Bill Belichick Roasted for Kicking Field Goal on Fourth and Goal in UNC Season Opener vs TCU
Bill Belichick’s college coaching debut got roasted on the internet before the first quarter ended.
The North Carolina head coach opened his tenure Saturday against TCU at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland. The Tar Heels marched down the field on the game’s opening drive, got all the way to the TCU 2-yard line, and faced fourth and goal. Belichick chose the field goal.
College football Twitter lost its mind.
“Bill Belichick kicking a FG on 4th & goal from the 2-yard line on the first drive of the season. we are so back,” one popular post read. The reaction from the analytics crowd was even harsher. Every fourth-and-goal model on record says you go for it there, especially against a defense you have been running the ball on.
Here is the thing about Belichick, though. He has never cared about analytics reactions.
He famously has zero regrets about passing up field goals in his Patriots career when he decided to go for it. He also has never been shy about kicking when he thinks the moment calls for it. In New England, he built a resume as the smartest situational coach in NFL history by trusting his own math and his own gut over what a spreadsheet said.
The problem is that college football is not the NFL.
UNC does not have Tom Brady. UNC does not have a two-decade dynasty in its back pocket. UNC is a program that has been battling to prove Belichick’s Chapel Hill experiment can actually work at the college level. The recruiting has been mixed. The staff has turned over. The coach himself has been under pressure to justify sticking around after speculation about whether this arrangement would last more than a year.
The first drive of the season was the exact wrong moment to play it safe.
Setting a tone matters in college football. Freshmen are watching. Recruits are watching. Boosters are watching. Belichick had a chance to send a message that his UNC team was going to be physical, aggressive, and willing to punch you in the mouth from the opening drive of the year. Instead, he sent his kicker on and settled for three.
UNC ended up in a real game against a solid TCU team. Every point they left on the field in that opening sequence became a point that mattered later.
Belichick will not care. He will explain his decision in the postgame with some deadpan variation of “we thought that was the right play at that moment,” and he will move on. That is the Belichick way. It made him the greatest NFL coach of his generation.
But this is a college roster with a lot to prove, playing in front of a national audience in a marquee kickoff spot in Dublin. Aggressive coaching in that spot is not just about the win probability chart. It is about identity.
The bigger picture question for North Carolina is whether Belichick is going to coach this team the way it needs to be coached. His NFL instincts are legendary. His college instincts are unproven. First drive, first big call, and he blinked.
That is a red flag for anyone hoping Belichick becomes the college football story of the decade. He is smart enough to adjust. Whether he will is the question that follows him all season.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
