CFB Coach Rips Bill Belichick's UNC Transfer Portal Strategy, 'They're Gonna Suck'

Amid a disappointing 2-2 start for North Carolina in Bill Belichick's first season with the program, at least one coach for another team thinks they have pinpointed part of the problem.

Speaking to The Athletic's Bruce Feldman and Ralph D. Russo, a head coach for a group of five team talking about the Tar Heels explained "they're gonna suck" because they miscalculated their strategy with the transfer portal:

"What I think they miscalculated is with the way they were taking (players) in the portal and paying dudes. It made me wonder, did they actually understand the landscape they were in? Did they understand that they're in the ACC, not like Conference USA or the Sun Belt? Like, we got beat by North Carolina on a bunch of kids. I was like, why the f--k is North Carolina beating us on kids? When I keep running up against the same P4s over and over again in recruiting, I'm like, all right, they're gonna suck."

When Belichick was hired by North Carolina in December 2024, he seemed to take a similar approach to roster building that Deion Sanders did when he originally got the job at Colorado.

Sanders, if you recall, brought in 52 players through the transfer portal for the 2023 season. The Buffaloes also had 47 players enter the portal during the spring window prior to the start of the season.

North Carolina added 41 players via the transfer portal, but one of the key differences between Belichick and Sanders is the quality of the talent they brought in.

Colorado had the top-ranked transfer class in 2023 with six players rated as 4-star recruits or better. North Carolina's class ranked ninth on the strength of seven 4-star recruits.

Sanders' best recruits were skill-position players, like Travis Hunter, Jimmy Horn Jr. and Shedeur Sanders. Belichick's top recruits were all either defensive players or offensive tackles.

While no one would argue having quality tackle play and depth in the secondary aren't important, the Tar Heels haven't been able to do anything offensively so far. They rank 15th out of 17 ACC teams in points per game.

North Carolina is last in the conference in yards per game with 263.5. The next worst team is Stanford with an average of 329.6 yards per game. There are 42 FBS teams that average more passing yards per game than the Tar Heels do total yards.

Even the defense, which is supposed to be Belichick's specialty, is only tied for seventh in the ACC in points allowed per game (22.8). It's only that low because North Carolina held FCS program Richmond to three points and Charlotte to six points.

In their two games against power four opponents TCU and UCF, the Tar Heels have been outscored 82-23.

There was always going to be a learning curve for Belichick in his first stint as a college head coach, but the expectation was his preternatural gift for coaching up defense would allow the Tar Heels to play respectable football out of the gate.

Instead, this team doesn't look any better than the one that finished 6-7 last season, resulting in Mack Brown's firing.

Belichick and North Carolina will look for a win when it hosts another disappointing team on Saturday with Clemson coming to Chapel Hill.