Have you noticed that, almost all of a sudden, college football sucks?
There are a few truly great teams in every conference, but because of money and other reasons the rest of us have become also-rans. Form a Super League for a College Football Playoff for the championship and everybody else plays for conference titles and bowl bids. How hard would that be to pull off? There would still be plenty of TV networks and streaming services to show games and the plethora of talking heads would keep their jobs.
The money has made all the difference in the world. The richer schools will keep raising the most and don’t want to stop paying players as much as they can. We certainly don’t need U.S. congressmen trying to fix to football. College basketball can still have its NCAA tournaments and all the non-revenue sports can do the same. Keep the conferences together and adjust schedules with non-conference opponents if you have to.
Big-brand schools like Carolina have the most problems because they believe (or are obligated to say) they can compete for national championships in football when UNC as not won an ACC title in 46 years. The alumni, donors and general fanbase might be able to keep pace for a while — but when the SEC and the Big Ten keep paying players more money, sooner or later our biggest boosters will decide to quit or spend their money elsewhere. That will be worse for the underfunded teams.
Right now, it appears that UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts and Athletic Director Steve Newmark don’t know what to do with the football program, with a growing faction of fans believe Belichick will be released toward the end of the season and a new coaching staff hired. Both took questions from the media last week and did their best to share the talking points of ‘we are implementing a corrective action plan around the football team’s culture’ and ‘we support Bill Belichick, for now.’
From right to left: UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts addresses media members alongside Athletics Director Steve Newmark and Board of Trustees Chair Malcolm Turner following the board’s meeting on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026. (Photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
Their excuses of Belichick trying to be part of the Carolina community are laughable. Roberts said that Belichick has done work to connect himself in the football program with the wider campus, including shaking hands with students on the first day of class, inviting other coaches to appear on his radio show and sending his team out to pick up trash on Sunday morning across the campus.
“Those are things that I think are unusual for a head football coach, either here or any other Power 4 program, and we appreciate everything he has done to be part of the campus community,” said Roberts. But come on, chancellor, how would you know what happens with the coaching staffs across the country? Mack Brown was the king of handshakes and sharing pictures with recruits who visit campus. Firing Lombardi and Steve Belichick is only the start of addressing the disfunction that has apparently been going on for two years.
You can’t roll out a plan for serious action if you don’t admit mistakes were made. So many people were involved in hiring of Bill Belichick from the Hoodie himself to grifters like Michael Lombardi and political power brokers, to the Board of Trustees and to Roberts and Newmark — who were new to their jobs and are thus reluctant to take the blame for was only partly their default.
It sounds absurd when Roberts and Newmark talk about needing corrective measures for the football program, when those things were likely in place with prior administrators, coaches and programs. The press and social media keep asking for the results of so-called investigations when we should know those answers are not coming for privacy reasons. Belichick can coach as long as he wants — but approaching 75 years old, he can’t want to do this much longer.
Brown had some problems for sure with a roster of more than 100 players, but those were the days when he really cared about academic ratings and progress reports. Some of the athletes still want to go to class, get an education and prepare for the afterlife of college sports. That is now their choice far more than anyone else’s. Brown’s biggest beef was not getting the money from supporters as it quickly escalated from being outright pay-offs into revenue sharing and NIL contracts.
When you are talking about Alabama and Georgia or Michigan and Ohio State, there was always no competition. And now it’s a total joke. Those schools that would be invited into a so-called Super League can figure out if they can raise enough to recruit more four-star and five-star athletes. The rest of the schools would be better off playing for the ACC and other leagues with three-star players, chasing conference championships and developing relationships with players. Would that more attainable goal not thrill fan bases compared to getting waxed by Notre Dame, Miami and powers that can truly compete with dollars in the marketplace?
If there is a UNC new football coach in the coming years — or a new chancellor or a new athletic director in the coming decade — they will be inheriting a Tar Heel difficult problem because they can’t count on raising the money needed to compete for a CFP birth. And the aforementioned power programs are certainly not going to agree to some kind of salary cap for players, curbing exorbitant coaching salaries or a stoppage on building monolithic facilities. Let’s be real about leveling the playing field unless you’re actually talking about two or three different levels. I like trying to beat Duke, N.C. State and Wake Forest. That’s fair competition and fine with me.
With a small-ish stadium and good competition with its rivals, Carolina football can still be a great game day experience for fans who look forward to spending weekends in Chapel Hill. But why are we beating our heads against a wall to become a football power when we haven’t been one since Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice in the 1940s?
Featured image via AP Photo/Chris Seward.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs on 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro during football and basketball seasons.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
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