Win streak produces a more cuddly Bill Belichick, who admits ‘learning curve’
A two-game winning streak has Bill Belichick doing crazy things — like appreciate the media.
Roughly an hour after North Carolina beat Stanford 20-15, Belichick made his way to the lectern for his postgame news conference.
“Thanks for your patience,” Belichick said.
And about 15 minutes into the news conference, the 73-year-old coach was answering what a UNC spokesperson said would be the last question, but Belichick interjected and chose to spend about 12 more minutes with reporters.
“We got time for a couple of more, if you want,” Belichick said. “I know I’ve kept you hanging here, so I can go a little longer, if you want.”
After nearly 27 minutes, Belichick finally put a bow on his question-and-answer session, closing by saying, “OK, thank you. Thanks for your patience. Appreciate it.”
What!?!
It was the longest postgame news conference through his nine games as UNC coach. In the other eight games, Belichick’s average postgame news conference lasted just under 10 minutes. In his weekly news conference leading up to the Stanford game, Belichick went for nearly 29 minutes, which was his longest presser since the 45-minute introduction in his first appearance as the leader of the Tar Heels on Dec. 12, 2024.
The season-low was just over eight minutes following UNC’s 21-18 loss at Cal. But that’s the week the Tar Heels started to see their improvement show up on the scoreboard.
Following another gut-wrenching loss, a 17-16 defeat against No. 16 Virginia in overtime, Belichick clocked in at just under nine minutes in that postgame presser. In the two weeks since, UNC (4-5, 2-3 ACC) has earned back-to-back wins.
What Bill Belichick said after UNC’s 2-game win streak
After the latest victory against Stanford (3-7, 2-5), the six-time Super Bowl champion provided key insight on the ‘learning curve’ that occurred during his time at UNC, most notably answering a question about adjusting to coaching at the college level.
‘I don’t think it’s as much about the level. In retrospect, I think I could have done a better job in looking at some of our players and putting them in a better position to be successful. I think we have tried to do that more as we’ve gone forward, and I think it’s benefited some of them. Some of those, if we could have identified a little bit sooner, that would have been helpful. But we didn’t. It’s nobody’s fault, it’s just kind of the way it was,” Belichick said.
‘But as we played more games and got more opportunities to see our guys work together, find the right combinations, and help them improve and put them in positions that are maybe a little better for their skill set, that’s helped some of their production as well. So going back to the early part of the season, there’s a number of moving parts there, but again, in retrospect, I think I, and we as a staff, could have done a better job.
‘If we knew then what we know now, there’s some things we would have done differently, but some of those we had to experience. Things we thought we could do, things we didn’t do very well, other things that we maybe weren’t sure we could do, we were actually able to do OK. That’s been part of our learning curve.’
That learning curve started with an 0-5 mark against Power Four competition, including blowout losses to TCU, UCF and Clemson. But throughout the process, Belichick has remained adamant that the Tar Heels have shown steady improvement.
‘Look, I’ve said 1,000 times that we’ve improved significantly over the course of the season, individually and collectively,” Belichick said. “Our team defense, our team offense, our kickoff coverage, I mean everything. It’s not just one guy or one thing. It’s a collective effort.’
Can UNC football make a bowl game?
Following two losses by a combined four points, the Tar Heels have seen positive results in the past two weeks to give themselves a chance at bowl eligibility.
UNC travels to Wake Forest (6-3, 3-3) on Nov. 15 (4:30 p.m., CW Network) before closing with games against Duke (5-4, 4-1) and N.C. State (5-4, 2-3). The Heels need two wins over their last three games to become eligible for the postseason.
‘Right now, we’re gonna think about what we have, how we can correct our mistakes from the Stanford game, how to get better, and talk about the things we did well, things we didn’t do well, and then we’ll go on to Wake Forest,” Belichick said.
“Just let everything else take care of itself.’
Rodd Baxley covers North Carolina Tar Heels athletics for The Fayetteville Observer as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his ACC coverage on X/Twitter or Bluesky: @RoddBaxley. Got questions regarding UNC? Send them torbaxley@usatodayco.com.
