The second year of the Bill Belichick era is set to begin late this Summer when the North Carolina Tar Heels take on the TCU Horned Frogs in Ireland.
The first year under Belichick wasn’t ideal for the Tar Heels. They finished 4-8 overall and just 2-6 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. They missed a bowl game for the first time since the 2018 season when they fired Larry Fedora.
But as year two is set to begin, Belichick and the staff are starting to get a better feel of the roster, including getting their own guys in. It was the first true recruiting class for Belichick since taking the job, and the hope is for better results.
However, not everyone is sold.
In his latest coaches’ rankings, CBS Sports’ Tom Fornelli has Belichick ranked 63rd among the Power 4 coaches:
This is a fascinating result to me. Bill Belichick not only drops nine spots in our rankings after a 4-8 debut with the Tar Heels last season, but he’s the only other coach besides Stanford’s Tavita Pritchard to receive last-place votes. He got three! That’s right, the coach who won six Super Bowls finished behind a coach who has never been a head coach at any level and was only 13 years old when Belichick won his first Super Bowl with the Patriots. I genuinely don’t question my fellow voters’ rankings too much, but I have a very difficult time seeing the logic behind those decisions. 2025 rank: 54 (-9), High: 52, Low: 68
It’s hard to disagree with Fornelli’s ranking. It was a disaster of a first season in Chapel Hill for Belichick last season and now he enters 2026 facing the hardest schedule in all of college football.
The best way to improve this ranking is to win games. And that’s what UNC fans are hoping for here in 2026.
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This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: UNC Football: Bill Belichick gets low ranking on CBS Sports