Bill Belichick's highly anticipated debut as the head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels brought plenty of celebrity fans Monday -- but considerably less in the way of on-field success.
The visiting TCU Horned Frogs turned an early 7-0 lead for the home team into a 48-14 rout, at one point ripping off 34 consecutive points. The Horned Frogs dominated, leading to a blunt assessment from the legendary New England Patriots boss after the final whistle.
"They outplayed us, outcoached us, and they were just better than we were tonight," Belichick said. "That's all there was to it. They did a lot more things right than we did."
From eye-popping TCU yardage and point totals to at least one (quite small) silver lining, the Belichick era in Chapel Hill started with intriguing stats galore. Here are some of the most notable numbers behind Belichick's shocking blowout debut.
2000: The scale of Belichick's debut loss was the worst in a quarter century for the ACC. It was the largest home loss by a team in an ACC season opener against an unranked foe since Duke fell 38-0 to East Carolina on Sept. 2, 2000.
542: Led by 284 passing yards from quarterback Josh Hoover and 113 rushing yards from Kevorian Barnes, the Horned Frogs finished Week 1 with a gaudy 542 total yards. That amount was good for the second-highest opponent yardage total in a game in Belichick's head coaching career (the Dallas Cowboys posted 567 yards Oct. 7, 2021).
48: TCU got in the end zone against North Carolina via offense, defense and special teams, amassing 48 total points. That amount marks the most points ever allowed by a Belichick-led team.
41: After an opening-drive touchdown, the Tar Heels would concede 41 consecutive points over roughly 40 minutes of game action before finding the end zone again. That streak of TCU points marked the most consecutive points a team with Belichick as head coach has allowed without scoring -- the next closest such streak was 35, which occurred twice in Belichick's NFL head coaching tenure.
34: By the time the dust settled on the rout, North Carolina trailed TCU by 34 points. The final margin is tied for the second-largest loss by a Belichick-led team.
7: Things got underway with a bang Monday for the Tar Heels, who got the ball first and proceeded to find the end zone with a crisp seven-play, 83-yard drive. Things went downhill from there, but the early score offered an unlikely silver lining of positive Belichick era change for North Carolina fans -- somewhat remarkably, the Tar Heels totaled zero points across their 13 opening drives in the 2024 season. North Carolina entered Monday having 16 straight opening drives without an offensive touchdown, the longest active FBS streak (its last previous opening-drive touchdown was Nov. 11, 2023, vs. Duke)
3: Belichick isn't a stranger to slow starts. He lost his regular-season debut as head coach of the Cleveland Browns and of the Patriots, in 1991 and 2000, respectively. Despite his remarkable overall record, Belichick is now 0-3 in his first games as head coach at a new gig.
ESPN Research contributed to this story.