It was exactly 34 years ago to the day, ESPN told us, that Bill Belichick made his NFL head coaching debut vs. the Dallas Cowboys as the Cleveland Browns head coach. Final was Dallas 26, Browns 14.

“I hope it goes better than the game against Dallas and Jimmy Johnson, they crushed us,” Belichick told ESPN when asked about Monday night’s long-awaited University of North Carolina opener. “I hope it goes a lot better than that.”

Uh, that was a nailbiter compared to what we saw last night in a 48-14 whitewash. You can bet all of New England was tuned in, but Bill Belichick’s debut as head coach of the Tar Heels was a colossal bust, and we’re not talking about the one he’ll have in Canton. Basically, his North Carolina team, with 70 new players, looks like it stinks. They were killed up front on both sides of the ball by TCU.

The comments were familiar, but Belichick hung in there for just over seven minutes in a post-game press conference that, were this in New England, would’ve gone about two.

“We need to do a better job around, coaching, playing, all three phases of the game, just wasn’t up to what it needs to be,” he said in his early remarks. “I know we’re a lot better than that.”

There’s two messages there. One was for the UNC powers that be and the other was his recognition that he’s coaching kids and needs to use his presser answers as messages to them. In the NFL, that doesn’t matter.

But all the hype was for nothing. All the Jordon Hudson drama. Roy Williams, Lawrence Taylor, Michael Jordan, etc. must have wondered what the heck they were doing there. And the irony was, the Tar Heels started the game on fire, marching down the field at a record pace for a 7-0 lead. Then the roof caved in. Quarterback Gio Lopez went well over an hour without a completion and left the game with an injury. Steve Belichick’s defense couldn’t stop an ant from getting a first down. Granted, TCU is a pretty darn good offensive team, but this was what the Patriots were doing in the Belichick family’s final year.

But the worst sight was the tons of fans leaving the stadium early. That’s not exactly what the UNC administration was thinking when they hired Belichick and his cronies to control the football program.

Such a shame. We always said it was a sad sight to see a face-covered Belichick leave the Gillette Stadium field for the final team in a raging blizzard, the stands pretty much empty, etc.

He returned to the field in a ton of hype, pomp and circumstance. But he didn’t leave it in the triumphant manner many hoped.

“We’ve got to do a better job tackling, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “There’s no secret to it, no pill you can take, just got to tackle better fundamentally and get so many guys around the ball so we’re not tackling in space.”

Details. Teaching, that’s what Belichick is trying to do.

“They (TCU) outplayed us, they outcoached us, they were just better than we were tonight, that’s all there was to it,” he said. “They controlled both sides of the line of scrimmage…

“It was a great environment tonight, the fans are awesome, there was great energy in the stadium. We just didn’t do enough to keep it going. … We’re going back to work and we’re going to get better.”

Well, the Bill Belichick UNC opener is history. Now we in New England can all get on with the rest of our lives.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on X @Telegraph _TomK.