Annual ACC Kickoff Event Represented
Humbling Reminders For UNC Football
By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
(last updated July 28, 2025)
There has been a lot of excitement — and understandably so — surrounding North Carolina football since the Tar Heels’ headline-grabbing hiring of six-time Super Bowl champion head coach Bill Belichick in December.
At the time, UNC’s official athletic website put it this way: “Football Icon Bill Belichick Named Tar Heel Coach.” An ESPN article described that front-page development as “one of the most stunning and compelling moves in college football history.”
Nearly eight months later, there’s still plenty of buzz around Carolina football, but there also are many humbling reminders about the difficult challenges the Tar Heels will face during Belichick’s first season in Chapel Hill.
At the Atlantic Coast Conference’s annual media kickoff event in Charlotte this past week, for example, UNC was the only team with the following combination of foundational elements: new head coach, three new coordinators (OC Freddie Kitchens, DC Steve Belichick, STC Mike Priefer), a new starting quarterback (likely South Alabama transfer Gio Lopez), zero All-ACC honorees back from recent seasons, and only about half of its 2024 production returning overall.
Exactly two-thirds of the players on Carolina’s 105-man roster are new to the program. That represents one of the highest turnover rates in all of college football, and it’s more than twice the NFL’s typical year-to-year rate (about 30 percent).
“We have 70 new players,” Belichick said. “That’s a lot of people and a lot of turnover. … There are a lot of new people there. When you combine all the scouting, support and player transition into the program, it’s a lot.”
In the “returning production” category, which reflects last year’s offensive and defensive statistical contributions from returning players only (not incoming transfers), the Tar Heels rank near the bottom among the ACC’s 17 teams.
ACC Returning Production
Pct. (Offense/Defense)—Team
80% (85/76)—Clemson^
65% (68/62)—Georgia Tech
64% (56/73)—Stanford^
64% (66/61)—Pitt
63% (60/66)—Virginia^
62% (63/61)—Boston College
61% (66/57)—NC State^
60% (66/54)—SMU
59% (60/58)—Duke^
59% (57/60)—Florida State
58% (58/57)—Louisville
57% (52/62)—Miami
55% (51/60)—Wake Forest^
53% (47/58)—Virginia Tech
51% (56/46)—North Carolina
51% (48/53)—Cal^
46% (32/60)—Syracuse^
^—2025 UNC opponent
“Really, right now the big thing for us is just stacking good training days one on top of another, one at a time, and being ready to go,” Belichick said, “not only for the opener but for the entire regular season and the ACC schedule.
“That’s our outlook. Just put good days together, take advantage of every opportunity, don’t let any days go by where we don’t continue to improve, get better, and get closer to becoming the most consistent and best football team we can be when we step out on to the field.
“That’ll hopefully continue every week, that we’ll continue to improve as a team all the way through the course of the season.”
The contrast between Carolina and ACC favorite Clemson, who will clash at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill on Oct. 4, was particularly striking in Charlotte.
Dabo Swinney, who has led the Tigers to two national championships and nine ACC titles, has now had 17 years (23 if you count his time as an assistant) to build his rock-solid program, which has posted 14 consecutive top-25 finishes in the national polls.
(For comparison, UNC has had only two top-25 finishes since 1997 — #15 under Larry Fedora in 2015, and #17/#18 under Mack Brown in 2020.)
Incredibly, there’s actually a realistic possibility that all four of the players Swinney brought with him to Charlotte for the ACC Kickoff event — quarterback Cade Klubnik, defensive end TJ Parker, wide receiver Antonio Williams and defensive tackle Peter Woods — will end up as first-round selections in the 2026 National Football League draft. Each qualifies as a truly proven commodity for the Tigers, having earned postseason All-ACC recognition last year.
“We’re all learning from Dabo,” Belichick said. “Some of the players that are here today, I actually thought, maybe we’ll be drafting one of these guys, and now here we are going to be playing against them. …
“I have a ton of respect for Dabo and what he’s done. Great opportunity to spend some time with him at the ACC coaches’ meetings, and he’s always been a really enjoyable guy to be around. I don’t know if that’ll be true on Saturday afternoon. Probably not. But at least in these meetings it is.”
In stark contrast, the four players Belichick took to Charlotte — Lopez, cornerback Thaddeus Dixon (a Washington transfer), safety Will Hardy (a 2024 backup) and wide receiver Jordan Shipp (a 2024 backup) — collectively have started only a handful of games for the Tar Heels, although Dixon and Lopez certainly were standouts at their previous schools.
(Two outstanding players who might have represented Carolina at this year’s ACC Kickoff event, defensive end Beau Atkinson and linebacker Amare Campbell, transferred out of the program after spring practice, to Ohio State and Penn State, respectively.)
Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami and SMU, along with perhaps Florida State and Pitt, also appear to have firmer foundations this season than what Belichick and his staff have to work with during their first season in Chapel Hill. However, amazingly, none of those six ACC teams is on Carolina’s schedule this year.
With that in mind, especially for UNC football fans seeking more of a glass-half-full perspective on the 2025 Tar Heels, it’s important to remember three more key facts.
First, Belichick’s track record includes being the long-term mastermind (head coach and de facto general manager) and culture-builder behind one of the NFL’s greatest and lengthiest dynasties, which included 18 playoff appearances and six Super Bowl titles with the Patriots from 2001-21.
“Through the course of the spring, the amount of improvement that our (UNC) players made in those 15 days, most of which were in pads, was something you never saw in the NFL, because we never could wear pads in the offseason,” Belichick said.
“So how much better the players got and their fundamentals, their footwork, their hand placement, leverage, tackling, so forth, all the physicality things that come with different positions, whether that’s press release, jams, so forth, their improvement was tremendous.”
Second, other than Clemson and perhaps TCU (the Horned Frogs visit Kenan Stadium on Sept. 1, in the opener for both teams), everyone on Carolina’s regular-season schedule is dealing with plenty of question marks, just like the Tar Heels.
Third, Belichick and his staff reeled in an intriguing transfer class that included a bunch of players who were standouts at their previous schools.
In addition to Dixon (honorable mention All-Big Ten last season) and Lopez (honorable mention All-Sun Belt), the Tar Heels are hoping for immediate impacts from linebacker Mikai Gbayor (a Nebraska starter last year), safety Gavin Gibson (an East Carolina starter last year), punter Jacob Horvath (a two-year starter and all-conference pick at Eastern Illinois), linebacker Khmori House (also followed Steve Belichick from Washington), offensive lineman Daniel King (a three-year starter and two-time All-Sun Belt honoree at Troy), linebacker Andrew Simpson (an All-Mountain West Conference selection at Boise State) and defensive end Pryce Yates (a three-year starter and 2024 Fenway Bowl Defensive MVP for UConn), among others.
“I’d say with our players, they’ve been very receptive to everything we’ve asked them to do,” Belichick said. “They’ve trained extremely hard. The personal achievements — between their strength, their speed, their explosiveness, all the different body-fat percentages — all the different things that we measure is in the high 90 percent range. There’s only a couple guys that haven’t had the improvement. …
“We’re excited to see all that manifest itself out on the field, when we actually start playing football.”
