North Carolina Football Becomes a Sideshow Under Bill Belichick

In most other scenarios, North Carolina wide receiver Jordan Shipp’s comments following a 38-10 drubbing on Oct. 4 vs. Clemson could be dismissed as a predictable empty platitude after a loss.

“You just got to stick together,” he told reporters. “You know, tune everything else out.”

In the Tar Heels’ case, however, tuning out the noise around them probably is critical to them turning around a disappointing 2-3 season. But the problem is the noise is a 24-hour circus North Carolina athletic brass welcomed into the program’s own facility.

The latest act in this bizarre carnival came in the late hours of Wednesday, Oct. 8, when ringleader/athletic director Bubba Cunningham and main attraction/head coach Bill Belichick pulled up in the clown car that is X — that’s the platform formerly known as Twitter, don’t you know? — each quoted in a joint statement.

“I’m fully committed to UNC football and the program we’re building here,” read Belichick’s comment on @GoHeels, the official Twi…excuse me, X account of North Carolina athletics. Cunningham’s one-liner read: “Coach Belichick has the full support of the Department of the Athletics and the University.”

Spare the pies to the face and seltzer bottles, the old full support is a real knee-slapper as old as time. Pulling a quarter from behind a child’s ear is often more real than public declarations of full support for embattled coaching staffs.

That Cunningham is having to dust off this particular parlor trick just fives games into Belichick’s tenure is stunning, though. Why, it wasn’t so long ago that TV personalities, professional columnists, YouTubers and some in the general commentariat were asking if Belichick could lead North Carolina to the College Football Playoff.

After all, the sport transitioned into an era more akin to the NFL with NIL payments and a restructured transfer portal functioning as a quasi-free agent market. Who better to flourish in a pro-like environment than the winner of six Super Bowls as a head coach?

All Belichick would have to do is pull any one of his six rings from out of his wait and abracadabra! What player wouldn’t be commit to that?

It was a nice idea in theory, but revealed as smoke-and-mirrors rather than genuine magic pretty early on. Airing on Labor Day with no games opposite it, college football fans craving one last taste of Week 1 tuned into a performance that was more of a sideshow than spectacle.

The 48-14 faceplant North Carolina endured against TCU might actually be the highlight of the Belichick era to date. There was that early lead secured on Caleb Hood’s eight-yard touchdown run, capping a seven-play, 83-yard drive and punctuated with Belichick recreating his favorite bit: Standing stone-faced and not celebrating.

With the benefit of hindsight, however, it’s worth asking how much of Belichick’s stoicism after the peak of North Carolina’s season — holding a lead against a power-conference opponent for the only time until mid-October at the earliest — was foreshadowing an apparent desire to pack up the tent and get out of town.

After Belichick stuck his head in a Tigers’ mouth last week, losing to Clemson in a blowout that was nowhere near as competitive as the final score suggests, plenty around Chapel Hill are seemingly ready to help him exit by firing him from a cannon.

Student body president Adolfo Alvarez imploring to The Athletic that UNC needs an independent review of Belichick’s program reflects a frustration that transcends the basic anger that comes with a team losing by an average of 29 points per game.

“Even though sometimes student-athletes can be seen as young professional players, at the end of the day, they are students, they’re young, and they are part of our community,” Alvarez is quoted as saying.

In the haste of some decision makers around college football to adopt NFL models, they seem to forget the programs are still tied to universities. Worse still, North Carolina paid for a supposed NFL model — and paid a lot, at that — only to get a circus.

Belichick’s contract is worth a reported approximate $50 million over five years. USA Today reported on Thursday that only the first three years are guaranteed, but getting to the Jan. 1, 2028 milestone when an absurd $10 million a year buyout lapses might pull a program that a WRAL report described as already having “no culture, no organization” further into absurdity.

And, for the Tar Heel players, it’s not feasible for them to just tune out a carnival show staged in their own locker room.