- 4 months ago
- #unc
- #billbelichick
Fred Toucher, Wallach, Hardy, and Andrew Callahan broke down Bill Belichick’s disastrous UNC debut, a 48–14 loss to TCU filled with sloppy mistakes and poor fundamentals. Callahan pointed out that Belichick’s old weakness—talent evaluation—is already hurting him in college, where NIL money and the transfer portal should make it easier to bring in talent.
#unc #billbelichick
Images courtesy of USA TODAY NETWORK
#unc #billbelichick
Images courtesy of USA TODAY NETWORK
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SportsTranscript
00:00Were you at all surprised that Belichick, his team, played so poorly?
00:05Which they did, very poorly.
00:07I don't know how you can't be.
00:09And I say this as someone who, you know, college football is one of the couple sports I allow myself to put a little money on.
00:14I thought TCU would win handily.
00:16But 34 points is a scoring margin that should have been worse.
00:22Like, TCU could have had 50 if TCU wanted 50.
00:24That's how that went.
00:25Not to mention, the first drive is something that was probably the most misleading opening series I've ever seen in a football game.
00:33Well, yeah.
00:33They practiced those seven or eight plays for about four months.
00:36And then, oh, there's 55 minutes of this game we still have to play.
00:39And it didn't seem like TCU was overly interested in that first drive defensively.
00:44Like, it wasn't like there was the long pass.
00:49But other than that, it was just kind of like not tackling.
00:51It was just runs up the middle for like 15 yards.
00:54That TCU didn't seem overly interested in stopping.
00:58And then when the second possession by North Carolina, you went, oh.
01:02Yeah.
01:03Yeah.
01:03Okay.
01:03This is very different.
01:05They're getting their asses kicked up front.
01:07Yeah.
01:07That's what it was.
01:07But then what compounded that, and I had just one of the best time tweets of all time saying,
01:12I don't know why TCU's trying to make UNC tackle.
01:14This is weird.
01:15Like, even Bill's crappiest teams tackle pretty well.
01:19I think they had 50 after that tweet.
01:21You had the punter missing the snap entirely.
01:24Yeah.
01:24All of these very basic mistakes, penalties, pre-snap stuff that we all learned in the last
01:29two years of Bill, oh, this is not a given anymore because the Patriots did that.
01:33But there was nothing for them to hang their hat on.
01:36Like, all right, we at least won't screw it up.
01:38No, you were screwing it up and getting your asses kicked by a team that was always better
01:42than you.
01:43And I think people, you know, especially in this region, right, that have been not as invested
01:47in college football as probably the rest of the country, go, oh, Bill will make up for
01:50the talent.
01:51No, no, no, no.
01:51This gap in talent for UNC and even folks in their schedule coming up, UCF, Richmond,
01:57Charlotte, it is so big from the big guys and is so much closer to the teams that you
02:03go, oh, Bill's going to handle that.
02:04There's no guarantee the next three weeks they get two wins.
02:07And by the way, like, Bill should have been able with the portal and with the way things
02:12are and NIL money, and they have a lot of it now.
02:16North Carolina went over the top at investing in NIL over this summer.
02:20That's what they got?
02:21There's no excuse.
02:22You can't make the excuse that they can't compete in the SEC or the ACC.
02:27That's not true.
02:28Like, they have, I would imagine, as much NIL money as almost anyone in the ACC, maybe
02:36not Miami and SMU.
02:38Who knows what's going on over there anymore?
02:40But, like, they have more NIL money than Boston College.
02:43They have more NIL money than Duke.
02:46They have more NIL money than Louisville.
02:48Like, you can turn things.
02:50Like, it's not 20 years ago where you got to, you know, recruit and get your team
02:55together and solidify them.
02:57You can bring in talent.
02:58Jesus, look at Florida State.
03:00They got the kid from Boston College.
03:03That's his third team.
03:04He looked like a world beater.
03:06There's guys, well, yeah, somebody's throwing.
03:07But they have seven, they have, you know, guys in their seventh year, like, playing.
03:12I mean, it's a little ridiculous.
03:15Well, Florida State's a great example, though, because you remember how last year went, right?
