North Carolina Football Preview 2026: Bill Belichick Needs Results Now
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If it were anyone else but Bill Belichick, the blah 4-8 season would be chalked up to a redo.
Everything is settling in, adjustments need to be made, “We’re on to 2026,” and all the other things new head coaches do.
But Belichick is 74 – there’s no five-year plan to greatness at North Carolina. The Tar Heels are supposed to win because he’s Bill Belichick, and the guy on the other side of the field isn’t.
Bill Belichick Didn’t Come to North Carolina for a Rebuild
The 2018 New England Patriots won the Super Bowl. Since then, Belichick is 45-50 as a head coach – five in the NFL and one with North Carolina – and he hasn’t had a winning season since 2021.
It’s his job to make North Carolina a player in the ACC title chase right away.
If Duke could win the conference last year, why can’t the greatest football coach ever pull a few rabbits out of helmets and put together a contender and make it happen this year?
– 2026 North Carolina Schedule Analysis
North Carolina Quick Hits
- Head Coach: Bill Belichick (2nd year, 4-8)
- Best Case / Worst Case: Bowl game/A third losing season in a row
- Key Player: Billy Edwards, QB Sr.
- 2025 Record: 4-8
- Biggest Question: Can the Tar Heel offense do anything productive on a consistent basis?
North Carolina Key 2025 Stats
- First Half Scoring: Opponents 177, North Carolina 105
- Total offense per game: Opponents 336.9, North Carolina 289.2
- North Carolina was 134 out of 136 teams in fourth down stops, allowing conversions 75% of the time
Offense
Well that didn’t work.
North Carolina ripped off a brilliantly executed touchdown drive against TCU on the first possession of the season, and scored 24 more touchdowns the rest of the season. Only seven teams scored fewer.
So in comes legendary offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino to put a charge into the thing – this won’t be boring.
What’s Working
Be careful thinking that the 65-year-old Petrino is done. He spent the last two years as the Arkansas offensive coordinator, and that went pretty well.
The Hogs finished the season 13th in the nation in total offense and seventh in yards per play, averaging close to seven yards per pop.
North Carolina was 120th in yards per play, averaging 4.94.
The quarterback situation is interesting. Gio Lopez couldn’t make anything work – not really his fault – and now he’s at Wake Forest. In comes Billy Edwards from Wisconsin, Miles O’Neil from Texas A&M, and star freshman prospect Travis Burgess. There are options now.
If the running game works even a little bit, good things happen. The Tar Heels went 3-0 last year when they got past 145 rushing yards. Petrino’s Arkansas offense ran for more than 145 yards against everyone but Auburn and Missouri.
Leading Tar Heel rusher Demon June is back after running for 494 yards and averaging 5.5 yards per pop. Second-leading rusher Benjamin Hall is back, too.
What Needs Work
North Carolina needs someone to step up at quarterback. Billy Edwards had a decent year in his third season at Maryland – but he wasn’t a dominant force – and got hurt right away last year at Wisconsin. Miles O’Neil is a big 6-5 passer, but he only threw 20 passes at Texas A&M, and again, Travis Burgess is a true freshman.
All it takes is one to emerge from the pack, but it has to happen fast.
The downfield plays have to come. And the medium and short ones, too. Things should change now with Petrino, but something has to work downfield after averaging just 9.7 yards per completion. The attack has to open up and be willing to take more chances.
Can the offensive line be more of a force? It wasn’t exactly a glaring problem, but it didn’t help the cause. Several transfers are being thrown at the problem.
Rotational backups Aidan Banfield at guard and Christo Kelly at center have to play bigger roles, and 6-8, 336-pound Jordan Hall has to be a force at left tackle.
Player to Watch
Jelani Thurman, TE Jr.
And Jordan Washington, and Jaxxon Warren. The offense will have no shortage of safety-valve tight ends to work with.
Last year’s leading pass-catching tight end, Jake Johnson, left for Auburn after making just 16 grabs.
Thurman is a huge target from Ohio State, Washington comes in from Texas, and Warren is a 6-8 option from Colorado State. All three will get plenty of midrange work to get the chains moving.
Defense
(Warning: I spent a good portion of last year trying to convince everyone that the North Carolina defense was fantastic, and I couldn’t get anyone to notice.)
The 294 points given up were the fewest allowed in a season since 2009. The defense didn’t get a lick of help from the offense, but it kept the team in game after game.
There isn’t a lot of returning starting talent to work with, but there isn’t a total overhaul like there was last year.
If the offense can do anything right, the defense will take care of the rest.
What’s Working
Seriously, the defense worked. Steve Belichick was great at the Washington defensive coordinator in 2024, and he joined his dad – possibly the greatest defensive mind in football history – and cobbled together a solid season out of what they had to work with.
There were problems, and the stats aren’t amazing, but what was asked out of this group was impossible. The Tar Heels were 0-8 when the defense allowed more than 15 points.
The linebacking corps is sort of funky. Top tackler Khmori House left for Arkansas, Mikai Gbayor was a big get for Florida State, and pass rusher Andrew Simpson is done.
Richmond’s Peyton Seelman is only 6-1 and 225 pounds, but he tackles everything. He’ll be on the outside in the 4-2-5, and 6-4, 230-pound Derek McDonald is a sixth-year senior with 173 tackles over the last four years – but he missed most of last year.
