‘Horrible’: Stephen A. Smith Publicly Gives Up on Bill Belichick in Concerning UNC Verdict

Bill Belichick and Michael Lombardi arrived at UNC to make the North Carolina Tar Heels “the 33rd NFL team.” The practice featured pro-drills, and the tape room was filled with Patriots’ tape, watching Tom Brady, as Gio Lopez himself said. But in return, in Week 1 in Chapel Hill, when TCU came and steamrolled UNC 48-14; that promise looked like nothing more than a pipe dream. And now, after that loss, Belichick has still maintained his NFL-esque stance, with news coming out that NFL scouts are getting banned from the UNC campus. All of these recent developments have led to Stephen A. Smith fanning some old Belichick wounds.

“Bill Belichick has banned #Patriots scouts from attending UNC practices to scout their players…. NFL scouts in general have faced hurdles in scouting UNC players so far under Belichick’s tenure at North Carolina,” reported Ari Meirov, host of the NFL Spotlight on X. Notably, Belichick at the Patriots tended to maintain restricted media access and players were instructed to avoid social media platforms as they created “distractions” according to the 6 times super bowl winning head coach. After Dan Orlovsky weighed in with his take on Belichick’s approach, Stephen A. Smith pushed back, questioning both Orlovsky’s take and Belichick’s handling of the team.

Stephen A. Smith, along with Ryan Clark and Dan Orlovsky, appeared on ESPN College Football’s 5th September episode and openly bashed UNC without hesitation. “How can I truly believe that? Like, if I’m a high school recruit and you don’t allow NFL scouts to come watch me practice, he is just not New England,” said Dan Orlovsky. Of course, college football is far different from the NFL, and putting restrictions on scouts would mean losing major talents, who have the NFL as their ultimate aim. That said, Stephen A. Smith didn’t agree with Orlovsky and provided a completely different theory.

“I don’t care. Did you watch North Carolina last week? Yeah, I’m sorry. Monday, last Monday. They were horrible. I am sitting here marveling over the fact that scouts actually were interested in watching them. Come on, man. They were awful. Awful. There’s no way around this,” declared Stephen A. Smith. Of course, that TCU performance was “awful” to put it bluntly, and it showed Belichick’s NFL blueprint might not work fully in college football.

To put the loss in context with UNC’s history, it was the worst season-opening loss for UNC in its history, with the other one being their loss against Oklahoma in 2001. Not just that, even for Belichick, it was awful as the head coach in his 511-game footballing career has never allowed 48 points. “They outplayed us, outcoached us, and they were just better than we were tonight,” said Belichick about the loss after the game. To discuss what went wrong in the game, listing positives would be far easier.

That 83-yard opening drive for seven plays and a touchdown for UNC was probably the only positive in the game. But just as the second quarter started, UNC looked out of depth with Lopez completing just 4 of the 10 passes for 69 yards, which also included a pick six by TCU’s Bud Clark. Strangely enough, Lopez went without a pass completion for almost two hours, signaling deep flaws within UNC’s offense. But was the lack of offensive edge, should be blamed largely on Gio Lopez?

TCU loss fuels a decade-old debate about Belichick’s legacy

Lopez did fumble in the third quarter as TCU’s Devean Deal returned it for a 37-yard effortless touchdown, highlighting poor ball security. But Lopez wasn’t helped by UNC in any way, as the running game regressed and not a single player managed to rush more than 40 yards, averaging just 2 yards per carry. That directly points to glaring flaws in UNC’s offensive schemes, and this has rekindled a decade-old debate about Belichick, on which Stephen A. Smith also weighed in.

“Listen, Bill Belichick is a six-time champion as a head coach, eight-time champion overall. And after watching that, he had us wondering what we had us looking at this what has been going on the last four years in New England since Tom Brady departed. Your last four years there, I mean, we got instead of reminded Tom Brady…” said Stephen A. Smith. Now, is there a silver lining in Chapel Hill’s dark clouds?

Belichick’s dominance at the Patriots has been a widespread debate, whether it was just Tom Brady or whether Belichick was a significant factor in those 6 Super Bowls. Despite that, both Brady and Belichick have maintained that it wouldn’t have been possible without each other’s support, so that discussion is as fruitless as it can be. As for UNC’s success, it’s hard to predict UNC coming back from such a disastrous loss, where nothing clicked, marred by sloppy execution and a coaching mismatch. Can that be improved in one or two games? Probably not!!