03:18Yeah, oh, yeah.
03:18They were terrible.
03:19Season from hell.
03:20Something like three and nine, maybe they were two and ten.
03:22Right.
03:22Okay, they turn it around.
03:23They had plenty of investment and resources then.
03:25But what they did was sign the wrong guys.
03:27And the edgy guy next to the edgy guy at ESPN, because Nick Saban swears now, too.
03:31I don't know if you've noticed.
03:32He will say, if you pay the wrong guys, you're SOL.
03:37And he's totally right.
03:38And this is the biggest piece of the Belichick experience in North Carolina.
03:41Okay, they'll play with better fundamentals.
03:43Cool.
03:44His biggest issue at the end of New England, and this is in the last two years, this is
03:48like the last five to seven, maybe ten, was drafting, was identifying talent and fit
03:54and developing it.
03:55Okay, their drafts were horrible.
03:57Vrabel already said it today.
03:58Like, yeah, we're kind of in a hole because the draft sucked.
04:00If the whole piece, the advantage is going to be, we have money.
04:03Great.
04:03Well, are you going to identify the right kids to pay when that's harder to do in high
04:07school than it is, I think, coming out of college?
04:10Do you want to hear a story that this is true, that I know?
04:14Michael Lombardi, this is true.
04:16I'm not making this up.
04:18Michael Lombardi brought a kid in, and the coaching staff was like, you did what?
04:24That actually happened.
04:27That is through someone that is not lying to me, and that is a professional.
04:33The story is that Michael Lombardi, who is good friends with that agitator, Pat McAfee,
04:39that outlaw, you know, who surrounds himself.
04:44It's like Hunter Thompson.
04:46He is the William Burroughs of our generation.
04:50He, yeah, like apparently this happened like over the summer.
04:56Like Lombardi had given a kid money and a scholarship, and someone who may or may not be related to
05:04Bill Belichick went, huh?
05:08What?
05:10So Lombardi was working kind of like on his own a little bit over there.
05:14Not great.
05:15Could you imagine this?
05:16It didn't seem to be streamlined, the whole operation over there at UNSC, NC, if you can
05:21imagine.
05:22So I tweeted this a little bit just at the very end, but we all know how ESPN's coverage
05:26was yesterday, right?
05:27Like they knew people were turning in to see Bill.
05:29You focus in on Bill.
05:30Okay.
05:30I don't know how many times you were reminded of all the accomplishments.
05:33I don't know how much.
05:34But I don't know how that you have to pick them in the game.
05:37Like, I don't know.
05:39No, for sure.
05:39Yeah.
05:39Okay, go ahead.
05:40But this is to balance out ESPN during the day, drop this insider story of nine months
05:45and talking to more than two dozen sources and two veteran college reporters that talked
05:49about the recruiting experience where I say, just as I just did.
05:52Okay.
05:52Can they actually identify the talent?
05:54That was a problem here in New England.
05:56They didn't know the recruiting rules initially, and they were having guys in.
05:59There was a kid who's quoted in the story as well as his mom, which just is not representative
06:03of everything that's gone on, but this is one example.
06:06Belichick had come to him and said, hey, I know the other staff didn't offer you.
06:09I don't know why.
06:11We want you badly.
06:12Kid enrolls early in January, sticks around until the spring, transfer portal opens again.
06:17They're like, you got to go.
06:19We want you to leave.
06:21Guy transferred to Charlotte.
06:23Probably should have been at Charlotte all along.
06:25But he's like, why would you roll out the red carpet for me if you're just going to roll
06:30it up at the end of the night and I don't get to stay?
06:32And that's partly how things go in athletics.
06:34This is minor league football now.
06:37There's no veil around it.
06:39There's no facade anymore.
06:41Pay for play.
06:42That's what it is.
06:42Evaluation.
06:43Guys suck.
06:43You tell them and you move on.
06:45Yeah, but was he a senior when he was offered the scholarship?
06:49But he went on to campus with a scholarship?
06:52Yes.
06:53Yeah.
06:53Well, that's entirely a lack of integrity.
06:58I think there are college coaches that would not do that at big programs.
07:02I truly do.
