Week 0 has already delivered the usual pile of overreactions, and college football didn’t waste any time going full-speed into the nonsense.
There have been plenty of loud takes flying around after the opening games: USC fans don’t care and are an embarrassment. Beau Pribula looks like a Heisman candidate.
North Dakota State is apparently ready to dominate the FBS the way it ruled the FCS. And yes, Mike Norvell should have been fired at halftime, though that one at least has some support behind it.
But the most ridiculous reaction of all might be the one that turned Bill Belichick from offseason punchline to instant savior after North Carolina’s 15-10 win over TCU in Ireland.
That’s a wild swing for a team that didn’t exactly announce itself as a machine. UNC got a nice opening win, sure.
Belichick can take credit for that. But one ugly Week 0 result doesn’t wipe away months of real concern any more than one bad loss would have proved the whole experiment was doomed.
For much of the offseason, the conversation around Belichick and UNC was relentless.
Belichick doesn’t understand college football.
The experiment is already failing.
UNC made a mistake.
Belichick can’t recruit.
The program is dysfunctional.
Then, after one messy game on the Emerald Island, the tone flipped just as fast:
Belichick has UNC looking good!
The Tar Heels are turning the corner!
Biggest win of the Belichick era!
DC Bill Belichick is what this program needed!
That kind of leap doesn’t hold up. Not after 60 minutes against a TCU team that spent most of the afternoon stepping on rakes.
Sonny Dykes’ group looked lost, sloppy, and unprepared. Even for Week 0, even with the long trip to Ireland, the Horned Frogs were a mess.
The box score backed that up. TCU was flagged 11 times for 89 yards, lost a fumble, and got very little from quarterback Jaden Craig, who completed 20 passes for 175 yards and finished with a 27.1 QBR. The rain and the one-dimensional offense made it easier for UNC to stay steady, and that’s exactly what it did: game management football.
That’s the real story here. UNC survived a bad opponent. It did not suddenly become a finished product.
The clearest reason to slow down the Belichick hype is simple: UNC scored one more point against TCU than it did a year ago. One. That came in a game where TCU, which hung nearly 50 on the Tar Heels a year ago, was barely able to get out of its own way.
So yes, the win should buy Belichick some breathing room. It should quiet the noise a little. It should not trigger a victory lap.
The offseason criticism doesn’t vanish because UNC won one sloppy opener. And at the same time, one ugly win doesn’t mean the skeptics were right either. That’s the part everyone seems eager to skip past.
If UNC starts stacking wins, looks organized, develops players, and becomes legitimately competitive, then the conversation can change. Until then, there’s no reason to pretend 60 minutes in a rain-soaked slog settled anything.
UNC opened the season with a win. Bill Belichick earned that much. What happens next is still wide open.
In Other News...
Former TCU Safety Now Faces A Serious Off-Field Fallout
A locker room incident has turned into a much more serious off-field problem for former TCU safety Jacob Fields, who was charged with aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury after an altercation with wide receiver Dozie Ezukanma. The episode was reported to campus police, and Fields was dismissed from the football team in the aftermath, a sharp break from the kind of roster news TCU typically hopes never to be making.
Sonny Dykes addressed the situation and said the incident was out of character for both the program and the player involved, a reminder of how quickly an internal dispute can spill into something far bigger. For TCU, the focus now shifts from the football fallout to the legal one, with the case leaving another unresolved layer around a program that would rather be talking about what happens on the field. [Read more 🡒]
Demon June Has A Chance To Become North Carolinas Week 0 Story
Week 0 usually belongs to the established names and the headlining quarterbacks, but this one has a few under-the-radar players worth watching before the season really gets rolling. Among them is TCU quarterback Jaden Craig, whose place in the conversation says as much about the Horned Frogs next step as it does about his own rise. He is part of a small group of players from around the country, including North Carolinas Demon June, Hawaiis Micah Alejado and USCs Mark Bowman, who could end up shaping how these teams are remembered in the opening stretch of the season.
For TCU, Craigs emergence matters because it speaks to where the offense may be headed and how quickly the Horned Frogs can settle into a new identity. The early spotlight will be shared, but players like Craig are the ones who can turn a quiet debut into a season-long storyline, especially when the matchup list starts to thin and production has to come from somewhere unexpected. [Read more 🡒]
TCU Gets An Early Measuring Stick Against Bill Belichicks UNC
Bill Belichicks second season at North Carolina will get an immediate examination, and TCU will be the one doing the grading. The Horned Frogs open the 2026 season against the Tar Heels in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic in Dublin, a matchup that gives both programs a high-profile stage before the fall schedule really gets moving. North Carolina is coming off a 4-8 season in 2025, so the opener already carries plenty of weight for a team trying to show it is turning a corner under one of college footballs most scrutinized coaches.
Billy Edwards Jr. has been named the starting quarterback, giving the Tar Heels a clear place to begin on offense, while Jordan Shipp is expected to be one of the primary passing targets. On the other side of the ball, Melkart Abou Jaoude anchors the defense as a Preseason All-American, which only adds to the intrigue for TCU as it prepares for an early test against a roster with some recognizable pieces and a lot to prove. The result in Dublin will not settle anything about either program, but it should tell a lot about where each team stands right away. [Read more 🡒]