The 2025 football season saw UNC end on a three-game losing streak. That in itself is, unfortunately for the Tar Heels, not entirely unique: Carolina lost three straight to end the 2024 and 2023 seasons and closed out the 2022 season on an ugly four-game slide.
But it was the way in which the Tar Heels went out with a whimper last fall which left an especially bitter taste: losses to Wake Forest, Duke and NC State, two of which were not competitive. Carolina then had to sit and watch as all three of its Tobacco Road rivals went bowling, but not before Duke upset Virginia to win its first ACC title since 1989. It was an upsetting end to what had been – even by the dubious standards set by UNC football throughout the years – an especially painful season.
It’s why, for all the hype which built before the Tar Heels kicked things off against TCU in Chapel Hill last September, that pomp and circumstance has practically disappeared before the rematch with the Horned Frogs in Dublin next month. UNC fans may be keen on hitting the “Simulate Season” button on football and skipping ahead to Michael Malone’s debut with the men’s basketball program; or, for the especially pessimistic, waiting even longer for the Diamond Heels to take the field at Boshamer Stadium next February.
No one felt the frustrations of last season more than the team itself. The ACC Kickoff event in Charlotte last week saw head coach Bill Belichick joined by receiver Jordan Shipp, defensive end Melkart Abou-Jaoude and offensive lineman Christo Kelly. Of that quartet, only Shipp had been with the program longer than a single season; he, too, was the only one hailing from the state of North Carolina. Shipp had often served as the face and voice of the program during difficult moments last fall, and his honesty and willingness to speak clashed with the infamous gruffness of his head coach. Some teammates have even started jokingly referring to Shipp as “Mr. Carolina.”
“Nobody likes to lose,” Shipp said Friday. “I wasn’t the only one frustrated. Everybody was frustrated.”
For Shipp, the former Charlotte prep star, the three-game, in-state skid which ended last year affected him personally. He had his chances to bolt for the transfer portal during the offseason, but stuck around with an aim to make things right. UNC isn’t scheduled to play Wake Forest (and former quarterback Gio Lopez) this fall, but the Tar Heels will visit Duke and host NC State. There’s a long way to go until then, but Shipp knows he has receipts to cash.
“I don’t feel good looking myself in the mirror knowing that I haven’t beaten either of those guys yet,” he said. “That’s not a good feeling, especially me being an in-state kid. We don’t have too many in-state players on our team anymore. We have a lot of guys from different places. Me understanding that and knowing that, I need to have that chip on my shoulder and I need to spread that around and have more guys really understand that. Of course every game is important, but these in-state games… we’re not supposed to lose those games.”
Kelly, who grew up in Illinois and began his college career at Holy Cross in Worcester, MA (less than an hour’s drive from Belichick’s old employers in Foxboro), is one of those guys from different places. But Kelly brings his own frustrations into the fall: after becoming one of Belichick’s first transfer commitments in the winter of 2024-25, he played in just two games last season while dealing with an injury. He was forced to watch as UNC’s offensive line – and particularly the center position which Kelly would have inhabited – struggled to protect Lopez, Max Johnson or any other quarterback taking snaps for the Tar Heels.
“When something like that happens, it’s tough. It sucks,” Kelly said. “You get beaten down and you have two options. You can sulk, you can complain about it, you can wallow. Or you take ownership of it. I think the biggest thing for me was seeing it’s a little bit of adversity, [but] it’s an opportunity.”
It’s easy to be inspired by Kelly’s desire to overcome his obstacles and make a lasting contribution for his team (so much so that one eager reporter said that if Kelly ever ran for president, he could count on his vote). But the ACC Kickoff is built for declarations such as these. Every team which walked into the Hilton Charlotte Uptown last week was undefeated.
Shipp, Kelly, and the other Tar Heels we’ll hear from before the journey to Ireland will say the same things: it’s long past time for a turnaround in Chapel Hill. The opportunity to prove that that’s more than just talk comes Aug. 29. If the Frogs hop all over the field like they did last September, the fanbase will quickly resign itself to more of the same. And apathy is the death knell of any college football program.
Featured image via Atlantic Coast Conference/Nell Redmond
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