Saturday was everything the North Carolina Tar Heels wanted to avoid on the football field, losing 38-10 to an equally-struggling Clemson Tigers squad.
The hope for UNC (2-3, 0-1 ACC), heading into Saturday’s matchup, was a well-rested team ready to begin conference play on a positive. Instead, North Carolina turned in arguably its worst performance of 2025, scoring just one touchdown while giving up nearly 500 yards.
During his postgame press conference, Bill Belichick detailed what the Tar Heels struggled with most on Saturday afternoon.
“We’ll go back and take a closer look at this game, but the emphasis last week was fundamentals, better execution,” Belichick said. “I think there was a pretty good amount of that today, but it was overridden by the big plays we gave up on defense. I would say the lack of first-down production, on offense, (hurt us) at times. When we’re behind the sticks, it puts us in tough situations offensively. And defensively, we gave up too many explosive plays. When we stopped giving those up, we were able to be competitive in the game, but we gave up too many in the first quarter.”
UNC trailed 28-3 after the first quarter, scoring its lone points on a first-drive, 35-yard Rece Verhoff field goal. North Carolina allowed Clemson to gain 253 yards in the first 15 minute, anchored by four touchdown passes, including the first play from scrimmage.
The Tar Heels didn’t score their first touchdown until 10 minutes remained in the fourth quarter, when Michigan transfer Benjamin Hall took a carry 11 yards to the end zone, bouncing around the left side of his offensive line. UNC ended its day with 270 yards, most of which came in garbage time.
North Carolina now enters its second bye week, then travels west for a 10:30 p.m. ET kickoff on Friday, October 17 at the California Golden Bears. Will the Tar Heels fix any issues before playing seven straight weeks?
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This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: Bill Belichick points to fundamentals in UNC football loss to Clemson
