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WASHINGTON — Last week, on an unseasonably warm November afternoon, Gallaudet offensive line coach Todd Collins jogged onto the field, pushing the team’s big bass drum on wheels to midfield, where he banged on it repeatedly, signaling to the nation’s only deaf and hard of hearing team it was time to stretch. While many couldn’t hear the thunderous, rhythmic beat that echoed through the otherwise quiet campus, they could all feel its vibration.

BOOM!

Lateral stretch to the right.

BOOM!

Lateral stretch to the left.

BOOM!

On one knee for hip flexors.

Coach Chuck Goldstein, who is hearing, hasn’t used a whistle at practice in 13 years.

“At the end of the day, when I come into these gates, and I come into work, I’m not deaf, I’m part of this community,” he said. “I’ve learned about the culture. I respect the culture.”

As the sun set on the nation’s only entirely deaf campus, the lights in the nearby dorm rooms glowed softly. When one blinks, it signals a visitor has arrived. The doorbells at Gallaudet change the lighting instead of making a sound because most students wouldn’t hear a doorbell or a knock. On game nights, it’s not uncommon to see multiple windows winking on different floors. In the morning, alarm clocks vibrate under pillows.

The football team is undersized, composed of many players who have never been on a full roster, are still learning their position and can’t hear when the official blows a whistle to stop the play. They were picked this preseason to finish fifth in the Eastern Collegiate Football Conference, but the Bison have won their conference title and are returning to the Division III NCAA tournament for only the second time in school history, and the first time since 2013. They will travel to Doylestown, Pennsylvania, on Saturday to face No. 8 Delaware Valley University in a first-round game at noon ET.

“With all the close games, and you’re not supposed to be winning, it’s almost like the cherry on the cake every time you win again,” said defensive coordinator Stephon Healey. “I think the world has a lower expectation of us. We have a belief in ourselves, and to be able to get it done has just been … it’s been pretty magical, to be honest.”

Practice last Thursday began with only about 50 of the 70 players on the Bison’s roster. Illness was working its way through the locker room, where other players are injured, and none are on scholarship. That’s life in Division III football — the team buses from the nation’s capital to games as far as Maine, and the press box consists of an open-air space under a metal canopy. Healey is also the strength and conditioning coach — for every sport.

There are only three full-time coaches on staff: Goldstein, Healey and assistant coach/recruiting coordinator Shelby Bean. All of the coaches are fluent in American Sign Language (ASL), and nine of them are former players, including Collins, who is hard of hearing and was on the 2013 conference title team.

The Bison have a hard-of-hearing receiver playing quarterback. They have a deaf offensive tackle who is less than 200 pounds. And the hard-of-hearing freshman long-snapper?

“He’s gotta be 5-foot-4,” Healey said. “He looks like he’s 10 years old. I would argue he’s the smallest college football player in the country.”

But the Bison aren’t interested in your sympathy.

“We’re not just a deaf school,” Collins said. “We’re here, we’re going to compete for a championship.”

Every season, 12 to 15 players join the team who don’t know ASL, creating a natural divide between players who are deaf, and the others who are hard of hearing. Some have cochlear implants, some have hearing aids, some are deaf in one ear. Bean was born with Goldenhar syndrome, a rare congenital condition that required his external ears to be surgically removed. The numerous surgeries he had as a child left his face paralyzed, so he can’t smile, frown or even blink.

“You talk to other coaches, and it’s tough to get that appreciation across,” Healey said. “Like, yeah, we all have problems. No, no you don’t. It’s not the same as here.”

GOLDSTEIN MADE THE shape of a C with his right hand and tapped his thumb on his cheek just underneath the rim of his glasses, signing “Coach Chuck,” a nickname he had to earn.

When Goldstein first joined the coaching staff in the summer of 2009 as an offensive coordinator, he was “fingerspelling” his name, but in the deaf community, he eventually earned a “sign name,” which a deaf person gives as a symbol of friendship and respect.

