CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — Dabo Swinney watched his Clemson team start Saturday with a trick play that went for a 75-yard touchdown and never look back.
North Carolina ended its Saturday with Bill Belichick calling a timeout with 1 second left, extending the game to coach a team long since beaten in a home stadium largely emptied by halftime.
The Atlantic Coast Conference’s marquee coaching names — Clemson’s Swinney with two national championships, UNC’s Belichick with six Super Bowl titles in the NFL — each entered this game hoping for positive signs after an open date that followed a bumpy September. They exited with very different vibes: Swinney getting confirmation on previous hope in a 38-10 win, Belichick losing in lopsided fashion for the third time in as many games against a power-conference program.
“I’ll keep my conversations with the team between myself and the team,” Belchick said, his voice low and answers terse. “But I’ll just say we’re going to work through it, and work our way out of it. We’ll get better every week and keep working every week and prepare for the next team, be ready to go. That’s what we’re going to do.”
Belichick’s arrival in Chapel Hill and Swinney’s stature as one of the biggest names in college football certainly made this game stand out on the schedule in the offseason. But the game had lost luster, between the Tigers — ranked No. 4 in the preseason AP Top 25 as ACC favorite — going 1-3 for the worst start in Swinney’s long tenure and the Tar Heels struggling so badly to start Belichick’s tenure.
It marked only the second time in college football history that a coach with multiple national championships faced one with multiple Super Bowl titles.
Tigers find cause for optimism
This one was decided in the first 15 minutes, with Clemson scoring 28 points and averaging 15.8 yards per play in the opening quarter. Cade Klubnik had four TD passes by halftime — two each to Adam Randall and Christian Bentancur — in a game so under control that Swinney told Klubnik he planned to pull him for reserve Christopher Vizzina on the second drive of the third quarter.
Afterward, Swinney was ebullient, from the way the team practiced through the week to Klubnik’s play (22 of 24 passing for 254 yards) and the defensive effort with coordinator Tom Allen opting to work the sideline instead of being in the coaches’ box in previous games.
“We’ve got to try to find a way to build momentum, to develop some confidence from this, because we have not played with a lot of confidence,” Swinney said. “We have not played with a lot of precision. And you saw us make plays today that we just haven’t been making.”
Clemson had lost one-possession games to ranked LSU and Georgia Tech teams, as well as losing at home to Syracuse.
“I would just say that we finally we played complementary football, and what we were capable of doing,” cornerback Ashton Hampton said. “That’s just something we were trying to do the first four or five weeks and just haven’t been able to get it done.”
Then there’s the Tar Heels, who found merely more of the same.
Tar Heels lose ugly again
The 73-year-old Belichick started his UNC tenure with a 48-14 loss on Labor Day to TCU, with every ugly moment preserved in a national spotlight. Wins followed against Charlotte of the American Athletic Conference and Championship Subdivision opponent Richmond, but their second matchup against a Big 12 team — this time, UCF — was another blowout loss.
This time, a perfect-weather day that included buzz from a concert by rapper Ludacris on a nearby campus quad gave way to the home fans fleeing in droves by halftime with the Tigers up 35-3 — a repeat of the opening-night exodus against TCU, though a quarter earlier.
That led to a humbling repeat of the game being played out in a largely empty stadium, with the Tar Heels managing a fourth-quarter TD with the outcome long decided. Now UNC has a touchdown on 4 of 29 drives (13.8%) against power-conference opponents, not counting drives stopped by halftime or game’s end.
That’s not exactly in line with the school paying Belichick at least $10 million guaranteed for three seasons as part of an upgraded football investment.
And Belichick didn’t sound on the verge of making major changes, including when asked about coaching duties or play-calling responsibilities.
No, the plan is more of the same heading into another open week before visiting California on Oct. 17.
“The main thing we need to do is keep doing what we’re doing and do it better,” Belichick said. “I don’t think fundamentally we’re doing the wrong things. We’re just not doing it well enough.”