North Carolina won in its first game of the 2026 College Football season in the second year of the Bill Belichick experience.
While year one went horribly wrong in many different ways, and the offseason has been far from ideal, UNC seems to be back on track with this Week 0 win over TCU.
David Kenyon of Bleacher Report called the Tar Heels and Belichick "winners" of Week 0, and the reasons for such a label are obvious.
"This result does not substantially alter expectations for North Carolina, which has a very limited offense. Don't expect 322 yards to win many games," Kenyon writes. "For one afternoon, though, UNC had enough. And that didn't happen often in 2025."
UNC's 15-10 win over TCU isn't exactly an extremely impressive one, but compared to how the 2025 college season for Belichick and UNC began, this is a fantastic start.
Are they really going to win a lot of games if they continue to go 3-for-11 on third down and total just 90 rushing yards? Probably not. But it was enough in Week 0.
After going 4-8 last season, the Tar Heels are 1-0 this year, and for the first time in the Belichick era since their win over Richmond, the Tar Heels have a winning record.
There isn't anything overwhelmingly impressive about this win. It was a low-scoring affair overseas in Ireland. It's a one-off game, and there's a chance they don't actually wind up playing better than they did last season.
But at least for now, the vibes are high with UNC, and there is significantly more optimism about how this team will look going forward.
That alone is a massive win in the first game of the season. A win is a win, and it's just what this team needed after a tumultuous offseason and some big questions for the team coming into the year.
Belichick and the Tar Heels have a lot of work ahead of them, but this start to the 2026 College Football season is not a bad one at all, considering their 48-14 blowout loss to TCU last year.
