There is a difference between winning a football game and giving people a reason to believe things are beginning to change. North Carolina did a little of both last Saturday when the Tar Heels knocked off Pittsburgh. It was Bill Belichick's first victory over a ranked opponent at UNC, and for a program that has spent much of the season searching for signs of progress, it was a win worth celebrating.
But one Saturday does not erase everything that came before it. The Tar Heels still have plenty to prove, and today's trip to Wallace Wade Stadium presents another opportunity to show that the Pittsburgh victory was more than a good afternoon in Chapel Hill.
Belichick's first season in Chapel Hill was difficult enough. His second season has brought its own questions about the direction of the program, the personnel, and whether the Tar Heels can become a team that consistently competes against the better opponents on its schedule. Beating Pittsburgh offered a glimpse of what that might look like. Beating Duke would give that glimpse a little more substance.
The Pittsburgh game was not a perfect performance. UNC had to overcome offensive mistakes and find a way to win a game in which the defense played a significant role. That is part of football, of course. Good teams win games in different ways. But the challenge for Belichick is to make those winning performances less dependent on overcoming their own mistakes.
That is what makes today's game interesting. Duke is not simply another opponent on the schedule. It is a rivalry game, played on the road, with the Victory Bell on the line. There is no shortage of motivation for either team, and the environment will demand that UNC handle the moment as well as the football.
For Belichick, the question is whether the Tar Heels can take what they did well against Pittsburgh and carry it into another difficult matchup. Can the offense be more consistent and is this the game where Edwards finds Shipp in the endzone? UNC needs to play a complete game rather than asking one side of the ball to compensate for the other?Those are questions that cannot be answered by one victory. They require a body of work. But football seasons are built one game at a time, and sometimes a rivalry game is exactly the kind of opportunity a team needs to establish a little momentum.
Belichick has coached in some of the biggest games football has to offer. He knows what it takes to prepare for an opponent and what a team must do to win. Now the Tar Heels have another chance to show that the lessons from Pittsburgh are beginning to stick. The Victory Bell would be a meaningful prize, but the bigger reward would be evidence that UNC is becoming a team that can win consistently. That is the conversation Belichick needs to keep moving forward.
