A disturbing week for UNC football program ends in a dreadful loss to Clemson
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UNC’s football program embarrassed itself behind closed doors for weeks.
On Saturday, it took the same show on the road in a very public way.
On the verge of its first win in Death Valley in 25 years, the Tar Heels instead came from 14 points ahead to lose, 28-20, against Clemson on a wet, weird and utterly disappointing day for the baby blue faithful.
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Two days after an investigation had sharply criticized the UNC football program for various actions off the field, the on-the-field standard went south, too.
“Obviously, a disappointing end,” UNC coach Bill Belichick said.
It sure was. UNC completely outplayed Clemson early. Visions of an undefeated Tar Heel team hosting Notre Dame Oct. 3 with possibly all the bells and whistles of an ESPN GameDay appearance was dancing in some UNC fans’ heads.
The Tar Heels led 14-3 at the end of the first quarter, 17-6 at halftime and 17-15 with the ball and a second-and-goal on Clemson’s 7 when a lightning delay midway through the fourth quarter postponed the game for two hours and 28 minutes.
From there, when the teams finally returned with 8:11 to go in the fourth quarter, it was all Clemson. The Tigers (2-1, 1-0 ACC) held UNC (2-1, 0-1) to a field goal after two unimaginative running plays. Clemson then scored back-to-back touchdowns themselves and intercepted a pass to clinch the game and take some of the pressure off Clemson coach Dabo Swinney.
“We weren’t perfect,” Swinney said. “But we grew up.”
This all came only about 48 hours after the latest blow to the UNC football program. That occurred when Steve Belichick (Bill’s son) resigned as UNC’s defensive coordinator on Thursday at the same time that the program was ripped in a university-issued press release for “certain actions (that) demonstrated a disregard for Carolina’s values and standards of conduct,” according to an independent investigation.
The elder Belichick hadn’t been available to the media since that press release about the resignation of his son and those disregarded standards of conduct (the investigation also found “that these actions were isolated in scope and not a systemic failure.”)
Naturally, the coach was asked postgame about the investigation. Just as naturally, used the game’s conclusion as an excuse not to answer.
“Yeah, I’m just focused on the Clemson game,” Belichick said. “It just ended 10 minutes ago.”
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As for his son’s resignation?
“Yeah, I just talked about that,” said Belichick, who is now 6-9 in his first 15 games as UNC’s $50-million head coach.
Well, no, he didn’t talk about it.
In Belichick’s mind, I suppose we’re onto the bye week. In the meantime, his former UNC general manager, Mike Lombardi, also resigned recently and now has started a Substack, if you’re interested. It’s about pro football, rather than what went wrong for UNC.
Anyway, back to the game. It wasn’t quite as crushing as N.C. State’s unbelievable loss to Vanderbilt, but it did look like UNC might win by 30 early. And per ESPN, a Belichick-coached team (in either the NFL or in college) hadn’t lost a lead of 14 or more points in 67 straight games, winning every time. But Clemson reeled the Tar Heels back in, slowing down a rushing attack led by Benjamin Hall (130 rushing yards) and making quarterback Billy Edwards, by the end, look flustered and out of sorts.
It was Clemson’s third weather delay in three games this season, and the Tigers acted like they had planned for it all along. The game began at noon, then took a long lightning siesta and finally restarted at 5:26 p.m. By then, only a couple of thousand fans were left to watch it in Death Valley. The Tar Heels acted like they didn’t much want to come back from the rain delay, either, giving up two touchdowns in those final eight minutes on offense. They were clearly outcoached in that time span.
UNC linebacker Derek McDonald also said the Tar Heels “started to get a little tired,” and it looked like it. Swinney noted that Clemson was obviously in better shape in the fourth quarter.
Clemson had begun the season with a 41-point loss to LSU. Boos rained down from the home Tiger crowd in the first half on several occasions, after the offense sputtered again or once when freshman quarterback Tait Reynolds had a wide open receiver deep, only to loft the ball so high that a UNC defensive back had time to run it down and intercept it.
But Reynolds got way better in the second half, giving the Tigers some hope. Clemson has been on a downward spiral, going 7-6 last season and having trouble putting the ball in the end zone all season. But after the rain delay, everything changed.
Clemson figured it out and may have found a quarterback. The Tar Heels were left all wet, with a week of bad news culminating in this collapse.
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This story was originally published September 19, 2026 at 8:15 PM.