Like many of his players who enter the program, Goldstein had to learn ASL when he was hired from North Point High School in nearby Waldorf, Maryland. The former linebacker at Salisbury University took a “Jump Start” ASL class Gallaudet offers to incoming students and staff, but ultimately became fluent from being immersed in the campus culture — and from his mistakes.

In one of his first games as head coach, Goldstein became frustrated the team wasn’t playing well against Merchant Marine. It was halftime, and they had already fumbled three times.

“I wanted to let them know I was angry,” he said. “I was pissed. I was like, ‘All right, they’re gonna know this is not OK.’ So I come in, I take a chair and I throw it against the wall. And three kids turn around. They weren’t facing me, and none of them heard me except for like three kids.”

Now Goldstein stands on the chair when he’s addressing the team in the small locker room so they can all see him. His film sessions are organized because there is no time to waste. Lights off, show the play, lights on, sign it, explain it. Repeat. Goldstein led Gallaudet to .500 seasons or better in three of his first four years, including a 9-2 mark in 2013, the last time the Bison earned the ECFC title.

Since then, though, the program has endured six straight losing seasons, a canceled 2020 season during the COVID-19 pandemic, and a 4-3 NCAA mark last year. This year’s team finished 5-1 in league play to earn its automatic qualifier bid to the field of 32 teams.

“Since we’re a small Division III football team, we are well-known to beat the odds,” said senior linebacker Stefan Anderson, who is deaf and communicated through an interpreter who also happens to be an assistant cross-country coach at the school. “Because the refs can hear and we’re deaf, it’s a disadvantage for us, however, we find a way to win. Even though there are some barriers for us, we still find a way to take down those barriers. We had the attitude of bring it on, we are going to prove you wrong. So you can see where we are now as champs.”

Senior defensive end Rodney Burford, a charismatic player who is one of the outspoken leaders on the team, was born in Brooklyn, but played football at the Maryland School for the Deaf with Anderson. Burford was used to the winning culture at his high school, which is why joining the 3-7 Bison in 2017 was an adjustment.

“The team was split like the red sea,” he said. “We had a group of deaf people, they didn’t want to talk to hearing people. Then you had a group of hearing people who didn’t want to talk to the deaf people. As the years went on, every year it was a sense of unity more and more. Last year was the best. We had Jump Start students mingling with the deaf people and they were making up signs. They were happy they were giving effort. It was a blend of both communities coming together. It was growth.”

ABOUT 90 MINUTES before kickoff, Goldstein and his staff meet with officials to make sure they understand deaf culture and emphasize most of their players cannot hear the whistle. Those within the program say almost every game, somebody is penalized for a late hit. Referees sometimes warn players before calling a foul that they will throw the flag if they see it a second time, but they can’t communicate that to the Bison — or don’t try. There are no interpreters on the field, aside from some players like offensive lineman Mitch Dolinar, who is hard of hearing and often tries to help.

“People just don’t understand — deaf means I cannot physically hear,” said Dolinar, who wears his hearing aid during games. “You still see refs still trying to talk to Rodney, still trying to talk to him, and I have to come in, ‘He cannot hear you. Talk to me or talk to the coaches.’ I’m lucky I have a hearing aid, I can hear what you’re saying and interpret for them sometimes, but I’m not on the defensive side of the ball where we have a lot more guys on defense who are deaf.”

While nobody is tracking what penalties occur because a player didn’t hear the whistle, Gallaudet has been flagged 82 times this season for a total of 809 yards, compared with their opponents’ 63 penalties for 584 yards.

“I look at officials like the weather,” Healey said, “they’re like a natural disaster. They’re a necessary requirement, but at the same time, you have no control over it.”

Eventually, they’re able to laugh. Goldstein says Healey is the most comical character on the sideline when a play is imploding. Healey is a native of London, England, and the staff and players say he’s like Dwayne Johnson with an English accent. He’s the most animated, yelling on the sideline even though no one can hear him, waving his arms, before ultimately ending in the “Surrender Cobra” pose, with both hands on his head.

