Carolina football held its first fan-centric event of the Bill Belichick era in Chapel Hill Saturday evening. In lieu of a spring game, Belichick’s Tar Heels hosted what they dubbed “Practice Like a Pro” at Kenan Stadium. The branding falls in line with what Belichick and general manager – and designated consiglieri – Michael Lombardi have described as their vision for what UNC football will be under their guidance: “the 33rd NFL team.”
Indeed, Belichick is taking pillars from his days with the New England Patriots to Chapel Hill: no jersey numbers during spring practice, a rigorous attention to detail, and even Patriots faces from the days of yore. Jamie Collins, a former Patriot standout, is on Belichick’s staff, as is his son (and former New England assistant) Steve Belichick.
But those jerseys. Those darn number-less jerseys. For anyone not blessed with eagle eyes or a photographic memory of what certain faces look like under facemasks, it was hard to tell just what was happening Saturday. The only assistance was a disembodied voice booming through a mostly-empty Kenan giving the sparse crowd a vague description of what was happening. For example, the voice told the fans the two-minute drill was where winning teams separated themselves; perhaps it was an ominous sign, then, when the first drive of that drill resulted in a three-and-out.
Who was on that offensive unit that failed to launch? Good luck finding that out. The attending media never got a chance to ask: not one single member of the team was made available for comments afterward.
There were some figures who stood out: the towering defensive end Beau Atkinson, the tattooed offensive lineman Austin Blaske and the left-handed Max Johnson (who suited up but did not participate in live-action drills).
The words “work-in-progress” were used. One colleague joked that if this was truly the 33rd NFL team, they’d be picking No. 1 overall in the next year’s draft. Bryce Baker, who was treated like a program savior when Belichick brought him out to mid-court at the Dean Smith Center in front of adoring fans this past winter, often found himself scampering away from his collapsing offensive line. Receivers dropped passes – the ones they could reach, that is. One unfortunate pass-catcher bellowed an impolite word as a pass from an unnamed quarterback sailed over his head and out of bounds.
Even positive plays carried a sour end. A number-less, nameless receiver caught a bullet from Baker over the middle and angled toward the middle of the field for more yardage – forgetting that the clock was ticking under 10 seconds in the two-minute drill and he needed to get out of bounds. He went down with one second left, and it was all over.
Now to the attendance. For as much excitement as Belichick’s hiring in December created around the program, the crowd in Kenan looked remarkably like those for spring games under his predecessor: small, quiet, unenthusiastic, and perhaps still grumpy over the disappointing men’s basketball season. If they were looking for a light at the end of the tunnel, only the most deluded optimist found it on the Kenan Stadium grass.
And it was grass: real, natural grass for a football activity at Kenan Stadium for the first time since 2018. What does it say about the state of the program when a certain sportswriter was more excited to see the playing surface than the players on that surface?
Of course, football games are not won or lost in April. Kickoff against TCU is still four-and-a-half long months away. But for a program which has fancied itself to be in a renaissance, Saturday’s activities smacked of something all too familiar.
It was hard to put a finger on it until an endzone-bound pass bounced off a receiver’s helmet for an incompletion:
This is – and always will be – Carolina Football.
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