The official beginning of the Bill Belichick era in North Carolina is less than two months away. Players will return to campus in a few short weeks to begin practicing for Belichick's first season as a college football coach.
Since most of the talk about Belichick and North Carolina has focused on things happening off the field, the look of the team on the field has kind of been ignored. On Friday's edition of Get Up, ESPN's Kevin Clark made the case that it might actually be kind of ugly in Chapel Hill this season, suggesting that this could be one of the worst Belichick teams we've ever seen going back all the way to his time in Cleveland in the early '90s.
Kevin Clark: "I think that UNC's roster is not very good going into this season... I think it might be one of the least successful teams Bill Belichick has had in a long time. Maybe since Cleveland, frankly." pic.twitter.com/BBlKUHFpOg
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 11, 2025
"I think that the UNC roster is not very good going into this season so I'm intrigued to see if Belichick can scheme up some stuff here, bridge the talent gap with some of these teams that are more talented," said Clark. "I think it might be one of the least successful teams Bill Belichick has had in a long time. Maybe since Cleveland, frankly. Obviously he had a bad end in New England there but this UNC team might be even worse than that."
Belichick coached five seasons in Cleveland and the Browns only had a winning record in one of those years. Four of his seven least-successful seasons came in Cleveland, but his worst record in the NFL came in his final season as the Patriots went 4–13 in 2023.
For a possible frame of reference of just how hard this could be, Deion Sanders went just 4–8 in his first season at Colorado, and he brought a future Heisman winner who played both sides of the ball as well as a legitimate starting quarterback in his son.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as ESPN Analyst Says Bill Belichick Could Sink to New Career Lows With UNC Football Team.