07:04Unless you did something wrong.
07:06Dude, how many scholarship athletes do they keep at a big Division I program?
07:13It was 85 a few years ago.
07:14Yeah, man.
07:15Yeah, I think there's a lot of coaches that kind of let that go.
07:19Well, Gary Goldman, our friend, made the BC team, got the scholarship to BC, got hit,
07:26went to the coach crying saying, I don't want to do this anymore.
07:28And they didn't take his scholarship away.
07:31They just said, all right, you don't have to play football, but we'll keep you on scholarship
07:34because you need the money.
07:36I mean, there is a...
07:38If you did that in high school...
07:41Like, no one cares about, like, just being, like, a good person.
07:45Like, well, it's business.
07:46Yeah, but business doesn't have to be that way.
07:49Like, you can...
07:50There are, like, ways of being, like, a balanced human being and not just being a total piece
07:56of crap.
07:57If you tell a kid you got a scholarship, worst case scenario, let him play out the scholarship
08:02that year and let him know he's going to have to transfer after the year.
08:05Pull the scholarship right before the season?
08:08You don't have to do that.
08:09You got 85 scholarships?
08:11What a piece of garbage.
08:13And I know it probably happens to other places, but it doesn't have to.
08:17It does.
08:17It doesn't have to.
08:19At the end of that story, it's that they've gotten a lot more organized with their recruiting.
08:22But, like, you want to understand how last night happens.
08:25I think a lot of people do who otherwise had not watched or cared about college football
08:28until Bill Belichick was on a sideline last night and they live in New England.
08:31You go, what the hell?
08:32Well, they don't have the right guys to evaluate talent.
08:35Then some of the guys they bring in, they want to kick out already.
08:38And when you have 70 new players all at once, some of whom are not fit to be there, you're
08:43going to take your lumps.
08:43Like, they were picked eighth in the ACC in the preseason poll.
08:47Yeah.
08:47Before last night.
08:48Yeah.
08:49Before last night.
08:49They're typically worthless polls.
08:51That one seems to have an idea of what's going on.
08:53Oh, they're not going to finish eighth in the ACC.
08:56I can tell you that.
08:57And I will also tell you this, is that I can't see a kid wanting to play there.
09:03I don't know why any elite player would want to play at UNC unless they're from there.
09:09Well, the idea obviously would be that Belichick could train them to be a pro, but there are
09:13so many other hoops that he's jumping through and so many other problems.
09:16Because Ohio State's had a lot of problems with that.
09:19And, you know, like, I mean, it's only Michigan could get, you know, a kid into the...
09:24You asked what the attraction would be.
09:26You have a Super Bowl winning coach that knows what it takes to get to the league.
09:29All of these narratives, like when he first took the job, it's like, oh, kids are going
09:34to be falling all over themselves to go play for Bill.
09:36And I remember asking, why?
09:38Well, first of all, there are much better football programs to go to.
09:42You can name a dozen, you know, without even thinking about it.
09:45But number two, all right, he's going to get you ready for the pros, to Fred's point,
09:49because the other schools, like Alabama, are so bad at it when you have half of your starting
09:5522 making it to the pros the next year.
09:58And then the biggest one, I think, is, well, wait a second.
10:01I'm still going to college, and as much as I want to play pro, I want to have a good time
10:06while I'm playing college.
10:07Is there anything about playing for Bill Belichick that I know of that I've heard through
10:11that Grapevine is fun, like it's going to be a good time?
10:14No, no, no.
10:16So what's the incentive?
10:18What's the incentive to go play for Bill, especially now after that first game?
10:22And I'd rather play for a guy who had a bunch of college national championships than an old
10:26guy that won Super Bowls years ago, because there's a reason he's coaching there.
10:30And there's been plenty of pro coaches that have gone to college and has, I mean, Steve
10:35Spurrier, he went pro, but there's pro coaches that have gone to college and not done one
10:42with Eric.
10:42Bill Walsh.
10:43Bill Walsh.
10:44Yeah.
10:46The guy that was after him, he also went to UCLA and he was no good, right?
10:53Joe Seifert.
10:54Joe Seifert.
10:55He went somewhere.
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