The 2026 college football season got a soft launch Saturday with eight FBS games making up the Week 0 slate. It was just a tease of what’s to come, but there’s plenty to digest from the day’s action all the same.
The obituaries on Bill Belichick’s clunky and seemingly ill-fitting tenure as North Carolina’s football coach were already written and waiting for whenever this awkward experiment fully imploded.
It’s not that anyone suddenly questions the football acumen of the man with more Super Bowl rings than any head coach in NFL history — it’s that most everyone questioned from the start whether Belichick, advancing into his mid 70s, was well-suited to operate in college football’s NIL/revenue-sharing era and manage richly compensated yet still raw teenagers and 20-somethings.
And all of those questions and doubts absolutely still remain, but the eulogy on the coaching curmudgeon’s miscast college football cameo will have to wait for now.
Belichick and the Tar Heels provided the biggest surprise of Week 0 in looking, well, competent in a 15-10 win over TCU in Dublin, Ireland.
It was the Horned Frogs who embarrassed Belichick in his North Carolina debut last year in a 48-14 romp to open the season, sounding the alarm sirens as a portent of what was to follow. The Tar Heels would finish 4-8 with just two wins over Power Four opponents — 3-9 Syracuse and 4-8 Stanford.
Not this time, though.
Even after yet more off-field distractions this offseason — with Belichick’s hand-picked general manager Mike Lombardi presently on paid administrative leave pending a human resources investigation — and with his son and defensive coordinator Steve Belichick on indefinite medical leave, the Tar Heels looked much more cohesive in their 2026 debut.
North Carolina trailed 10-3 in the first quarter but didn’t let TCU score again.
Heck, the Tar Heels barely let the Horned Frogs move the ball the rest of the game.
TCU made just three more trips inside the UNC 40-yard line with one ending in a failed fourth-and-10 pass from the 35, another starting at the UNC 24 after a fumble recovery but ending on a turnover on downs inside the 10 (see video) and then a final sustained drive ending on a fourth-and-2 incompletion from the 10.
Even down a formal coordinator, Belichick’s defense — featuring returning ACC regular-season sack leader Melkart Abou-Jaoude — allowed just 281 yards, held TCU to 2.7 yards per rushing attempt, notched a safety and allowed only one fourth-down conversion on five attempts.
Meanwhile, new quarterback Billy Edwards Jr. completed 16 of 28 passes for 232 yards, 0 TDs and 0 INTs while three running backs combined for 94 yards and a TD on 22 attempts.
The Tar Heels finished with only 322 yards of their own, and it remains to be seen what’s any different on that side of the ball from a year ago when UNC ranked 120th nationally in scoring at 19.3 points per game.
Edwards is at his fourth school in his sixth year of college after a season-ending knee injury last fall cut short his prior fresh start just two games into his time at Wisconsin. His only full season as a starter came in 2024 at Maryland when he passed for 2,881 yards, 15 TDs and 9 INTs with 5 rushing TDs for a Terrapins team that ranked 100th in scoring at 23.7 PPG.
But it’s one game, so we’ll let it play out.
North Carolina should get to 2-0 next week when it hosts East Tennessee State, and then the schedule gets tough in a hurry.
A road trip to Clemson, a bye week, a home game with No. 4 Notre Dame, road games at Pittsburgh and Duke, a favorable matchup with Syracuse at home, No. 7 Miami at home, a road game at UConn (an FBS independent but one that won nine games each of the last two seasons), No. 24 Louisville at home, an impressive Virginia team on the road and NC State at home to close it out.
The only path to six wins and bowl eligibility through all that requires winning all the toss-up games (Syracuse, UConn and NC State) and pulling off an upset elsewhere.
So the Belichick Era isn’t out of peril just yet, but it earned a little bit more runway with the win Saturday.
“I’m just happy for the players. They’ve worked really hard,” Belichick said. “To have positive results back up that hard work, reinforces it. I think they’ve been believing in what we’re doing, but I think this just gives everybody a little bit more belief and we’ve just got to keep building.”
Heisman Tracker
USC quarterback Jayden Maiava should be recognized as a dark horse candidate for the Heisman Trophy. He checks most of the key boxes — experienced QB (he took over as the Trojans’ starter late in the 2024 season), big arm, mobile, proven success (3,711 passing yards, 24 TDs, 10 INTs, 6 rushing TDs last year), high-profile team, leads an offense loaded with top talent and his coach Lincoln Riley has already had three QBs win the Heisman (Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray at Oklahoma and Caleb Williams with the Trojans).
