On Monday night, North Carolina coach Bill Belichick had his first post-game press conference since his last game as the Patriots head coach. It came on the heels of the most points ever surrendered by a Belichick-coached team.
“You know, we need to do a better job all the way around — coaching, playing, all three phases of the game, just wasn’t up to what it needs to be,” Belichick told reporters. “I know we’re lot better than that. So we’ll need to work on those things and show it on Saturday . . . , but give TCU credit, they came in and did a good job, and they were clearly the better team tonight. They deserved to win, and they did it decisively.”
Indeed they did. One of the questions posed to Belichick related to tackling issues, with the reporter tying the deficiency to the limited time to prepare.
“I mean, you said it, we got to do a better job tackling, no doubt about that,” Belichick said. “So we’re just gonna have to work harder on it, tackle better. I mean, there’s no secret to it, no pill you can take.”
That’s fine, but Belichick said only eleven days ago that his team had more “live” work than he’s ever seen at any time during his half-century in the NFL. They practiced with full contact. They practiced tackling. They should have been ready. They clearly weren’t.
Ready or not, they’ll do it again on Saturday night, against Charlotte. Currently, UNC is favored by 21.5 points. It’ll be interesting to see how much that line moves, given Monday night’s lopsided outcome.