Despite the chaos, Bill Belichick and UNC seem to be improving. Is it enough?

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Amid a dizzying week of bad publicity in early October, Bill Belichick took to the dais to deliver a sermon to the nonbelievers.

No, he was not leaving North Carolina.

No, he was not making changes to his staff.

And yes, despite all evidence to the contrary after a 2-3 start and, most recently, a blowout loss to Clemson at home in which the stands at Kenan Stadium had emptied before halftime, this Tar Heels team was vastly improved.

"Our football team is a lot better than what it was at the end of spring ball, I can tell you that," he said.

Trust the process, Belichick said, and whether anyone in the audience was convinced, his words seemed to resonate inside his own locker room.

North Carolina has lost two more games since then, but the first -- a road trip to Cal -- was by just 3 points, and the latest, against a ranked Virginia team, was decided by a failed 2-point try in overtime.

It certainly did seem like the progress Belichick promised -- albeit in small steps.

"I was like, 'Where's this been?'" said an ACC analyst who was surprised by the improvement against Cal and Virginia. "They played exceptionally hard. They probably took a hard look at themselves and thought, 'This is an embarrassment on us. We're better players than this.'"

In the loss to Clemson, the analyst said he saw a lot of plays Carolina "gave up on" and "the effort was not there." In the week that followed, reports emerged of a fight in the locker room and rumors spread that Belichick was looking for a way out. The school canceled a planned documentary on the season, and reports explained a lack of promotion of Heels alum Drake Maye as a result of Belichick's ban on anything related to his former employer, the New England Patriots, appearing on the school's social media accounts.

And oddly enough, it all seemed to be just the right way to galvanize the locker room, according to receiver Jordan Shipp.

"I feel like that's what brought everybody together," Shipp said. "You're supposed to have your brother's back, no matter what's going on. There's a lot of that going on in this building."

Of course, success is entirely about context, and when Belichick talks about his process, it's worth noting that Day 1, he began much farther from the top than most inside the program ever imagined.

NORTH CAROLINA'S FAN base was sold on the idea that Belichick, winner of six Super Bowls with the Patriots, would lead the Tar Heels to the playoff and beyond. They packed Kenan Stadium for the opener against TCU. The Heels' first drive was surgical -- a seven-play, 83-yard march for a touchdown that had the crowd, including Michael Jordan and Mia Hamm, euphoric.

Then, TCU pulled back the curtain and showed the world the real North Carolina.

"You watch the TCU film: There are guys walking [during plays] on the field at one point," the coach of one UNC opponent said. "That was pretty stunning."

TCU won that game 48-14. QB Gio Lopez, at one point, went two full hours of real time without a completion. North Carolina looked completely lost.

As one defensive assistant who faced UNC later in the season said, the Heels' offensive game plan was vanilla. It seemed, the assistant said, as if they had watched some game film, saw a few plays that had success in the past and ran the same things.

"They're a copy cat," the assistant said. "TCU had to be yawning."

If the offense was boring, the defense was lost.

"The two TDs in third quarter, they were on the same play," the opposing coach said, "and no one -- there wasn't an idea of like, 'Hey let's not let that happen again.'"

As Belichick worked to implement an NFL approach in Chapel Hill, much was lost in translation with a group of players who looked overwhelmed by what they were being asked to do and deflated at times.

"They just don't really understand how to play college football with tempo and getting people in space and the RPO game," another opposing assistant coach said. "They want you to line up and show them what you're doing every snap. Most college teams, we just don't do that. You're going to have to react so the coordinator is going to be giving late calls most of the time, and you have to play more base."

The end result was a team that looked more like the early scenes of a bad football movie than the 33rd NFL team. And in the weeks that followed TCU, it only got worse.

CLEMSON RAN A trick play to open the game against North Carolina. It turned into a touchdown. On their next drive, it took the Tigers two plays to score. By the end of the first quarter, the Tigers were up 28-3, and any hope UNC had learned something during its bye week that preceded the game had evaporated. This was the same miserable performance Heels fans had now come to expect.

