When the North Carolina Tar Heels stunned the football world hiring Bill Belichick to replace Mack Brown, they instantly became one of the most interesting programs in the Country. When Bill Belichick and his staff started retooling his roster, the fanbase was optimistic even as the drama started to outweigh all of the positive stories.
The fanbase was so optimistic that there was a who's who of former athletes and alumni on campus for Belichick's debut with Michael Jordan, Lawrence Taylor, and Roy Williams all showed up to watch this game unfold.
All of the hype around Bill Belichick blinded everyone in Chapel Hill from the fact of the matter that this was never going to work out, especially in the first game of the new era. All of the writing was on the wall that this was going to be a mess and in the end, it took seeing it for the Tar Heels fans to believe it.
These 3 factors were always going to make the Belichick era a disaster
A staff filled with friends
When you look at the staff that Bill Belichick built, it's not a surprise that this team looked like an absolute disaster. Belichick didn't need to look far to find his defensive coordinator, as he hired his son, Stephen Belichick, who allowed 48 points in this game, with TCU rushing for 259 yards and passing for 284.
The man responsible for assembling this roster is former NFL GM and great friend of Bill Belichick, Michael Lombardi. Most NFL GMs get several years to build their roster, but Lombardi was so bad at drafting that he was fired after one season, picking Barkevious Mingo 6th overall. The biggest mistake in making Michael Lombardi the General Manager is that he had no experience in the role at the College level.
Other key coaches include Linebackers coach Jamie Collins, another former Belichick player in his first role as a coach,, and Brian Belichick, who's also Bill's son and coaches the defensive backs.
Building an entire roster out of transfers
The North Carolina Tar Heels simply used the transfer portal as often as possible, bringing in 40 players via the transfer portal. The transfers outweigh the returning players at 38, while they also brought in 30 true freshmen, making the dynamic on this roster so bizarre. We've seen time after time that relying so heavily on transfers doesn't work out and building an entire team this way was a fatal flaw.
Thinking that North Carolina was getting the 6-time Super Bowl Champion
The biggest flaw that North Carolina fans failed to realize is that they weren't getting the same guy who dominated the NFL in New England. As much as they loved him, Patriots fans would be the first to tell you that toward the end of his time in Foxboro, the team looked like a shell of itself making the same mistakes we saw in this game.
As the game continues to get younger and younger, especially at the College level, it's easy to see how Belichick's schemes are no longer the best to slow some of the new schemes that are taking over the game. In this game, neither Bill Belichick nor Steve Belichick had any answers for Kendal Briles' offense.
Will the entire season be a disaster for Bill Belichick?
After this game, if you're a North Carolina fan, it's hard to have a ton of hope for the rest of the season, let alone the rest of the Belichick tenure. A sign of optimism would be that when Max Johnson entered the game, the offense looked far more effective as he was getting the ball out much quicker than Lopez was. You'd like to think that Belichick will eventually fix the mistakes, as his team missed too many tackles to count.
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