Heel Tough Blog: ACC Kickoff Takeaways

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Thursday was the final day of ACC Kickoff for the 2025 season and Tar Heel football and Bill Belichick were the biggest story going. While Belichick chose not to talk on radio row, there was still plenty of talking that was done by the Tar Heel guys. Here is a look at our biggest takeaways from the Tar Heels day at ACC Kickoff.

SEC Buzz Around the Tar Heels Continues to Grow

This was something that started on Wednesday and has picked even more steam today. Adam Smith of Inside Carolina reported on Tuesday that the Tar Heels are amongst the group that is actively looking to get out of the ACC after the league’s legal settlement that dissolved the league’s strongly-built grant of rights and severely lessened the fees to exit the conference. This isn’t exactly new information that the Tar Heels are looking to leave the conference, but it feels like the timeline might be getting sped up and the school may actually be leading the charge in the push by ACC school to get out of the conference. When it comes to the desired destination, there are some in the academic realm on campus that want the school in the Big Ten, but according to Smith, the focus of new chancellor Lee Roberts and future athletic director Steve Newmark is on getting to the SEC. When it comes to a timeline, Smith points to the 2030-31 season as the year that they could be targeting for their exit with the exit fee dropping to $75 million, a much more manageable number than what it would be prior to that where it starts at $165 million for this athletic year and decreases by $18 million each year until it reaches that flat threshold in 2030-31. It may not be immediate and take place as quickly as some other moves that we have seen recently in college sports, but it feels like the ACC is now officially on the clock.

Gameday Set to Make a Stop in Chapel Hill For the Opener

Amongst other news that we received today was the announcement from ESPN that they will be in Chapel Hill for the season opener against TCU with a make-shift College Gameday crew. According to Bryan Fischer of Sports Illustrated, the network will be sending Matt Barrie, Tedy Bruschi, Desmond Howard, Pat McAfee, Nick Saban and Pete Thamel to Chapel Hill on that Monday evening for a special edition of College Football Countdown which will air from 7-8 PM on ESPN prior to the game. The Tar Heels will also have Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit and Holly Rowe on the call, one of the top crews available to you in Week 1 of the season. As expected, this debut is a big deal around the sport of college football and the campus will be buzzing on that opening Monday night in a way that we haven’t seen since the late 90s if ever. 

There Will Be A QB Battle in the Spring, But It Might Be a Very Short One

When it came to what was actually said by the guys in attendance on Thursday, there was a lot of coach speak and technical answers, but one thing was clear: there is a quarterback battle that will be taking place this fall. While Gio Lopez being in attendance seems to scream to a lot of us that he is likely going to be the guy, Belichick when asked directly about it pointed to the fact that neither Lopez or Max Johnson took a snap for the team in the fall and that the two freshmen will be battling, too. He finished by saying that the players would ultimately decide it, meaning there will be some sort of competition. When asked about the competition and if he knew how the reps were going to be split, Lopez said that he has not been told how the reps will be split, but that he came here to compete for the job. Their answers were not that unexpected and there may very well be a battle at quarterback to start the fall, but at this point it would be stunning if the quarterback that they went into the transfer portal and paid reportedly $2.1 million a year for and brought with them to media days before even taking a practice snap with the team isn’t the guy in the opener against TCU.

All The New Faces Are Manageable for Belichick and the Staff

One of the more stunning things to hear from Bill Belichick on Thursday was the fact that Carolina will have 70 new faces overall on this roster this season. With a number that size and the amount of work that the team did in the spring portal and late in the 2025 recruiting cycle, there will be a lot of new faces that will be hitting the practice field for the first time with the team early. When asked if that was a concern, Belichick acknowledged that it is a challenge, but that it really isn’t that different from what he had to do in the offseason at the NFL level where they would have massive turnover on the roster, as well. With so many key contributors, mainly on the defensive and special teams sides of the ball, being late additions to the team this offseason, lets hope that he is right and that it is something the team will be able to navigate early in the season as guys continue to build chemistry. 

Development is the Focus of the Program Right Now

This was one the first thing that Bill Belichick talked about on the stand today and it is something that has been talked about for years in Chapel Hill that might finally be able to come to fruition. Getting talent to campus has not been the problem for the Tar Heels the last half decade under Mack Brown, but developing that talent the way it needs to be, especially in the trenches, has led to thoughts of what could have been had it been developed right. Belichick is known as one of the best developers in the history of the game and the hope is that with that being a main focus of the program and the staff being comprised of a healthy mixture of NFL and NCAA veterans, they will finally be able to get it done to a level that produces the results you would expect from the talent the program is bringing in.

Program is Full Leaning Into the Pro Style Approach

One of the other big talking points of the day around Carolina was something that we have been hearing often this offseason in the pro style approach that the program is bringing to table. From the nutrition to workout styles to the coaching schemes, everything is in the model of being the 33rd NFL team, another saying that we have heard often this offseason. When it comes to schemes that we will see on the field, both are expected to resemble pro style systems. On offense, the unit wants to be one that can attack in both areas of the game and change its spots from week to week to be able to attack the weaknesses of opposing defenses. On the other side of the ball, it is all about being a physical unit that plays with a lot more freedom than previous staffs have allowed which should lead to more aggression.

Defensive Back Room is Getting a Lot of Hype

When it comes to the rooms getting the most hype around the program on Thursday, there was one in particular that stood out: the defensive back room. Both Thaddeus Dixon and Will Hardy spoke to the competitiveness and experience in the room, as well as the depth, which might be the best of any position group on the team. With questions in the front six, it would be nice for this to be the steady unit on this defense that allows the rest of the unit to work through some of those early in the season.

Bill Belichick is Still Bill Belichick

Remember the Bill Belichick that we got on television last year as a part of the football media. That guy is long gone and back is the version of Bill Belichick who isn’t going to give you a lot but this time with a softer side. Belichick definitely seems more relaxed and jovial in this environment as opposed to his days in the NFL, but the simple fact of the matter is, he isn’t going to give you a lot and that was exactly what we got from him on Thursday, especially when it came to some of the generic questions that he has been asked since the minute that he arrived to Chapel Hill. Expect nothing to change as the season goes on.