North Carolina Tar Heels football coach Bill Belichick got his first ACC win on Halloween night, knocking off the Syracuse Orange 27-10 at the Carrier Dome. Of note, Syracuse was starting a third-stringer, Joe Filardi, whose primary sport is lacrosse.
Regardless, TarHeel247’s Grant Hughes was talking smack about Colorado Buffaloes football coach Deion Sanders because his 2023 team finished one game better than UNC is right now with four games remaining.
Hughes feels this Tar Heels team should be 5-3, and ragged on Coach Prime for having Shedeur Sanders and 2024 Heisman winner Travis Hunter, but still finishing 4-8 in 2023 when the Buffs were still in the Pac-12.
“Bill Belichick and UNC (3-5) are one win short of matching Deion Sanders’ first year win total at Colorado (4-8),” Hughes wrote.
“The two most radical and similar offseason overhauls.
“Deion had Shedeur and a future Heisman in Travis Hunter.
“UNC should be 5-3. The sky was never falling.”
Coach Prime and Belichick have been linked all season, but the circumstances are pretty different. Sanders is Florida-born and recruiting nationally, while Belichick is a Tennessee native recruiting in the Mid-South with six Super Bowl rings as a head coach and two as a defensive coordinator.
It’s fair to say Coach Prime had a much tougher challenge taking on a two-win team at a school that wasn’t prioritizing athletics until he arrived. Belichick joined a program that was two seasons removed from Drake Maye lighting up the ACC under Mack Brown and Chip Lindsey.
Either way, Belichick still has a chance to surpass the Tar Heels’ six wins a season ago, albeit a remote one. Coach Prime doubled the Buffs’ win total from 2022 to 2023.
There’s progress for both, though comparing them directly will always make the most headlines. The truth is, though, Belichick isn’t nearly the phenomenon “Prime Time” was when it arrived in Boulder.