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Nick Saban Sends Strong Message to Bill Belichick After North Carolina’s Blowout Loss

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Cami Griffin | Last updated Sep 5, 2025 6:24 PM ET

The North Carolina Tar Heels had a rough start to the 2025 college football season.

UNC hosted TCU in Week 1 and were blown out by the Horned Frogs, 48-14. It marked Bill Belichicks debut as head coach of the Tar Heels and it certainly couldn't have gone much worse.

Belichick's disappointing showing has been a hot topic for the national media this week. Former legendary college coach Nick Saban joined the Pat McAfee show this week to share his thoughts on why UNC looked so unprepared.

"You got to have a good roster and you got to have an opportunity to develop that roster," Saban began. "I think they got in there kind of late in January, probably being new and got behind the eight ball a little bit and didn't do as well in the portal as well as they'd have liked to in January."

Saban continued to emphasize the underwhelming roster Belichick currently has and why the Tar Heels struggled against TCU last weekend.

"They've got work to do in terms of the players that they have," he said. "The tackling on defense wasn't very good, obviously the turnovers for two scores wasn't very good, there's a lot of things they can work on and there's and a lot of things they can improve."

Fortunately for UNC fans, Saban feels confident that Belichick will go to work on the issues at hand. The former Alabama head coach also preached patience in terms of allowing Belichick the chance to bring in players to develop.

"People need to have patience in the fact that you got to have the chance to get good players and have the chance to develop those players as a group," Saban said.

Although Saban stated that UNC's roster just isn't very good this season, look at how Steve Sarkisian began his head coaching stint at Texas. The Longhorns went 5-7 in Sarkisian's first year in Austin. Each year the record improved as Sarkisian brought in his own players and had the chance to develop them. Since then, Texas has reached the College Football Playoff semifinal the last two seasons.

There should still be hope for what Belichick can accomplish in Chapel Hill.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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