UNC football, Bill Belichick go from Ludacris to ludicrous in Clemson stomping
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Clemson dominated UNC from kickoff, scoring four first-quarter TDs and ended contest early.
- Ten months into the Bill Belichick era, UNC shows no progress and system collapse.
- Roster fails ACC standards, boosters disengage, and Belichick’s future remains uncertain.
From Ludacris to ludicrous.
The pregame concert was a smash hit. Then North Carolina got smash-hit by Clemson.
Too easy? Too obvious?
Maybe.
But still not as easy or obvious as the way Dabo Swinney walked in and slapped the self-proclaimed 33rd NFL team around from the first snap, a trick play steaming with disrespect that went for a 75-yard touchdown.
Who didn’t see that coming, other than Steve Belichick?
Clemson needed 16 plays to score four touchdowns on its first four possessions and leave the Tar Heels for dead in the first quarter, piling even more misery upon a football program that is paying millions for the privilege. North Carolina couldn’t have been much less competitive if it tried, and given how poorly the Tar Heels were prepared, once again, they may actually be trying at this point.
If all of that sounds and feels a little too familiar, that’s partly because we’re a month into the Bill Belichick era and UNC football getting embarrassed is already old news. Yawn. Everyone in the ACC has been lined up to show Belichick how this actually works for 10 months. Clemson got to go first, and that’s exactly what happened.
The Tar Heels honored the late Tylee Craft and ailing chaplain Mitch Mason, on Saturday, but there was a weird sense of detachment to what should have been moving moments, because so much has changed in the year since Craft died. It feels like it was an entirely different program at an entirely different school that rallied around Craft in his final days — not only less mercenary and more connected to the university itself, but also more competent at football.
This is so bad, so far from ACC standards, so far from what was promised, it almost defies belief. And the Tar Heels even had an off week to prepare. Clemson had a 32-point lead at halftime and pulled its starters midway through the third quarter, which kept a lid on the score. But even 38-10 was no nail-biter.
“We’re just going to keep grinding,” Belichick said. “I’m not going to evaluate where we are. We’re just going to take it week by week.”
And it’s not like this is not a Tajh Boyd or Trevor Lawrence team, a vintage Clemson team. The Tigers have as many or more losses already this season — to LSU, Georgia Tech and Syracuse — as they did at the end of 12 of the past 14 seasons. Clemson beat UNC by 17 points more than it beat Troy in its other win.
What else is there to say? There’s no incremental progress, no obvious reason to expect improvement. It is what it has been since December: A joke. At least the next game, at California, will be so late at night children won’t be able to see it. Even the boosters in the Blue Zone who paid for this don’t want to watch it anymore; of the few who showed up, most cleared out or retired to the bar early. The students didn’t even wait that long.
“We’re not locked in on fundamentals,” said UNC receiver Jordan Shipp , who wore Craft’s No. 13 Saturday and was the first player out to meet Mason on the field. “It starts up front and then running backs, quarterbacks, receivers, all of us. It’s not one person to blame. It’s not a coaching problem. It’s everybody. We win together, we lose together.”
There are two games left on the schedule where UNC will be even money at best, both in November at which point everyone may have given up, with the two rivalry games against Duke and N.C. State still to come after that.
Is anyone really in charge? What’s Belichick saying on his headset as he stands alone on the sideline for the entire game? What’s he watching on that iPad? Bravo? He took a timeout with one second left in a 28-point game. That’s coaching!
That raises a bigger question, which is whether Belichick is even going to stick around for the rest of this. (Things were so bad in the first half Saturday, it was fair to wonder whether he’d stick around for the end of that.) All the money in the world can’t be worth this, not for a football lifer whose entire identity is tied up in being a football coach. A good one, presumably, not this.
Clearly, this roster isn’t up to ACC standards, not even close, and he faces two more months of getting his face kicked in the mud, his reputation in tatters, his alleged genius exposed with every foible.
It’s the same question as when he took the job: Why? Why take it in the first place? Why put himself through this? And why stick it out now when it’s all going south? What’s the point?
If nothing else, Freddie Kitchens could end up being the first assistant to finish two straight seasons as the interim head coach. Now that feels like something an NFL team might do.
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This story was originally published October 4, 2025 at 3:46 PM.