The defensive interior is even funkier. 6-2, 320-pound Isaiah Johnson was part of the rotation, making 40 tackles on the nose, and he’ll rotate with the 250-pound Xavier Lewis on the nose.
Helped by the addition of Tarvorise Brown from Florida, the tackles should somehow combine into a positive in time. However …
What Needs Work
The losses on the line are rough. D’Antre Robinson has NFL size, and now he’ll be a key piece of the Oregon defensive front. Fellow starting tackle CJ Mims was wanted by Texas A&M.
Leading sacker Melkart Abou-Jaoude is done, second-leading pass rusher Tyler Thompson is gone to Louisville, and while the new parts are good, there’s going to be a steep learning curve.
The takeaways dried up. As good as the defense was overall at times, it didn’t do enough to make big plays to change the momentum.
It came up with six turnovers in the first three games, and just six over the last nine outings.
There was way too much bending, even when there wasn’t much breaking. The defense couldn’t get off the field, allowing teams to convert 42% of their third-down attempts. Things were even worse on fourth downs, coming up with just eight stops in 32 tries.
Player to Watch
Donovan Hoilette Jr., EDGE Sr.
He was one of North Carolina’s best transfer gets, and it’s on him to be the team’s top pass rusher right away.
The beefed-up former linebacker turned into a terror for Richmond last season with 48 tackles, nine sacks, 13 tackles for loss, and nine quarterback hurries.
Keys to the Season
- The offense has to be at least mediocre
- Find more defensive playmakers and shore up the depth across the board fast
- Be better on both sides of the ball on third downs
Player Who Needs To Shine
Billy Edwards Jr., QB Sr.
Or any of the quarterback options. Edwards is the veteran, though, who should make the North Carolina offense functional – that would be enough to get by.
He doesn’t have a huge body of work, but he connected on 65% of his passes in 2024 at Maryland and threw for over 220 yards in eight of his 11 games. North Carolina didn’t get to 220 passing yards all of last year.
Biggest Concern
SCORING … seriously
Fortune cookie football analysis – you can’t win if you don’t score more points than the other team.
North Carolina failed to score 20 or more points seven times last year and lost all seven games. It didn’t get past 27 points against any FBS team.
Bobby Petrino’s Arkansas offense scored 28 or more against FBS teams seven times last season, and the 2024 North Carolina attack managed to do that seven times.
Biggest Game
TCU (in Dublin), August 29
Nebraska in 2022’s loss to Northwestern, Navy’s loss to Notre Dame the next year, Florida State’s rough defeat to Georgia Tech in 2024, and last year’s Kansas State loss to Iowa State.
Over the last four seasons, the teams that lose the Week 0 games in Dublin have a hard time moving on.
After last year’s 48-14 loss to TCU in the opener, getting revenge in Dublin could show that this is a much, much different season.
Transfer Portal
There isn’t a total overhaul happening like last season, but over 20 new Tar Heels are coming aboard. This is more of a refurbishing of the house than a gut job.
The problem is the talent level. It’s okay, and the Tar Heels pulled out some good signings, but the defense took a massive hit, losing five of its top players, and it’ll take several options to try replacing them.
Best Signing
Tarvorise Brown, DT (Florida)
Maybe he isn’t the best signing compared to some of the other more highly-ranked transfers, but he’ll be among the most important.
The Tar Heels didn’t do much for the defensive interior, and they lost a few key parts of last year’s line. The 6-6, 300-pound Brown has to be a strong part of the tackle rotation right away.
Biggest Loss
D’Antre Robinson, DT (Oregon)
You don’t get better after losing a 6-4, 310ish-pound NFL-caliber defensive tackle who can move. Robinson made 39 stops with 2.5 tackles for loss last year, and the Tar Heels don’t have another option quite like him.
Other Names to Know
- Trech Kekahuna, WR (Wisconsin)
- JacQawn McRoy, OT (Arkansas)
- Derek McDonald, LB (Syracuse)
CFN Season Prediction
On the plus side, North Carolina was a few plays away from getting to at least six wins last season and becoming bowl eligible. It should’ve beaten Cal and Virginia, and it hung around with Duke.
And yes, this is a better Tar Heel team with more offensive weapons and upside. And this is still a Belichick-coached team, which didn’t account for much when it came to figuring out how to fix the problems, but the guy is still Bill freaking Belichick.
But it’s not like anyone’s that afraid of the Tar Heels this time around.
CFN Prediction: 4-8
The TCU game to start out the season is everything to the momentum for the rest of the way, but there’s a week off and a game against ETSU to get ready for the ACC opener at Clemson.
Clemson wasn’t very good last year, and it beat the Tar Heels by 28 in Chapel Hill.
After that, there’s a week off to prepare for Notre Dame, and then there’s a trip to Pitt, followed by a date at Duke. Miami, Louisville, Virginia, NC State – they’re all on the slate, too.
There aren’t enough sure-thing wins to rely on, but in a strange way, the pressure is off.
No, Belichick won’t get fired with another awful year – he might decide he’s done, though – and there’s a desperation that should crank up the intensity a bit.
Even if everyone is all in on the Do Your Job thing, it’ll still be a fight to get bowl eligible.
This story was originally published by College Football News on Jun 8, 2026, where it first appeared in the College Football section. Add College Football News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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