There’s one variable working against the fifth-year senior from Hawaii, though.
Riley hasn’t proven yet that he can win big at USC, and if the Trojans can’t get into the College Football Playoff for the first time in his now five seasons, then Maiava isn’t going to stay in the Heisman conversation.
And the Trojans’ collective success is beyond the QB’s control to an extent and hinging just as much on USC’s ability to improve defensively under new coordinator Gary Patterson, the former longtime TCU head coach.
It’s too soon to know how that’s going to shake out, but Maiava sure looked the part in USC’s 42-26 win over San Jose State in Week 0. He completed 25 of 29 passes for 286 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs and added a rushing TD, all in just three quarters. He led the Trojans to touchdown drives on five of the seven series he played to stake the team to a 35-3 lead before the backups and third-teamers closed it out.
Virginia’s Breakout Was No Fluke Apparently
Surely nobody could have predicted Virginia’s breakout last season.
The Cavaliers had gone 3-7, 3-9 and 5-7 in coach Tony Elliott’s first three seasons. The program hadn’t posted a winning record since 2019, hadn’t finished a season ranked since 2004.
Then out of the blue they set a school record for wins last year in going 11-3 and reached the ACC championship game, losing to Duke.
Was it an aberration or genuine, sustainable momentum for the program?
One could have been excused for thinking it might be the former, considering Virginia was left to replace quarterback Chandler Morris, 1,000-yard rusher J’Mari Taylor and its top three wide receivers among other roster turnover.
But the Cavaliers made quite a statement to the contrary in dominating NC State, 34-8, Saturday with an incredible defensive performance and arguably the best game of veteran quarterback Beau Pribula’s career.
After three seasons as a reserve at Penn State, Pribula underwhelmed as a starter at Missouri last year and sought another fresh start in transferring to UVA. He wasn’t exactly a needle-moving pickup for the program, yet then again neither was Morris before he delivered a career year in Charlottesville. Maybe there is something to that.
Pribula completed 9 of 11 passes for 155 yards, 2 TDs and 0 INTs and also led the team in rushing with 110 yards on 15 attempts.
Meanwhile, the Virginia defense absolutely shutdown NC State’s talented third-year starting QB CJ Bailey, who was just 12-of-23 passing for 84 yards, 0 TD and 1 INT (plus 33 rushing yards).
A year ago, Bailey had his way with the Cavs’ defense while accounting for 3 total touchdowns in a 35-31 win.
It’s too soon to know if Virginia will again be a top contender in the ACC, but the collective performance Saturday is enough to think it’s possible Elliott and his staff have truly flipped the switch.
Freshman Spotlight
What made Maiava’s performance for USC even more impressive is that he did it with his projected top two receivers sitting out with injury in Tanook Hines and NC State transfer Terrell Anderson.
They weren’t needed in this one, at least, as true freshman Trent Mosley had an incredible collegiate debut with 7 catches for 118 yards and a TD, plus a 41-yard punt return.
Mosley’s 118 receiving yards were the most by a Trojans true freshman in his first game since JuJu Smith-Schuster had 123 receiving yards versus Fresno State in 2014. Per USC, Mosley is also the first Power Four freshman with at least 7 receptions, 100 yards and a TD in his debut since Purdue’s Rondale Moore in 2018.
North Dakota State Announces Itself To the FBS
North Dakota State has been the premier power at the FCS level for the last decade and a half, winning 10 national championships since 2011.
It only made sense that the Bison would make the jump to the FBS level, which they’re doing this season in joining the Mountain West Conference.
And so far, they look the part.
NDSU won its FBS debut the same way it rolled over most of its FCS opponents, dominating Conference USA’s Jacksonville State 33-7 at home inside the raucous Fargodome.
Jacksonville State was 9-5 last season while reaching the C-USA championship game and has its starting QB back, yet the Gamecocks managed just 170 yards vs. the Bison.
Quarterback Nathan Hayes led NDSU with 160 passing yards, 2 TDs and 1 INT.
The Bison were voted third in the Mountain West preseason poll behind UNLV and New Mexico and look ready to compete in the FBS immediately.
