Bill Belichick secured a gritty 15-10 upset win over the TCU Horned Frogs on August 29. The victory marked a dramatic turnaround from the team’s 48-14 blowout loss to TCU in the 2025 season opener. Despite the positive start to his second year at UNC, the head coach wants the squad to stay focused rather than comfortable. 

“I feel like this is a good step for us, but we have a long way to go,” Belichick said during the post-TCU win press conference on August 29.

“We’ve got a lot of football left to play. Back to work and do the same things that got us here today. There are a lot of things we can fix, do better, and improve on, and we’ll certainly work on those, so that’s going to certainly be the way it is after every game early in the season.”

“I think once you get to the fifth, sixth, or seventh game of the year, somewhere in there, October, then you kind of hit your stride a little bit. Then you start playing the second half of the season. So, we’re not there yet. There are a lot of things that we need to coach better and that we need to execute better. We just need to do better, and we’ll work on those.”

The win immediately erased an embarrassing trend from Belichick’s 4-8 debut college season. It was the first time his Tar Heels held a halftime lead over a Power Four opponent. 

With defensive coordinator Steve Belichick on medical leave, head coach Belichick took over calling the defense. The defense excelled, forcing a critical safety. They logged three sacks and executed two clutch fourth-down stops deep in Tar Heel territory. 

Under new offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino, the Tar Heels moved the ball efficiently. New starting quarterback Billy Edwards Jr. managed the game cleanly, throwing for 232 yards. But even the QB1 concurs with the head coach.

“It feels great,” Edwards told ESPN after the game. “First game of the season, I don’t think I played my best football, but hats off to the defense. They kept us in it the whole time. big-time stops in the fourth quarter, multiple turnovers. And shout out to the offensive line. I think we got the ball with four minutes left, and we finished the game. I was really happy to start the season on the right note. We’ve got a lot of stuff to clean up, but at least we can do it in the victory column.”

While TCU scored 10 points on its first two drives, UNC completely shut them out for the remaining 49 minutes of the game. The defense held TCU under 300 total yards. Sophomore defensive tackle Xavier Lewis completely disrupted TCU’s game plan. He logged 4.5 tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks, including a critical stop on a fourth-and-1 at the UNC 5-yard line.

Melkart Abou Jaoude’s strip-sack, recovered by Jaylen Harvey, set up a crucial second-half field goal. Belichick firmly believes that winning a single game does not mean a team has “arrived.”

While they had a good game, there were still a lot of mistakes on their side. The Tar Heels turned the ball over twice, completely lost their run game, and stalled in the red zone.

But some of the sluggish play was also down to the conditions. The rain was pouring for a portion of the game, which meant that UNC couldn’t throw the ball as well as they had liked.

However, the offense delivered when it mattered. They had the ball with four minutes left in the game, the score 15-10. The Tar Heels gained multiple first downs to maintain possession. On a 4th down with around 30 seconds to go, UNC forced an offside from TCU, effectively killing the clock.