Bill Belichick's 1st college team struggled at UNC. He's hoping lessons learned lead to more success

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — NFL coaching great Bill Belichick spent a bumpy debut season at North Carolina trying to blend a roster full of newcomers and adjusting to life in the college ranks.

It was a learning experience even for someone with a résumé featuring six Super Bowl titles as a head coach and ranking as one of the NFL's all-time leaders in coaching wins.

“Look, I learn every year, I learn things every day,” Belichick said Friday morning during the Atlantic Coast Conference’s preseason football media days.

“Every week is a learning experience for me. Try to listen to the people that are around me that work for us, that do various things, whether it’s academics, training, nutrition, offense, defense, special teams, so forth. Try to do the best I can to help put it all together.

"Recruiting, fundraising — you name it. There are a lot of different things and I can improve in all of them.”

It was a rough debut for the 74-year-old Belichick, best known for his time hoisting trophies and winning with relentless precision alongside star quarterback Tom Brady with the New England Patriots.

His arrival at the college level was a spectacle, one that put a national spotlight on a school with a football program that had long been an ACC also-ran compared to its tradition-rich men's basketball program being among the nation's blueblood elite.

There's less buzz this time around. There’s no curiosity to imagining what it will look like for Belichick to roam a college sideline sporting his trademark hoodie garb. And the Tar Heels’ poor on-field performance offers little reason to expect a big leap in Year 2.

Yet similar to what he was known for in his Patriots tenure, Belichick is focused on his internal evaluation. And he sees cause for optimism.

“Last year when we started, we were literally starting from scratch," he said. “We're above that now for sure.”

Belichick has pointed numerous times to the Tar Heels getting a late run into recruiting after his December hiring, starting with jumping into the transfer portal and then pulling from the high school ranks. That meant pulling together a roster to get started with spring drills, then going through more waves of roster changes leading into preseason camp.

“The biggest thing last year was just how behind we were,” Belichick said of his December 2024 arrival.

By the time the Tar Heels started last season, they had 70 new players.

“This time a year ago, we didn’t have a quarterback who had taken a snap even in spring ball for us,” Belichick said.

“Last year we didn’t have any player-run practices. We couldn't actually line up a team and run against another team without the coaches being out there because we didn't have anybody that knew enough on either side of the ball to do that. Whereas this year these guys have done it all spring and all summer."

To that point, the Tar Heels have plenty of newness on the roster with 40 true freshmen and 17 redshirt freshmen. But UNC also had 35 of the first-year freshmen arrive in time to go through spring practices while there's enough returnees to offer continuity and better stability.

“Culture's a lot different, work ethic's different,” Belichick said. “I'm not taking anything away from the guys that were here. But compared to a year ago, we just know a lot more about what we’re doing and how to do it and our culture’s a lot different.”

Belichick's appearance at this ACC Kickoff event last year was the center of attention. So too was his nationally televised Labor Day debut in front of a sellout home crowd against TCU.

Yet the Tar Heels lost that game in a blowout in what turned out to be a harbinger of frustration to come. And Belichick's mere presence on the sideline only magnified the pressure that arose from on-field troubles and unwanted off-field headlines, from an assistant coach's suspension to tabloid-like interest in Belichick's relationship with 25-year-old girlfriend Jordon Hudson .

“Seeing a guy like Coach Belichick, who’s constantly in the spotlight — I mean, the guy could cure cancer and people would still write negative pieces about him," offensive lineman Christo Kelly said.

“But seeing how he handles himself through everything, seeing how he’s continued to block out the noise, it really sets the standard for what we should be doing.”

By the end of the year, Belichick had fielded a team that had more losses by double-digit margins (five) than total wins, with two home losses ending in an empty stadium with Tar Heels fans having fled early for the exits. UNC's three wins against Bowl Subdivision opponents came against teams with a combined 8-28 record (Charlotte, Syracuse and Stanford), while the Tar Heels failed to make a bowl for the first time since 2018.

At least nothing should surprise the Tar Heels this year about playing under the Belichick microscope.

“We really felt like it was all Carolina — Carolina for Carolina, nobody else was really rooting for us, everybody wanted to see Coach Belichick fail,” receiver Jordan Shipp said.

“It was just like we knew that we were in this by ourselves. And everybody that was here last year, we know that feeling. So now we know what to expect.”

AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football