In the aftermath, Belichick and GM Michael Lombardi seemed to point the finger directly at the talent -- or lack thereof -- on the roster.

"When we got here," Belichick explained in a news conference the week after the Clemson loss, "we had three defensive linemen. You can't practice with three defensive linemen. We went out and signed a lot of players. We signed players who didn't have offers or offers that they didn't want -- kind of slid through the cracks in terms of the recruiting process. We signed players in the transfer portal that were available. We were late in the running on a lot of them. We were late on relationships. We were late on contacts [with recruits]. We ran out of time. We did the best we could."

The explanation left many fans frustrated. An hour west at Wake Forest, head coach Jake Dickert took over a team with less established talent than UNC a week later than Belichick, but he also attacked roster building with an NFL approach, and the Deacons are 5-2.

"It's like the late rounds of the draft," Dickert said. "We found guys that love football, fit our culture and have a great energy and passion for what they're doing. I said when I was hired, this is not a throwaway year. The best program builders in the country maximize the moment."

In contrast, Lombardi seemed eager to write off the Heels' early struggles as the inevitable result of a year in which UNC had no expectations of winning.

Lombardi sent a letter to donors imploring them to remain patient, calling this a "rebuild" repeatedly -- a concept that was certainly never communicated to administrators, fans or even the players.

"I'm not here to rebuild," Shipp said. "I'm here to win."

As chaos surrounded the program, AD Bubba Cunningham pointed to the chasm between expectations and reality as the biggest issue.

According to documents obtained in an open records request by ESPN, one high ranking UNC administrator celebrated the release of the 2025 schedule, paired with the hiring of Belichick, as "perfect" for the Heels. Aside from Clemson, no one seemed markedly better than Carolina, and with Belichick on the sideline, there was every reason to believe this UNC team could overachieve in Year 1 of the new regime, finally moving past years of mediocrity under Mack Brown.

For folks who actually evaluated the talent on the roster, that idea always seemed absurd.

"I do think every one of us expected them to not be very good this year, because everybody left," said another ACC coach. "You have a massive talent void. And I have no idea what's going on internally there, but you've got no chance in this day and age if it's all business and being transactional. You've got to have a relationship with them."

That transactional approach was the lynchpin to Lombardi's offseason strategy, which resulted in a gutting of Brown's last roster and the addition of 70 players from the transfer portal, including 30 after spring ball ended.

According to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation, the early recruiting days were chaotic as UNC was understaffed and unprepared to recruit. Administration had conferred sizable resources on the program in an effort to add talent, but as a player personnel staffer at another ACC school noted, UNC "has money but doesn't know how to spend it."

The end result was, as Belichick and Lombardi seemed to admit, a downright bad team incapable of executing the basics of the NFL concepts they wanted to implement.

"It's that NFL philosophy," the opposing analyst said. "There was a lot of that, 'Hey we've been in the NFL, and we expect our guys to adjust and adapt quickly.' That sounds good in theory, but you're dealing with college kids; you still have to put them in positions to be successful."

IN THE LOSS to Virginia, the Carolina defense racked up six sacks on QB Chandler Morris and held the Cavaliers to just 10 points in regulation.

This was, by UNC standards, a celebratory moment.

"They were doing a good job of playing wide ends and not letting us get outside," said Virginia coach Tony Elliott afterward. "They did a really good job of boxing everything in, playing some man coverage and having an extra hat on our inside [runs.]"

But it's also likely the Heels found success by moving away from a lot of the most lofty goals of the Belichick plan and simply embracing the basics.

"They've been struggling on the back end at times, especially in the intermediate passing game," another opposing analyst said. "Early in the year they were trying to do too much. They've simplified a lot of things and are trying to play into their kids' strengths."

That strength, according to one assistant who faced UNC early in the season, was clearly the defensive front.