All of it, he said, is worth it.

“We’re recruiting players, we’re keeping kids in school, and every day is a step toward a victory,” Healey said. “That’s why this has been so sweet. It’s nine years of waiting. And it pays off. It’s just nice to have something pay off.”

Last month, on Homecoming weekend against their rivals, Maritime, Goldstein had an opportunity to use a play he was saving for the right moment. Gallaudet had scored 22 points in the fourth quarter and needed a two-point conversion to tie the game and send it into overtime.

Quarterback Brandon Washington, who runs the Bison’s triple-option offense and ranks 15th in the nation with 145.78 all-purpose yards per game, only caught the quarterback sneak part of the play before he turned around and ran back onto the field.

He missed the second part, about the pass.

Goldstein was screaming Washington’s name on the sideline, desperately trying to get his attention. They had no timeouts left. Gallaudet lost 26-24.

“That game didn’t come down to one play,” Goldstein said. “It never comes down to one play, but that was just one we couldn’t get.”

“I’ve seen everything you could see,” Goldstein said. “The unnecessary roughness, the late hits. Sometimes we’re stuck in a play call. The defense is based on checks and changing, but if somebody is lined up maybe 3 feet off — you want a corner to get inside leverage — our corners are deaf. You’re not getting their attention. You’re running, and you’re putting your hands up, and you’re trying to run down the sideline to get their attention, but sometimes you can’t, so you’re stuck in a play call that you don’t want. You might just have to run and live with it and hope that you can make up for it, but it is what it is. It’s who we are. It’s never going to change.”

GALLAUDET’S FOOTBALL IDENTITY hasn’t changed in 128 years.

A sign that reads “HOME OF THE HUDDLE EST. 1894” is attached to the painted white brick in the hallway leading to the modest athletic offices and locker rooms. During that season, Gallaudet played two deaf schools, and quarterback Paul Hubbard was worried the other teams were stealing the Bison’s plays because they were signing in the open. Hubbard decided to pull his teammates into a circle, and the huddle was born.

The history lessons are scattered everywhere on the small, historic campus hidden in Northeast D.C., where enrollment hovers just under 1,600, and roughly 200 are student-athletes. The plaque at the baseball field honors former center fielder William Hoy, who is credited with inventing the signs for “strike” and “ball.”

“Hearing status doesn’t mean anything,” said offensive lineman John Scarboro, whose communication through ASL was relayed through an interpreter. “It’s nothing for us, because honestly they can hear and I’m profoundly deaf, but some of my teammates can hear as well. This game is just football with equipment, and I’m playing against an opponent, and my goal is to get the ball to the other side. We don’t worry about hearing status at all. It’s an unnecessary distraction.”

Burford was born profoundly deaf in both ears and wears a cochlear implant — except during games.

“That’s my advantage,” he said with a smile, “I can talk trash to you and can’t hear you say nothing back to me.”

These are athletes who hail from college football hotbeds like Texas and Alabama, and Burford’s father played football at Yale. While some attended schools for the deaf, others graduated from mainstream high schools, where Dolinar said it was more difficult for some of his teammates, including his best friend, to find an opportunity to play.

“They were good, but the coaches feared they couldn’t communicate with him, so they benched him,” Dolinar said. “There are deaf people who can play, but just need an opportunity.”

Last year, Goldstein sent an email blast through a recruiting service to 27,000 head high school football coaches searching for the players who wanted that chance. Goldstein said there are often players at mainstream high schools who aren’t diagnosed as deaf or hard of hearing, or don’t share that they are.

“Sometimes kids don’t want people to know that they have hearing loss,” he said. “We’ve found kids, their coach was like, ‘I had no idea. I always wondered why he was always standing to the left of me, or why he’s missing things at times.’ Because the kids don’t want to be treated any different because they can’t hear.”

