{"id":777801,"date":"2026-05-06T18:04:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T18:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/777801\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T18:04:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T18:04:28","slug":"gio-lopez-shades-bill-belichick-unc-after-wake-forest-transfer-its-fun-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/777801\/","title":{"rendered":"Gio Lopez Shades Bill Belichick, UNC After Wake Forest Transfer, ‘It’s Fun Again’"},"content":{"rendered":"

It doesn’t sound like quarterback Gio Lopez will look back on his one year at North Carolina all that fondly.<\/p>\n

“Back at the other school, it felt like there’s no air,” he told ESPN’s David Hale<\/a> in April after transferring to ACC rival Wake Forest. “Here, it’s fun again. They’re moving us in the right direction, energized, and guys are enjoying football. It’s like fresh air.”<\/p>\n

Lopez went on to say that playing for the Tar Heels “was more like work” in terms of his daily experience.<\/p>\n

“After that first game, it felt like getting through the day,” he said. “You don’t want to live like that, where you’re up at night thinking about the next day.”<\/p>\n

UNC went 4-8 in Bill Belichick’s first season as head coach. After just five games, WRAL’s Pat Welter<\/a> reported that the atmosphere around the program had turned sour. A report from The Athletic<\/a> days later described a “culture of arrogance” based on accounts on the ground.<\/p>\n

Lopez was symbolic of why the Belichick era got off to such a poor start.<\/p>\n

North Carolina was left scrambling for another quarterback when Ryan Browne r-entered the portal in mid-April. At such a late point in the process, the Tar Heels had to overpay for Lopez. He reportedly signed<\/a> a two-year NIL deal worth $4 million.<\/p>\n

John Mateer, by comparison, reportedly got around $3 million<\/a> in NIL money when he transferred from Washington State to Oklahoma during the same cycle.<\/p>\n

Belichick and general manager Michael Lombardi didn’t know how to properly build a college roster and paid for it in more ways than one.<\/p>\n

Hale reported Lopez is “making considerably less than he did a year ago.”<\/p>\n

Beyond finding a better setting in Winston-Salem, taking a smaller NIL deal from Wake Forest could yield big dividends down the road for the southpaw. <\/p>\n

Lopez has two years of college eligibility remaining. If he plays a starring role for the Demon Deacons in 2026, he could put himself onto the radar for NFL teams or at least position himself for another NIL payday next offseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It doesn’t sound like quarterback Gio Lopez will look back on his one year at North Carolina all…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":777802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1318,1317,1315,1316,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-777801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116528956487151756","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777801","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=777801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}