What Bill Belichick said after UNC football's loss to NC State

The North Carolina Tar Heels' disappointing football season came to a fitting end Saturday night, with a 42-19 loss at rival NC State capping the year off.

UNC (4-8, 2-6 ACC) kept Saturday's game close in the first half. North Carolina closed its deficit to one touchdown in early, second quarter action, thanks to Jordan Shipp's 20-yard touchdown catch. After NC State's (7-5, 4-4 ACC) fourth touchdown of the first half, Rece Verhoff nailed a 49-yard field goal, closing the Tar Heels' deficit to 21-10.

Justin Joly caught a touchdown pass from CJ Bailey to close the first half, then the Wolfpack added a pair of fourth quarter touchdowns. Verhoff added another field goal and Jordan Owens caught a touchdown, but UNC was well out of contention for a win by this point.

One thing is clear: Year One of the Bill Belichick experiment didn't work. Fans expected immediate success and improvement from the Mack Brown era, but neither happened. Granted, North Carolina showed improvement over the season at times, but Saturday's loss in Raleigh looked plenty more like the Tar Heel squads who struggled against Power Four competition.

Good news: UNC no longer has to worry about criticism from in-game performances, at least not for another nine months. Will changes be made within the North Carolina coaching staff? Belichick himself will return, but don't be surprised if Freddie Kitchens isn't the offensive coordinator in 2026.

Speaking of Belichick, take a look at everything he had to say after Saturday's season-ending loss. All quotes are via TarHeel247:

Opening Statement

"Give State credit, they played well. Coaches, players, offense, defense, special teams; they were the better team, and they deserved to win. We've got a lot of work to do."

On more penalties in recent weeks

"We've got to do a better job on that. We talked about it last week, we've got to do a better job with that."

On how quickly page turns to 2026

"Signing day is Wednesday, so pretty quickly."

On how NC State scoring on every first half drive

"They did a good job and executed well. They converted third downs. Couldn't get off the field."

On challenges faced throughout 2025

"We'll take a look at this season later. We just finished with this game ten minutes ago. We'll go back and take a look at it, find ways to improve and improve them."

On eligibility conversations during the season

"Look, the season just ended a few minutes ago, okay? So now we're going to move into the offseason. That's what we're going to do. I'm trying to tell you, we've been working on NC State. We've been trying to work on NC State. Week before that, we worked on Duke. Week before that, we worked on Wake Forest. Week before that, we worked on Stanford. Week before that, we worked on Syracuse. I mean, that's what we've been doing. Been working on the team every week. I'm sorry I don't have a season recap for you; I don't have one, we haven't done it."

On challenges from Will Wilson in the Wildcat formation

"Yeah, of course we knew about it. They did a good job. As I said, they did a good job and executed well all across the board."

On postgame message to his players

"I'll keep my message to the team between me and the team."

This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: UNC Football: What Bill Belichick said after loss to NC State