There are about six players on the roster who learned of the program through the email blast, and another 60 potential recruits. The current roster of 70 represents 28 states, D.C. and Canada. The school’s recruiting pipeline, though, is the Texas School for the Deaf (10 players), followed by the Maryland School for the Deaf (six) and the California School for the Deaf in Riverside (two).

Collins, who graduated from East Islip High School in New York and was on the 2013 title team, said he doesn’t know where he’d be without football.

“When I went to high school, everyone called me the big deaf kid,” he said. “Now I’m here, I’m the big human kid.”

The education extends well beyond the Gallaudet gates.

In October 2011, Gallaudet’s team was eating dinner at a Ponderosa that no longer exists in Rutland, Vermont, and they were all using ASL to communicate as they loaded up at the all-you-can-eat buffet.

Goldstein remembers the moment a little girl walked by and was staring at the players. He sat down at the table with the girl and her mom and introduced himself as coach Chuck. He learned the girl had never seen a deaf person before, so he explained how they were talking to each other.

“At that point, a light bulb went off,” he said. “Oh my goodness, her first impression of a deaf person is us, the Gallaudet football team. I set the bar really high about expectations when we travel. We represent every deaf person. I’m hearing, and I still represent the deaf community. If we act like fools, that little girl’s first impression is all deaf people are fools. And so we take pride in who we are and who we represent. That GU logo, we’re America’s deaf team. You see Alabama’s uniform, Penn State’s uniform, you know how they are. That’s what we are.”

For Gallaudet, the drum is equally as symbolic and part of their tradition, but it’s also used to celebrate a defensive stop or a big play — and it’s practical. Half a dozen or so beats during the game indicates it’s time for the special teams unit to take the field.

“We’re signing punt, but you have 70 guys on the sideline and no one’s looking at a person signing,” Goldstein said. “So we bang the drum, they feel the vibration, and they know where to look — the middle of the field, coaches sign the punt, everybody runs on the field.”

After a win, the big bass drum rolls back out.

“We can feel it,” Anderson said. “We can feel the beat of the drum.”

That’s when they start dancing.

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MLB September predictions: From best record to playoff races and more

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September 2, 2025

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MLB September predictions: From best record to playoff races and more

Sep 2, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

Welcome to September! Five months into Major League Baseball’s 2025 season, a number of things seem to be settled — from a few divisions to some award races — but plenty of intrigue remains entering the homestretch.

Which of the current contenders will reach the playoffs? How will the closer division races play out? Which teams will secure first-round byes? And how many games will the Colorado Rockies lose?!

To discuss what the final month of the regular season might bring, we asked 16 ESPN baseball experts some of the game’s biggest questions, covering September and beyond, and to explain their answers. We also asked them to make bold predictions about what will happen over the final stretch.

Let’s get into it.

Which team will finish with the best record in baseball?

Milwaukee Brewers: 14
Detroit Tigers: 1
Los Angeles Dodgers: 1

What makes the Brewers the favorite to secure the majors’ best record? Besides the buffer the Brewers have built as we enter the final month of the regular season, there’s just nothing to suggest a falloff. They are on track to win about 100 games and their run differential supports that pace. The remaining schedule is friendly. And Milwaukee’s production has come from every position and category. It’s just a really complete team. — Bradford Doolittle

How many of the current 12 teams projected for the playoffs will be in the postseason field?

All 12: 15
11: 1

You have the Royals ousting the Mariners from the playoff field. Why do you think that will happen? The Kansas City Royals will make the playoffs. Crazy? Not so. They’ve played great in July and August. Vinnie Pasquantino is mashing home runs, Bobby Witt Jr. is red hot and the players they added at the trade deadline have chipped in to make this a good offense. The Royals also have a pretty easy schedule the rest of the way. But which team can they catch?

