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    Jon Conahan
    Jon Conahan
    Nov 24, 2025, 21:10
    Updated at: Nov 24, 2025, 21:10

    If there's one thing that's been true about the North Carolina football program, it's that Bill Belichick hasn't done a lot of winning so far.

    For a storied head coach who did nothing but win during his time in the NFL, Duke had the opportunity to give him another loss in his college career and did just that with a 32-25 win.

    It's also funny that Belichick came out and said what he had to say after losing to Duke. 

    He had a lot of respect for what Duke did on both sides of the football, and even praised Manny Diaz a good bit through the week leading up to the game, but knowing what Belichick has said in the past about losing games at the NFL level, for him to come out and say that he's really proud of his teams effort came as a major surprise, and perhaps showed that maybe Duke broke him a little bit.

    “Really proud of the effort everybody gave all week, and tonight, obviously came up a few plays short. And it’s disappointing. Give Duke credit, they made a few more plays than we did at critical times, and ultimately that was the difference in the game. So just keep grinding here, go back to work and be ready for NC State next week. But just made too many mistakes, too many bad plays, obviously, too many penalties. So that’s about the story,” he said, per On3.

    The college world is a lot different than the NFL world, which most coaches who come over from the NFL find out the hard way. 

    It isn't easy to coach young men compared to grown professionals, and Belichick hasn't done the best job with that. 

    For Duke, while a 32-25 win against UNC wasn't too impressive, it was still nice to get this win and give the fans something to cheer about. 

    Diaz's squad is now bowl eligible and will have one more game remaining against Wake Forest. 

    The game doesn't mean a whole lot in terms of a bowl game, but perhaps if Duke wins, it will get a better one. 

    Regardless, there were a lot of missed opportunities for Duke throughout the year, but it was good to get a win against Belichick and North Carolina.