In UNC's past three games, the Heels have allowed just 228 yards on the ground -- 2.4 per carry -- and racked up 10 sacks after mustering only four in its first four games.

"Their front-level players, they have good players," said one opposing coach who faced UNC early. "Their D-line was big, and we thought they were pretty good, actually. They just didn't have any depth to be able to sub those guys out."

One clear sign of progress at UNC is that coaches have identified players who can help who hadn't seen a ton of playing time early on in the year.

That impact has shown up most on offense. Kobe Paysour, who had just two catches for 18 yards in UNC's first five games, has racked up nine receptions for 155 yards in the past two. Tailback Benjamin Hall, who topped out at six carries in those first five games, has had 25 carries for 118 yards and a touchdown since. And against Virginia, freshman Madrid Tucker saw his first action of the year and led the way with eight catches.

And yet, it has all added up to just 34 points the past two weeks, and UNC still hasn't scored more than 20 against an FBS opponent this year.

When Belichick took over, he largely cleaned house of anyone tethered to Brown's time in Chapel Hill. One of the few holdovers, however, is offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens, a former assistant under Brown and one-time NFL head coach.

Kitchens, however, hadn't called plays at all since 2021, and he had never been a college coordinator.

"I think a good offensive coordinator can make chicken salad out of chicken s---," one opposing assistant said. "But you can't do NFL things without NFL players. Period."

Another assistant coach of an opposing team noted that, while UNC's O-line is big and physical, its guys are not particularly athletic, so against quicker defensive fronts or any more dynamic pass rush techniques, the Heels struggle.

Then there's the issue of the quarterback.

Lopez was supposed to be the gem of Belichick's portal class, with UNC landing the South Alabama transfer for a reported $2 million. It hasn't worked.

Among 69 qualified Power 4 quarterbacks, Lopez ranks 67th in Total QBR (34.1), 67th in yards-per-dropback (4.98) and 57th in adjusted completion percentage (66.4%). In four starts against Power 4 competition, he has thrown five interceptions and no touchdowns on throws beyond the line of scrimmage.

"Outside of the scripted drives, the quarterback struggles going through the progressions with what the next step would be," the opposing assistant coach said.

THE HIGHEST ASPIRATIONS for this North Carolina team have long since faded under the weight of a brutal start to the season.

The improvements have been incremental, but noticeable, in the past two games -- even if it mostly has been the Heels climbing those first steps on a long ladder.

And now, there is at least some hope.

"Players were learning the coaches, coaches were learning the players," one opposing assistant coach said. "The only way you can do something like that is to go through some tough times. It's super hard to do that during the course of spring football, because you're not at the same competitive level as game days."

Tonight (7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN), UNC runs into another team scuffling in search of an identity in Syracuse. The Orange were once riding high, fresh off a dominant win over Clemson, but then their starting QB went down, and they haven't won since. It's telling of the situation Carolina finds itself in -- short on depth and without strong QB play.

"It doesn't matter who you are as a coach, you've got to have good players," one UNC opposing coach said. "But what a good coach can do is get the most out of them. It's tough from a personnel standpoint for them."

Three weeks ago, the idea that Belichick would even be around to see the fruits of any rebuild was on shaky ground. Whether Lombardi and Belichick had any plan for building that future was no more than conjecture and empty promises. The state of the program that Belichick had promised to build in the mold of his best NFL teams seemed like some sort of fever dream.

Now, well, those things haven't changed much, but there at least remains the faintest possibility this all works out in the long run, and all the critiques of the first seven games of the Belichick era will either be fortified or forgotten based on what the next five weeks have in store.

"Our consistency has been here since the day that Michael Lombardi and I came in and started hiring people and came into the organization in December," Belichick said this week. "We got here the same day, and we've been doing it every day, and that's the way it's going to be. So I'm sure there's a lot of other people out there that want to get clicks and views and posts on my face or whatever, but like, it's just a bunch of garbage."