Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. In case you missed it over the weekend, the latest installment of my Stadium Wonders video series is out now. I went to Georgia to see 99-year-old Grayson Stadium, the home of the Savannah Bananas.
In today’s SI:AM:
🐸 TCU smacks BB and UNC
🎾 Osaka upsets Gauff
🏈 First NFL power rankings
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We’re on to Charlotte
Congratulations to Bill Belichick on shifting the focus away from the age gap between him and his girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, and toward the talent gap between his North Carolina team and TCU.
Belichick’s Tar Heels were throttled by the Horned Frogs in the season opener in Chapel Hill on Monday night, 48–14, and the loss was just as ugly as the lopsided scoreline would indicate. UNC scored a touchdown on the opening possession of the game and then surrendered 41 unanswered points. At one point late in the second quarter, the ESPN broadcast showed a graphic noting that it had been about an hour and a half of real time since UNC quarterback Gio Lopez had completed a pass.
The Tar Heels were 1-for-10 on third-down conversion attempts and managed just 10 first downs—four of them on a garbage-time touchdown drive immediately after TCU had stretched the lead to 41–7. North Carolina finished with 222 total yards while allowing TCU to rack up 542. That’s the largest gap in total yardage by a Big 12 team against an ACC team since at least 1995 (as far back as Sports Reference’s data goes).
The total dud of a performance spoiled what had been a celebratory mood on campus in Chapel Hill. A litany of UNC celebrities—like Michael Jordan, Roy Williams, Lawrence Taylor and Julius Peppers—were on hand to see the beginning of a new era of Carolina football. There was a pregame concert from country musician Chase Rice (a former UNC linebacker) and a sellout crowd of 50,500 in the stadium.
The environment was the only positive Belichick could find in his typically monotone postgame press conference.
“There was a great atmosphere here for the game tonight. The fans had tremendous energy, and I know we played competitively, but then just couldn't sustain it,” Belichick said. “So obviously, we have a lot of work to do. We need to do a better job all the way around, coaching, playing all three phases of the game. And I know we’re a lot better than that, so we need to work on those things and show it [in our next game] on Saturday and turn around. But give TCU credit, they came in and did a good job, and they were clear that their team tonight deserved to win, and they did it decisively.”
TCU had been widely regarded as the better team—a potential Big 12 championship contender, while UNC was a complete question mark—but North Carolina getting run off in the field in a game that was never competitive is a worst-case outcome for Belichick’s debut. The Tar Heels will have an opportunity to get back on track against decidedly inferior opponents in their next two games against Charlotte and Richmond, but it’ll be tough to erase the stink of getting ragdolled in the opener.
UNC made a major gamble in hiring Belichick to take over the football program. He’s 73 years old and has never coached in college before. The last time he was involved in college football in any capacity was as a player at Division-III Wesleyan in 1974. He’s one of the most successful coaches in NFL history, but he went a combined 29–38 in his final four seasons with the Patriots after Tom Brady left. And Belichick isn’t just starting over at UNC, he’s trying to reinvent the wheel. He’s talked about running the program like a professional team and has hired his old buddy Michael Lombardi as the team’s general manager to help do so. It’s an interesting experiment. More closely replicating an NFL experience may be the future of college football as the sport becomes increasingly professionalized, but Belichick’s experiment just failed its first test.
The best of Sports Illustrated
- Pat Forde was in Chapel Hill for Bill Belichick’s debut and has more on where things went wrong for the Tar Heels.
- After Naomi Osaka cruised to an upset victory over Coco Gauff to reach the U.S. Open quarterfinals, Jon Wertheim wonders what it says about both players’ short-term trajectories.
- Pat Forde breaks down Week 1’s college football debuts, highlighting standout performances from Tennessee’s Joey Aguilar and Miami’s Malachi Toney while calling out struggles from Iowa’s Mark Gronowski and Oklahoma’s Jaydn Ott.
- Albert Breer details how Packers QB Jordan Love is elevating his play, and he also examines Detroit’s revamped staff, Russell Wilson’s influence in New York and Dallas’s rebuilding efforts.
- Conor Orr’s final power rankings before we kick off the 2025 season do not have the defending champs No. 1.
- Tom Verducci examines how the Yankees’ historic August power surge showcases both the danger and vulnerability of their feast-or-famine home run–heavy offense.
- Bob Harig suggests that if Tiger Woods returns in 2026, a move to the PGA Tour Champions could be a realistic option. He also writes about Bryson DeChambeau’s Ryder Cup buzz and key golf executive meetings.
The top five…
… Labor Day plays in MLB:
5. A towering home run over the train tracks in Houston by the Angels’ Jo Adell.
4. Juan Soto’s big day at the plate: a grand slam, followed by a two-run triple. His six RBIs tied a career high.
3. Pete Crow-Armstrong’s sliding catch in center.
2. Elly De La Cruz’s diving effort for an unassisted double play.
1. Trevor Story’s wacky home run, thanks to Fenway’s Pesky Pole.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | North Carolina Smoked by TCU in Bill Belichick’s Ugly Debut.