It might hinge on a three-game series at home against Seattle in mid-September. The Mariners have a recent history of falling just short of the postseason — including last year, when the Royals clinched a wild-card spot with 86 wins and the Mariners won 85 (the Mariners blew an 8-0 lead against Kansas City in June, which loomed large at the end of the season). Seattle has struggled on the road, so the aforementioned series can catapult the Royals back into the postseason. — David Schoenfield

Who will be the No. 1 seed in the AL: Toronto or Detroit?

Detroit Tigers: 14
Toronto Blue Jays: 2

The Tigers were the overwhelming choice. Why did you take them? For me, this was mostly a schedule play. The top seed, based on the standings, is likely to be the Tigers or the Blue Jays, with the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners all within plausible striking distance. Toronto doesn’t have an easy series left. Detroit’s schedule isn’t nearly as rigorous. In a race this close, with teams this close in talent and production, little things like schedule luck often determine the outcome. — Jeff Passan

You were one of two voters to pick the Blue Jays. Why do you think they top Detroit? The Tigers are a wonderful story, but not so much since the All-Star break, as they have played .500 ball, struggled to score runs and their ERA is among the bottom 10 in baseball. The Blue Jays are peaking at the right time, scoring plenty of runs, and Max Scherzer and Shane Bieber make the rotation formidable. Frankly, all three AL East contenders are better than the current Tigers, and it should show in the final standings. — Eric Karabell

Assuming the Brewers get one, who will get the second bye in the NL?

Los Angeles Dodgers: 9
Philadelphia Phillies: 5
San Diego Padres: 2

Despite dealing with star players slumping and a mountain of injuries this season, the Dodgers are still the slight favorites for the No. 2 seed in a stacked NL. Explain why. Because those are the very reasons why the Dodgers firmly believe their best baseball is still ahead of them. Their bullpen will soon be as close to whole as it has been all season. The same can be said about the lineup. The rotation already is, and the four-man group they’ll put together in October will be scary if the starters remain healthy.

That’s a big “if,” considering the pitching ailments that have plagued them the last couple years. But at the end of the day, the Dodgers possess the most depth and talent in the sport. They feel as if they’re on the verge of truly showcasing it. — Alden Gonzalez

The Phillies also received a fair number of votes. What makes them your pick? The Phillies seem to be flying under the radar for a team that has spent most of the season on a 95-win pace. Maybe it’s the Zack Wheeler injury, maybe it’s their struggles against the New York Mets — or maybe it’s just that this is about what we’ve grown accustomed to seeing from Philly over the past few seasons.

But there is plenty to like here over the final month and into October as well. Even without Wheeler, the Phillies have the best Game 1 starter of any NL contender in Cristopher Sanchez. Kyle Schwarber has a real shot at Ryan Howard’s franchise home run record (58). They acquired the best reliever to move at the deadline in Jhoan Duran and filled their biggest hole by trading for outfielder Harrison Bader. Oh, and they currently hold that second spot in the NL — with a 1 1/2 game cushion over the Dodgers. — Dan Mullen

Will the Dodgers or Padres win the NL West?

Los Angeles Dodgers: 13
San Diego Padres: 3

The Dodgers were our voters’ overwhelming favorite to win the division. Why — and how — do you think San Diego can overtake L.A.? More than any other team, I think the Dodgers look at their seasons from 30,000 feet, rather than succumbing to the concerns of the moment. They demonstrate this every year with their handling of pitching injuries — they essentially rest veteran starters through long stretches of the season, rather than push them in May and June, in order to do what they can to ensure that the players will be relatively fresh in October. This is why we’ve seen such a deliberate ramp-up with Shohei Ohtani.

That’s why I think the Padres will wind up winning the division. They bolstered their bullpen with Mason Miller at the trade deadline, and since then, it feels like they’ve been playing a series of Game 7s. And, let’s face it, San Diego is all-in in trying to win right now, with its top-heavy roster and the likes of Dylan Cease and Michael King headed for free agency in the fall. The Dodgers, on the other hand, won’t go to the whip in September in the same way. No matter how their own division plays out, they’ll make the playoffs and have a shot to repeat as World Series winners, while it feels as if San Diego is going to go all-out down the stretch to win the NL West.

