North Carolina endured yet another loss on Friday night, and the Bill Belichick-led team may not win a game in the Atlantic Coast Conference during the 2025 campaign.
In fact, UNC could go the entire season without a victory over a Power Four conference opponent. While the Tar Heels weren’t forecast to be an excellent group in 2025 by national and ACC observers, North Carolina has clearly proven a disappointment thus far this season.
UNC dropped to 2-4 with recent loss
On Friday evening, turnovers doomed the Tar Heels, as they lost at California, 21-18. UNC fumbled three times, and it lost all three of them, including one near the goal line that the Golden Bears recovered in the end zone in the fourth quarter to hang on and win by three points.
With that setback, North Carolina dropped to 2-4 overall and 0-2 in ACC play. The team’s two triumphs in 2025 have come against Charlotte and Richmond.
After the Tar Heels’ latest defeat, Belichick acknowledged in his post-game press conference that turnovers stung his team against Cal, but he also said that North Carolina continues to improve every week.
Where will UNC finish in ACC standings?
At this point in the 2025 season, UNC doesn’t hold the title of the worst team in the ACC. That goes to Boston College. But North Carolina isn’t far behind the Eagles.
In the league’s preseason media poll, the Tar Heels were projected to finish at No. 8 in the ACC, which is roughly in the middle of the conference. Yet North Carolina, these days, is trending much further down in the ACC’s pecking order than the midway point.
In the 2025 regular season, UNC has three home games and three on the road remaining. North Carolina will host No. 18 Virginia, Stanford and Duke. The Tar Heels will travel to Syracuse, Wake Forest and N.C. State.
Stanford is currently 2-4 overall and will host Florida State on Saturday night. But the rest of the foes on UNC’s schedule currently have a better record than the Tar Heels.
It’s entirely possible that Belichick, who won six Super Bowls as the head coach of the New England Patriots, could, in his first season in Chapel Hill, not win an ACC game or a Power Four contest. Should that transpire, it would be stunning.
/GENERAL%20CROP%20-%202025-10-18T211203.746.webp?ssl=1 "‘All the good work from yesterday in the bin’ – Nico Hulkenberg laments Turn 1 collision that forced both McLarens out of US GP Sprint")
