The 2026 season will be Bobby Petrino’s first as UNC’s offensive coordinator. Petrino will look to revitalize a unit which struggled for most of the 2025 season, finishing 16th out of 17 teams in the ACC in scoring and dead last in yardage. Petrino most recently coached at Arkansas, and though the Razorbacks endured a miserable 2-10 campaign last season, it was not the fault of the offense. The Hogs scored 30 or more points eight times in 12 games.
Here’s what the Tar Heels have said about Petrino in the leadup to the 2026 season:
Head coach Bill Belichick: It’s been great having Bobby. I’ve known him for a long time from the pro to college side but also when he was in Atlanta [in the NFL]. A lot of things he does offensively are similar to what we did in New England. We’ve kind of been able to merge those together: protections, routes, play actions, balanced attack, things like that. A lot of our spring has been foundational. Teaching fundamentals, terminology, installation of basic plays, things like that. We’ll get into more situational football and more gameplan-type adjustments as we move forward here through the month of August.
Defensively it’s been very competitive, a good challenge for our defense to see the schemes and things that we’re doing offensively and vice versa. I think our offense has benefitted from seeing the multiples we have on defense, and competition has been good. Bobby has been great to work with. Love having him on our staff.
Wide receiver Trech Kekahuna: He’s very precise with little things. If you line up a yard outside where he wants you to be, he gets mad at you. If you line up a yard inside, he gets mad at you. He wants everything to be perfect. Having a coach like that, I feel like it’s a good thing for me to step up my game. On the field, knowing how to read coverages quicker, how to line up quicker, how to get open. Little things like that.
Wide receiver Jordan Shipp: He’s going to yell. But that’s just old school. He’s an older coach. It’s old school coaching. It is what it is. You’ve just got to adapt to it. I don’t have a problem with that. I want to be coached. I want to be pushed to the next level. However he’s going to do it, he’s going to do it.
Running back Demon June: He’s demanding, but it’s all from a good place. He knows the outcome and what it’s supposed to look like, so he’s gonna push you to get there.
Offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino: What I’ve normally is done is taken five installations, and that gets the majority of your first and second down plays in. And then you sprinkle third downs in there. We go through it in the winter, we test it. Then we come back in spring, we install it again. That’s what we did in spring practice. A lot more situations come up, which are good in spring practice. And then we come back in the summer and do it again. And now we’re starting over on it [in the fall]. So basically, they’ll have four times through the installation. A long time ago when I was young as a coach, some psychologist told me, ‘If you learn something three times, you should know it.’ So I’m telling those dudes they need to know it now.
Offensive lineman Jordan Hall: His play style, it brings a new environment to the whole offense. It gives us a new perspective on things. It provides more things to do.
Running back Demon June: We’re gonna run at you. We’re not gonna go side to side. Not trying to be fancy with it. Just downhill. Play tough. Establishing that early was a big thing that we took into account going into camp. Being able to go run right at somebody, and coming back the next play and having the same thing over and over again, it’s a good feeling. Especially when it gets going.
Offensive lineman Andrew Threatt: How Coach Petrino calls our offense, he makes it so the defense is never right. No matter what run we run, what pass we pass, the defense is never right.
Offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino: Tempo on offense is not just going as fast as you can. Tempo is having the right speed of how you call the play, how you get to the line of scrimmage, how the center communicates, how the quarterback overrides it or seconds it. And then you get the ball snapped. Or you motion, shift. There’s a lot of things to it.
Linebacker Peyton Seelmann: He’s got some stuff up his sleeve for sure. He’s got some really good plays. As a defense, it’s definitely helped us a lot. There are some looks that he shows us that really get us. But he’s a really good coach.
Linebacker Derek McDonald: You can tell he’s been at it for a while. We put in something new, we think we’ve got him, and then he comes back the next day and he figures out how to scheme us up again. He’s a super experienced coordinator, and he’s been very successful for a reason. It’s exciting seeing what the offense can do and seeing what he brings to the table, but it’s fun because every day is a new challenge for us to adjust and learn how to defeat it.
Defensive back Kaleb Cost: It’s definitely difficult. It’s one of those offenses where you’ve gotta play good with your eyes. There’s a lot of moving pieces, a lot of motions. It’s definitely a good offense. You might think you have them figured out one day, and the next day you don’t have them figured out.
Defensive back Jaiden Patterson: I really like his scheme. He uses everybody in big ways. Tight ends, receivers. He knows how to set people up, so it’s a real challenge going against him. I really like it. It’s getting us all better.
Featured image via Associated Press/Michael Woods
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