{"id":313246,"date":"2025-10-18T11:13:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T11:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/313246\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T11:13:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T11:13:12","slug":"belichicks-north-carolina-tenure-hit-by-heartbreaking-loss-to-cal-after-late-fumble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/313246\/","title":{"rendered":"Belichick’s North Carolina tenure hit by heartbreaking loss to Cal after late fumble"},"content":{"rendered":"

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) \u2014 The Bill Belichick era<\/a> at North Carolina already had endured several lopsided losses. Now the Tar Heels have a heartbreaking one to go with it.<\/p>\n

The one thing that North Carolina is still searching for is its first victory over a power opponent since the six-time Super Bowl champion coach took over the program.<\/p>\n

After losing its first three games against power conference teams by an average of 29 points, the Tar Heels hung tough against California on Friday night until Nathan Leacock\u2019s fumble at the goal line turned a possible go-ahead touchdown late in the fourth quarter into the defining moment of a 21-18 loss<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been improving every week,\u201d Belichick said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to back off. I think that\u2019s true. But you can\u2019t turn the ball over and win. It\u2019s just too hard. We\u2019ve got to eliminate some of those kind of mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most costly one came late when it seemed like the Tar Heels were poised for a comeback win. Gio Lopez hit Leacock on a short pass and Leacock was running toward the end zone when Brent Austin knocked the ball out just before he crossed the goal line. Austin then dove on the loose ball in the end zone to give the Golden Bears the ball back with 3:48 to play.<\/p>\n

Cal ran all but five seconds off on the ensuing drive and the Tar Heels went down to another loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just him,\u201d receiver Kobe Paysour said about Leacock. \u201cWe all had bad plays in the game, so it\u2019s not just his fault.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tar Heels also lost a fumble on the first play from scrimmage to set up a Cal touchdown but fared much better overall running the ball and getting stops on defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might have been enough we had to turn the ball over but we did,\u201d Belichick said. \u201cAnd we didn\u2019t get any turnovers on defense so until that changes it\u2019s a little bit of an uphill struggle.\u201d <\/p>\n

The 73-year-old Belichick is in the first year of a deal that guarantees $10 million in base and supplemental pay for each of the next two seasons. Team general manager Michael Lombardi, a former NFL executive who\u2019s largely a partner with Belichick in this college endeavor, is making $1.5 million for each of the next two seasons.<\/p>\n

The talk about building the \u201c33rd\u201d NFL team<\/a> with an NFL-style approach in college hasn\u2019t generated positive results, with the team\u2019s only wins coming against lower-level Richmond and Charlotte.<\/p>\n

Belichick\u2019s short tenure at North Carolina has included plenty of focus on happenings off the field, including plenty about his relationship with 24-year-old girlfriend Jordon Hudson that generated chants of \u201cHigh school girlfriend!\u201d from the Cal student section during the game.<\/p>\n

There was also a planned documentary that was canceled, the suspension of an assistant coach and a report that Belichick had been seeking an exit strategy from coaching North Carolina that he had to address in a statement last week and a news conference earlier this week.<\/p>\n

Then came another report that Lombardi went to Saudi Arabia over the summer where he met with a \u201cSaudi national who is a college football fan, interested in supporting Coach Belichick,\u201d according to the school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll just talk about the game here,\u201d Belichick said when asked about it. \u201cI\u2019m just focused on the game. I\u2019m not going to deal with any of those.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a> and here<\/a> (AP News mobile app). AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) \u2014 The Bill Belichick era at North Carolina already had endured several lopsided losses. Now…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":313247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[4442,157835,276,47225,1428,1369,1318,4443,107842,157834,9338,521,1317,1315,1316,1232,519,3910,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-313246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-bill-belichick","9":"tag-brent-austin","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-california-golden-bears","12":"tag-college-football","13":"tag-college-sports","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-jordon-hudson","16":"tag-michael-lombardi","17":"tag-nathan-leacock","18":"tag-national-football-league","19":"tag-nc-state-wire","20":"tag-ncaa","21":"tag-ncaa-football","22":"tag-ncaafootball","23":"tag-nfl","24":"tag-north-carolina","25":"tag-north-carolina-tar-heels","26":"tag-sports","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115394878352799289","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}