ACC Kickoff: All eyes on Bill Belichick ahead of North Carolina debut

It’s fair to wonder how long it’s been since the University of North Carolina was the talk of the ACC football world.
The Tar Heels stole the show on the final day of ACC Kickoff on Thursday in Charlotte when legendary NFL coach Bill Belichick made his first appearance at the annual preseason event as UNC head coach.
A winner of six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots, Belichick is now a first-time college football coach at 73 years old.
“The support’s been overwhelmingly tremendous,” Belichick said of the North Carolina fans and alumni. “Not only supportive, but engaged and very excited. We want to match that excitement and put that on the field.”
In an effort to overhaul the roster he inherited, Belichick brought in 71 new players this offseason (41 transfers, 30 high-school signees). Even before he’s coached a game in the college ranks, he’s grown to appreciate a few things about coaching in college relative to his 49 years of NFL coaching experience
“I’d say on the college end, the players are a little bit younger and less skilled. Sometimes that’s an advantage,” Belichick said. “There are fewer bad habits to break. But also, I’d say the players are much more receptive to the coaching … Our players, they’ve been very receptive to everything we’ve asked them to do. They’ve trained extremely hard.”
–O’Brien hopes to face former boss Belichick in the future
While one of them is drawing most of the headlines, the Atlantic Coast Conference actually has three former NFL head coaches in its ranks this season.
Two of those coaches, Belichick and Boston College’s Bill O’Brien, had two stints together in New England. O’Brien was on the Patriots’ staff under Belichick from 2007 through 2011 and in 2023 before he landed the BC job.
After facing off seven times during O’Brien’s tenure as head coach of the Houston Texans (2014-20), the former colleagues are not scheduled to meet in 2025. But O’Brien hopes that can change in the future.
“I was hoping we could play,” O’Brien said. “I’d love to play North Carolina in Gillette (Stadium), then come back and play them in Chapel Hill.”
O’Brien, whose BC team went 7-6 in his first season, will pay a visit to former Indianapolis Colts/Carolina Panthers head coach Frank Reich, serving as Stanford’s interim head coach this season, on Sept. 13.
–Clemson ready to prove its worth in 2025
Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney began his address at ACC Kickoff by commenting on how bright the lights shining onto the stage were.
It’s a fitting metaphor for a Tiger team entering the 2025 season with renewed expectations in the ACC and nationally.
Clemson won its eighth ACC title in 10 years and snapped a three-year College Football Playoff drought in 2024, losing 38-24 at Texas in the opening round.
With many pieces back from that team, Clemson enters 2025 as the runaway ACC favorites. Clemson’s +1200 odds to win the 2025 national championship are seventh-best nationally and the best of any team outside the Southeastern Conference/Big Ten.
“We’ve been around a lot of good teams, and this team has the ingredients to be a really good team, but we’ve got to go do the work,” Swinney said. “We can’t talk about it or predict our way into it. Y’all can’t predict our way into it. We’ve got to go do it and do the work.”