Different pressures, different styles, different context. — Buster Olney

Who will win the AL West?

Houston Astros: 8
Seattle Mariners: 8

Make the case for the Astros: Picking Houston to win the West isn’t going out on much of a limb: They’re currently in first place, just got slugger Yordan Alvarez back from injury and simply have more pedigree than Seattle. The Mariners have a slightly easier schedule the rest of the way but their road woes are for real — and will likely prevent them from going on an extended run. Picking against the Astros would be the headline-scratching move. They’re the division champ once again. — Jesse Rogers

Make the case for the Mariners: The Mariners aren’t playing their best baseball, but they are healthy and within striking distance of the Astros for the division entering September. Their starting rotation is elite. The bullpen and offense should be better. Meanwhile, the Astros have recently gotten Yordan Alvarez back from injury, but they’re without Josh Hader and Isaac Paredes, among others. The division could come down to the three-game series between the two rivals in late September. — Jorge Castillo

How many games will the Rockies lose?

119: 1
118: 3
117: 1
116: 3
115: 3
114: 3
113: 1
112: 1

We got quite the breadth of answers to this question, but you were one of three to say 118 losses — our second-highest loss total. Why is that your prediction? The Rockies aren’t far removed from being on a modern record-setting pace for losses, and they’ve been especially awful against the current 12 teams in the playoff field: 9-50 (.153). They play 13 of their final 24 against that group, at a time when they’re increasingly leaning on younger and less experienced players. Their September isn’t going to be pretty. — Tristan Cockcroft

Make one bold prediction about the final stretch

Tim Kurkjian: Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh will finish the season with 60 home runs.

Matt Marrone: With most of the playoff field set — other than last-minute jockeying for seeds — all eyes will be on the Mariners over the final days of the season, as Raleigh sets a new AL home run record.

Kiley McDaniel: Between hitting and pitching, Shohei Ohtani catches Raleigh in total WAR.

Passan: Athletics first baseman Nick Kurtz will finish in the top five of AL MVP voting.

Karabell: The Phillies call up top pitching prospect Andrew Painter on Sept. 7 and he goes 3-0 with a 1.50 ERA.

Mullen: Nolan McLean will be the NL’s best pitcher not named Paul Skenes over the final month and take the mound in October — as the Mets’ Game 1 playoff starter.

Paul Hembekides: Boston’s Garrett Crochet will overtake Detroit’s Tarik Skubal and win the AL Cy Young Award.

Schoenfield: The Red Sox will catch the Blue Jays and win the AL East.

Gonzalez: Actually, the Yankees will win the AL East.

Cockcroft: Not only do the Yankees overtake Toronto for the division title, but they also grab a first-round bye, even if they can’t quite catch the Tigers for the No. 1 seed.

Olney: The Yankees have such a soft schedule in the final weeks that they wind up with the second-best record in the AL … but because Toronto holds on to win the division, New York is the No. 4 seed and faces Boston in the wild-card round.

Tim Keown: The Padres, with the easiest remaining schedule in baseball, will go 7-0 against the Colorado Rockies in September to win the NL West and take the second first-round bye spot.

Castillo: The Mets will overtake the Phillies and win the NL East.

Doolittle: If we started the playoffs tomorrow, the bracket would look exactly the same as it will after we’ve played out the season.

Voters: Dan Mullen, Liz Finny, Paul Hembekides, Jeff Passan, Eric Karabell, Alden Gonzalez, David Schoenfield, Tim Kurkjian, Kiley McDaniel, Tim Keown, Jorge Castillo, Matt Marrone, Bradford Doolittle, Jesse Rogers, Tristan Cockcroft, Buster Olney

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Gundy calls out Ducks’ budget; Lanning fires back

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September 2, 2025

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Gundy calls out Ducks' budget; Lanning fires back

Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy and Oregon coach Dan Lanning are unexpectedly giving the Week 2 matchup between their teams some extra juice.

