TCU’s season opener in Dublin has quietly turned into the kind of game that can ruin a perfectly good August.
When the Horned Frogs and North Carolina agreed to this home-and-home nearly 10 years ago, the football world looked a whole lot different. Gary Patterson was still TCU’s coach, Sonny Dykes was at California, Larry Fedora was leading UNC, Bill Belichick was about two months from another Super Bowl in New England, and Jordon Hudson was in high school.
Now the Aug. 29 meeting in Ireland carries a very different feel. What was supposed to be a straightforward opener has been dragged into “trap game” territory, mostly because North Carolina has become such a mess under Belichick and his friend Mike Lombardi that TCU has to guard against taking the Tar Heels lightly.
UNC’s Belichick experiment keeps piling up the kind of headlines that make the whole thing hard to ignore. On Monday, the school announced Lombardi, the team’s general manager, had been placed on administrative leave.
On3 Sports reported that Lombardi has an HR complaint filed against him. Also on Monday, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Pablo Torre reported that UNC’s football program is being investigated by the College Sports Commission.
For Dykes, the challenge is simple in theory and tricky in practice: keep his team from staring at the noise, the ugly results from Belichick’s first season, or last year’s game in Chapel Hill, and convince them that North Carolina still poses a real threat.
That’s easier said than done, especially in a season opener. Even before the transfer portal turned roster-building into a year-to-year shuffle, the first game of the season could be a coin flip.
Now it can feel like a blind date with a depth chart. Add in the transfer-heavy, fast-changing nature of college football, and the opener becomes even harder to trust.
TCU already saw what Belichick’s first UNC team looked like up close. On Sept. 1, 2025, the Horned Frogs were a 3.5-point favorite in Chapel Hill.
North Carolina took the opening kickoff and marched straight down the field for an easy touchdown, but TCU took control from there and rolled to a 48-14 win. UNC finished 4-8, and nothing about that season suggested Belichick or Lombardi had a firm grip on the college game.
Still, Ireland has a way of humbling favorites. Three of the last four favorites in this early-season game overseas have lost, and none of them came out of it looking much better.
Nebraska was a 13-point favorite over Northwestern in 2022 and lost by 3, then finished 4-8. Florida State was a 10.5-point favorite against Georgia Tech in 2024 and lost by 3, then finished 2-10. Kansas State was a 3.5-point favorite against Iowa State in 2025 and lost by 3, then finished 6-6, missed a bowl, and saw its head coach retire after the season.
So yes, TCU has reasons to feel good. The Horned Frogs are a 6.5-point favorite, and UNC’s 4-8 record - including a 2-6 mark in the ACC - does not exactly scream danger. The close losses to California and Virginia were part of a season that looked a lot more like Belichick’s Cleveland years, or his Patriots teams without Tom Brady, than anything resembling a college powerhouse.
Even so, all the ingredients are there for TCU to stumble into an ugly opener.
But Belichick is no Curt Cignetti.
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