I've written before, I think it's possible that the absolutely rancid vibes that have suffused the program since Belichick took over are at least as bad than what he has (and hasn't) accomplished on the...
• A not-insignificant source of them is mercifully gone, with Lombardi's resignation.
• With nobody replacing him as the mouthpiece of UNC Football, there aren't any more reasons to like this team, just fewer reasons not to.

Details worth keeping

What Bill Belichick needs to do to get me, personally, on his side | Tar Heel Blog Skip to main content A North Carolina Tar Heels Community Tar Heel Blog October 2, 2026 Tar Heel Blog Navigation Drawer Login / Sign Up close Search UNC Football. To be completely honest, given how much work is going into most of the other websites that specifically cover UNC Football to make excuses for, if not outright gaslight readers in support of, the head coach, there's a not-insignificant part of me that considers this a necessary corrective. I am willing to hear and act on disagreement and criticism, and as perhaps the member of THB's staff who has most openly, and certainly for the longest time, been writing about why and how the man is unfit for the job he holds, I'll extend something of an olive branch.

Related coverage

• Musketfire: Belichick's book to get the team back on track.
• Patspulpit: Coming out of their 35-6 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, the New England Patriots know they need all the help they can get.
• Yardbarker: North Carolina didn't hire the six Super Bowl rings. It hired the man who won them. Belichick has to prove that translates.