Bill Belichick’s NFL head-coaching debut was a game he’d like to forget.
Belichick’s Cleveland Browns were outgunned by Jimmy Johnson’s Dallas Cowboys 26-14 in their Week 1 matchup back in 1991. Dallas went 11-5 and made it to the NFC divisional round, while Cleveland won just six games that season.
So moments before making his college football head-coaching debut with North Carolina, Belichick told ESPN’s Holly Rowe he hoped his Tar Heels didn’t suffer the same fate that his Browns did that night.
“I hope it goes a lot better than the game against Dallas and Jimmy Johnson,” Belichick stated. “They crushed us, so I hope it goes better than that.”
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t better, it was worse.
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Belichick’s North Carolina team looked out of sync all game as the TCU Horned Frogs ran away with a dominating 48-14 win.
The 34-point loss marking the second-worst defeat of Belichick’s head coach career behind the 35-point loss he suffered with the New England Patriots, also against the Cowboys back in 2023.
The 48 points surrendered were also the most any Belichick-coached team has ever allowed, topping his 2021 Patriots, who allowed 47 points against the Buffalo Bills.
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Belichick’s teams allowed 42 points twice — in 2017 when the Patriots lost 42-27 to the Kansas City Chiefs and in 1991 when the Browns lost 42-17 to the then-Washington Redskins.
While his college football debut went about as poorly as anyone could have predicted, in his typical stoic fashion, Belichick assigned blame to everyone involved in Monday night’s debacle.
“You know, we need to do a better job all the way around — coaching, playing, all three phases of the game, just wasn’t up to what it needs to be,” Belichick told reporters, via Pro Football Talk.
“I know we’re lot better than that. So we’ll need to work on those things and show it on Saturday…but give TCU credit, they came in and did a good job, and they were clearly the better team tonight. They deserved to win, and they did it decisively.”
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