While speaking on his radio show Monday, Gundy said Oklahoma State spent “around $7 million” on its team over the past three years before referring to how much the Ducks have spent on their roster in recent years.

“I think Oregon spent close to $40 [million] last year alone,” Gundy said. “So, that was just one year. Now, I might be off a few million.”

Gundy made several other comments about Oregon’s resources — he said “it’ll cost a lot of money to keep” Ducks quarterback Dante Moore and that he believes Oregon’s budget should determine the programs they schedule outside of the Big Ten.

“Oregon is paying a lot, a lot of money for their team,” Gundy said. “From a nonconference standpoint, there’s coaches saying they should [play teams with similar budgets].”

On Monday night during his weekly news conference, Lanning responded.

“If you want to be a top-10 team in college football, you better be invested in winning. We spend to win,” Lanning said when asked about Gundy’s comments. “Some people save to have an excuse for why they don’t. … I can’t speak on their situation; I have no idea what they got in their pockets over there.”

Lanning added that he has “a lot of respect” for Gundy and praised how Gundy has consistently led his team to winning seasons over his 20-year tenure in Stillwater. Both teams are 1-0 this season; the Ducks are ranked No. 7 and are expected to be vying for a spot in the College Football Playoff.

“Over the last three to five years, they’ve elevated themselves. They have a lot of resources,” Gundy said. “They’ve got them stacked out there pretty good right now.”

Last year, Georgia coach Kirby Smart referenced Oregon’s resources, saying at SEC media days that he wishes he could get “some of that NIL money” that Oregon alum and Nike founder Phil Knight “has been sharing with Dan Lanning.”

“I think it’s impressive that guys like Kirby have been signing the No. 1 class in the nation without any NIL money this entire time,” Lanning said jokingly in response to Smart during Big Ten media days last year. “Obviously, Coach Smart took a little shot at us. But if you want to be a top-10 team in college football, you better have great support. We have that.”

While Smart’s and Lanning’s barbs had the tone of two coaches who have worked together (Lanning was Georgia’s defensive coordinator from 2019 to 2021), the back-and-forth with Gundy on Monday was unexpected.

“I’m sure UT-Martin maybe didn’t have as much as them last week, and they played,” Lanning said of Oklahoma State. “So, we’ll let it play out.”

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Belichick: Heels ‘better than what we were tonight’

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September 2, 2025

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Belichick: Heels 'better than what we were tonight'

  • David HaleSep 1, 2025, 11:43 PM ET

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    • College football reporter.
    • Joined ESPN in 2012.
    • Graduate of the University of Delaware.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — If Bill Belichick were still in New England, still helming a team he’d coached for a quarter-century, where he’d won six Super Bowls, he could have shrugged off Monday’s debacle against TCU as just a hiccup on a long road to somewhere better, answering his critics with his now ubiquitous retort: On to the next game.

In Chapel Hill on Monday, with a sell-out crowd eager to get its first glimpse of a new era of North Carolina football under the tutelage of one of the game’s all-time greats, what happened couldn’t be shrugged off so easily.

Belichick’s Tar Heels were embarrassed, with TCU rolling to a 48-14 win in which UNC didn’t simply look like the lesser team, but one that often appeared utterly unprepared for the moment.

“We’re better than what we were tonight but we have to go out there and show that and prove it,” Belichick said. “Nobody’s going to do it for us. We’re going to have to do it ourselves, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Through the first drive of Belichick’s tenure as a college coach, everything had gone right.

Crowds filled the bars and restaurants along Franklin Street in Chapel Hill hours before kickoff. A pregame concert, headlined by country star and UNC alum Chase Rice, set the stage for a star-studded event. Michael Jordan and Lawrence Taylor and Mia Hamm were all in attendance as the Belichick era at North Carolina finally kicked off.

