Bill Belichick is only two days away from beginning his second season as the head coach of the North Carolina football program.
His first season didn’t go well amid lots of drama. North Carolina won only four games and still faces a ton of questions heading into the 2026 season.
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Belichick has faced a lot of criticism during the offseason, and ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky is a little tired of it. He defended Belichick during Thursday’s edition of “Get Up.”
“Can everyone pump the brakes on trying to dunk on Coach Belichick?” Orlovsky asked. “We’re talking about one of the greatest football coaches of all time, and everybody that talks about Bobby Petrino raves about him as an offensive mind. We don’t think those two guys are gonna kinda make it a little bit better? The distractions, for the most part this offseason, have been gone in comparison to last year at North Carolina.”
“If we watch North Carolina for the most part last year, a lot of their major flaws were fundamental things. Tackling, effort to the football, blocking through the whistle, like basic stuff. The greatest coach of all time, in part because of those things, I think he’s going to fix a lot of that stuff. I’m not telling everybody that this team is going to go to the College Football Playoff. I think we’re going to get a significantly improved, just fundamentally sound basic football team.”
The 2026 college football season is about to start, so we’re going to find out pretty quickly if North Carolina has improved from last year.
North Carolina will get its season underway on Saturday against TCU in Dublin, Ireland. Kickoff is set for noon ET on ESPN.
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