University of North Carolina Football 2025 Preview (BONUS EDITION)
Can a Tar Heel outrun a Bear?
Editor’s Note: We at Write for California are so excited for tonight’s game that we figured we’d offer you, our valued reader, another heaping helping of analysis, mirth, and hand wringing.
What can be said about 2025 UNC Football that hasn’t been said about US foreign policy after World War II? Since taking the job, controversy has stuck like a shadow to a man we prefer to know as a football genius and general grump. A man we’d painted as something resembling the neighbor three doors down that’s always away on weekends doing something boat related. The one who always grunted hello without looking up. What we happen upon instead, is a Friday night island game on ESPN against a figure who has been worn down. That this UNC team isn’t comparable to the one it fielded last year isn’t unusual for the sport (looking in the mirror), but the degree to which the Bill Belichick experiment has gone awry is eyebrow raising. It’s easy to joke on Defensive Coordinator Steve Belichick while we’re at it, but he coached a solid side last year at Washington.
With UNC fandom’s frustration at an understandable high, and program moral low, this presents itself as a curiosity for the national audience, and a classic trap game for the nerve-addled Cal fan.
2024 Defense in Review:
Geoff Collins replaced Gene Chizik as the defensive coordinator
11th ranked defense in conference
35 Sacks on the season, near the top of the ACC, struggled more with creating turnovers
2025 Defense:
Steve Belichik replaced Geoff Collins as the defensive coordinator
Ranked 75th in Yards per game. 102nd in Passing Yards allowed, and 83rd in points allowed
15th in the ACC in first downs allowed, 15th in 3rd down defense as well
Provisional Starters:
DE: Smith Vilbert and Pryce Yates
Interior DL: NT – CJ Mims; DT – D’Antre Robinson
Linebackers: WLB – Khmori House; MLB – Andrew Simpson
Secondary: LCB – Jalon Thompson (or potentially Ty Adams); SS – Gavin Gibson; FS – Will Hardy; RCB – Marcus Allen; NB – Kaleb Cost
Players and Personnel to Watch
Before the season, Thaddeus Dixon was looking to be a potential breakout in the backfield, however he is set to miss several weeks with an upper body injury, with Jalon Thompson or Ty Adams set to start in his place. The Tar Heels will look to Boise State transfer LB Andrew Simpson to make up for the loss of talent in an already struggling backfield.
While things haven’t fallen into place for UNC this season, route jumping an aggressive true freshman quarterback feels logically sound, even if it might not be sound football play in that moment. Maybe the opposite is true, and we face a newly focused Tar Heels intent on defensive discipline, but I’m looking for individuals to be looking for big plays. Happy to be wrong.
How Cal Can Win This Game
Cal needs to exploit UNC’s depleted backfield. As much as Cal has been inconsistent this year, they have proven multiple times that they can get out to a hot start and early lead. This is a team they should be able to hold off on the defensive end. This is a manageable game from a personnel standpoint, and should be a get-right after a rough time against the Blue Devils two weeks ago.
Expecting a game similar to playing Duke but the family will be there cheering on the Bears in the hours Bellycheck’s baby friend is supposed to be swaddled and get her usual 2 hour bottle feeding.
Need defense to shut down the Tar Heels early, not take the first half off like they did against Duke.