And then the Tar Heels delivered a flawlessly executed 83-yard touchdown drive, and the packed house at Kenan Stadium exploded.

This was the dream when UNC shocked the college football world by landing Belichick, and suddenly Belichick’s promise of bringing a national championship to a program that hasn’t even won an ACC title in more than half a century felt entirely plausible.

Then TCU delivered one cold dose of reality after another, and by midway through the third quarter, after Devean Deal‘s scoop-and-score on a Gio Lopez fumble put the Horned Frogs up by 34, the once-frenetic stands emptied out and the hope for something magical in Chapel Hill seemed a distant memory.

“They out-played us, out-coached us, and they were just better than we were tonight,” Belichick said. “It’s all there was to it. They did a lot more things right than we did.”

Belichick turned over the bulk of North Carolina’s roster in one offseason, bringing in 70 new players — nearly half of whom arrived after spring practice. The transformation of the roster along with Belichick’s famously guarded approach to media meant few outside of North Carolina’s locker room had a clear vision of just what this squad would look like.

By the time the bludgeoning was over, the mantra from the Tar Heels’ perspective was that this performance hardly showcased what they’d seen on the practice field for the past six weeks.

“I thought we were prepared for the game,” backup quarterback Max Johnson said. “We prepared for a week and a half for TCU specifically, but we’ve been working on our fundamentals for a year now. We need to do a better job executing.”

After the opening touchdown drive, North Carolina went three-and-out on five of its next six drives. Lopez went more than two hours of real time between completions. UNC failed to convert its first six third-down tries, and Lopez threw a pick-six late in the first half that seemed to be the last gasp for the Tar Heels. The defense was equally catastrophic. TCU racked up 542 yards of total offense and ran for 258 yards, including a 75-yard scamper by Kevorian Barnes, and the Heels missed one tackle after another after another.

“Too many three-and-outs, too many long plays on defense, two turnovers for touchdowns. You can’t overcome that,” Belichick said. “We just can’t perform well doing some of the things we did. We’ve got to be better than that. We had too many self-inflicted wounds we have to eliminate before we can even worry about addressing our opponent.”

Johnson came on in relief of Lopez, who left after his sack-fumble with a lower back injury, and he delivered a touchdown drive that at least offered some spark of life for the Heels’ offense. Belichick said it was unclear whether Lopez would be able to play Saturday at Charlotte, but he left open the possibility that the QB competition could be re-opened.

“We’ll see how Gio is,” Belichick said. “Max came in after being off for a long time and hung in there and made some plays in a tough situation. We’ll take a look at it and see where things are at and go from there. It’s too early to tell now.”

Before the game, Belichick spent nearly a half-hour on the field watching both teams go through warm-ups. He chatted with dignitaries and appeared to bask in the moment, but the magic quickly evaporated.

The 48 points scored by TCU in Belichick’s first career game as a college coach are more than his teams allowed in any of his 333 NFL games, and for as much as he’d worked to sell North Carolina as “the 33rd NFL team,” Monday’s disaster felt like a reminder that, regardless of his success in the pros, this was new territory.

His response to the loss, however, was largely in line with what fans have come to expect of the understated coach — simple, succinct and emphatic.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said. “We’ll get at it.”

For a fan base that had waited nine months for this moment, however, it could be harder to turn the page. Belichick never promised a quick fix, but there were reasonable assurances that this team would play with physicality and fundamentals, that UNC wouldn’t be out-coached or out-schemed.

By halftime Monday, the veil had been lifted. Belichick has six Super Bowl rings, but this was a bigger job than perhaps any he’d assumed before.

The excitement that reached its apex after the opening touchdown drive perfectly showcased what this experiment could look like. The question now is whether UNC’s reality will ever match the dream or if Belichick’s first drive as a college coach will be remembered as the pinnacle of his tenure here.

“Don’t lose hope,” Johnson said. “We’re going to continue to put our best foot forward, continue to work and trust in each other.”

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