Nick Saban doesn’t believe North Carolina Tar Heels football coach Bill Belichick should be worried that his team’s loss to the TCU Horned Frogs is proof his time in Chapel Hill won’t be successful.
Saban brought up his own debut with the Michigan State Spartans back in 1995, a 50-10 loss to the Nebraska Cornhuskers, as a potential sign that Belichick may be a-okay when it’s all said and done, despite things not looking that way now following a 48-14 home loss this past Monday.
“I know exactly how Bill feels, because I went through a very similar situation at the Cleveland Browns go to Michigan State. First game we played was against Nebraska. They just came off of winning the national championship. They got Lawrence Phillips. We had a couple of good players … but not that caliber,” Saban said on ESPN’s College GameDay on Saturday.
‘We got into this game, and we get beat like 56-7, and I’m on the sidelines saying, ‘We may never win a game here. We’re horrible.’ We couldn’t tackle anybody. It was awful.
“So, I know exactly how Bill feels, but when I went out and shook hands with (Nebraska coach) Tom Osbourne after the game, he put his arm around me and he says, ‘You’re not as bad as you think.’
“We went on to go 6-6 and won a bowl game with that team because were weren’t as bad as we thought. I think if Bill does a good job of getting these guys to play a little more fundamentally sound, they won’t be as bad as everyone thinks.
“So, for the Carolina fans, there’s a lot of hope that there will be a lot of improvement.”
Saban and Belichick have a well-documented friendship, so it’s tough to take this comment beyond face value. Just as he isn’t speaking poorly about Alabama Crimson Tide football coach Kalen DeBoer, Saban isn’t going to throw Belichick under the bus.
Maybe the Tar Heels played like a brand new team against one with nine returning starters in their debut together. Maybe that’s how North Carolina was supposed to look in Belichick’s first college football game as a head coach.
But if Saban is wrong, things are about to go nuclear at UNC. More than they already have with Saban’s 24-year-old girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, having power behind the scenes.