A way-too early guess at who will make the College Football Playoff this season
When you took this job, that there would be so much attention that you would bolster the profile of Carolina football this much. Uh, you know, I wasn’t really focused on that, uh, Brian. It was more just to come in and you know try to work with Michael Lombardi and our staff and try to put together *** good team and *** good program and represent the school well on the football field, and that’s really what we’re trying to do. So glad people are excited, but really just focused more on the product and delivering. Has it surprised you at all that that so many people want to hear about Bill Belichick at Carolina, so much interest you guys are going to Ireland. Yeah. Well, that’s *** long way off. We got *** full season ahead of us before that, but yeah, that’ll be exciting. But no, the sport’s been amazing. The alumni, Carolina fans, and great response from the players, the people there that are on the football staff and on the team, how hard they worked and their commitment to doing the best they can and try to put *** good team together. Can I ask you what motivates you to stay in coaching? You’ve accomplished probably more than anybody who’s ever picked up *** whistle, and now you’re you’re kind of starting over in college. What what are you trying to prove? What do you have left to prove and maybe to who do you have anything to prove? Yeah, I just love coaching. I love all the aspects of it. I love the team building. I love. The fundamentals working with players, strategy, game competition, and just the whole process. Football has been good to me. It’s been good to my family. I grew up in *** football family, with my dad and around Navy football and *** lot of great players and coaches. Interacted with the NFL, so, um, it’s just, it’s fun to be *** part of *** team. You mentioned your dad’s connection to UNC when when you got the job. Was, was UNC like *** sort of *** specific school that you would have come to or Pitt or Maryland or Oklahoma State had called, would you have entertained, you know, more options than just North Carolina? UNC special because of the brand. It’s *** great academic school. It’s *** great athletic tradition and the fact that there were some roots there for me early in my life that was coming full circles was *** good feeling. What surprised you the most, good or bad, about being the head coach at North Carolina? Um, I’ve just enjoyed the process, really enjoyed the people, uh, sport’s been great. It’s *** great opportunity, and I just appreciate every day at Carolina. You’ve you’ve turned your roster over through the transfer portal, including after spring ball. How difficult, you know, you’re only going to have *** couple of weeks of fall practice. How difficult will it be to build *** cohesive team, *** winning team with just *** couple of weeks to kind of pull all the pieces together. Well, it’s not dissimilar to the model that we had in the NFL where after the draft and free agency signing and all that, you bring in about *** third of your team is brand new and so we’ll be somewhere in that range when we start fall camp, but we’ll have *** couple of months with them here in the summer and we’ve had *** good spring with *** lot of these guys as well, so. It is what it is. I mean all schools have *** similar situation, maybe not quite the same numbers, but some degree of freshmen coming in and transfer portals, some more than others, but we’ll take it as it comes and excited to have the players that we have and work with them. I know you like to talk about you don’t want to set expectations. You just want to get better every day, but what does success look like for you at North Carolina? Get better every day, coming in and having *** good day, having *** productive day, and then rest, recovery. And do another one tomorrow and keep stacking them on top of each other. That’s how he achieves success is consistency and the discipline to do it repeatedly over and over. That that’s what we’re going to try to do. We’ll let the process play out, but it’s important that we develop *** good solid routine. How important was it that you get to work with people like Michael Lombardi, your sons? You have *** lot of, I guess people call Belichick guys around you as you embark on this on this adventure. Well, we have *** few, Brian, but we also have, you know, well over 200 years of NFL experience on the roster and various capacities from our chef to our nutritionist, strength training. Scouting operations and so forth. So it’s really important that we provide the student athletes with *** great experience and everything they need to be successful, and then if they put in the work and we do *** good job developing, then hopefully they can achieve their individual goals and collectively we can achieve our team goals. So that’s what we’re about. Two quick ones. You have *** quarterback, it looks like in Geo Lopez. How are you going to handle that quarterback battle when it comes to the fall and who do you think might even be in that competition? Yeah, well, the competition is always in the hands of the players. I can’t control performance, so we’ll give everybody an opportunity to let the players compete, and we’ll see how it all turns out. We’re excited to have *** competition, not only *** quarterback, but really at most every position on the field, and again it will be up to the players to perform and earn those spots. Everything will be earned and we’re not handed anything out. It’ll be competitive. The guys will get what they earn and they’re all competed hard, they’re working hard and so look forward to seeing what that brings. You’ve certainly got *** lot of attention here in the last couple of months. What’s it like to be with football guys talking football? I know you have some old friends in there, Bill O’Brien, Frank Reich. What’s it been like to be at these meetings and, and really getting into the season? Oh yeah, it’s been great, you know, it’s been great to, to talk about some of the things, you know, the ACC college football, uh, things that, you know, all of us are involved in, you know, it’s *** certainly *** new model here for college football, NIL, Revshare and other things that are being discussed with the House settlement that are sort of in the air, but they’re sort of coming together. Uh, so just everybody’s trying to figure it out and, um, you know, get ready for the season. Uh, um, how much are you talking in those meetings? Obviously, you know, you’re *** respected voice when it comes to football, but you know there are people who’ve been coaching college football *** lot longer, so are you speaking up or are you, uh, you sitting back and kind of taking it all in? Oh, I’m listening to people like that, but we’ve had *** lot of success and I’ve been doing it *** long time. Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. OK, thank you. OK.
A way-too early guess at who will make the College Football Playoff this season
Updated: 9:39 PM CDT Aug 16, 2025
It is a well-versed group of athletic directors, former coaches and players, along with a sports writer, who will be armed with statistics, analytics, charts and graphs and enough highlights to start their own college football network as they settle into their work on the College Football Playoff selection committee.In the end, though, the sport’s method of determining a champion – or at least deciding who gets the right to play for the championship – comes down to a matter of opinion. Video above: Bill Belichick speaks on his transition to college football at UNC-Chapel HillNow in its second year with an expanded bracket, 12 teams will make the playoff to close out the 2025-26 season. Five of those slots will go to conference champions. The rest will be at-large bids to be handed out by the 13-person committee. Here’s a far-too-early prediction at where they will end up, and what the toughest choices will be before the bracket comes out on Dec. 8.There’s no debate over this: The five conference champions with the best ranking from the committee will make the playoff. But in a change from last year, the top four won’t be guaranteed first-round byes. Best guess here says these champions will be:Southeastern: Texas, with Arch Manning, is the favorite. But Georgia wins a rematch of a Nov. 15 showdown with the Longhorns in the SEC title game that won’t have all that much riding on it, CFP-wise, since, after all, these both look like top-four teams. Big Ten: Penn State coach James Franklin is 1-10 against Ohio State. Buckeyes have two Heisman Trophy hopefuls in Jeremiah Smith and Julian Sayin. Game is at the Horseshoe and Ohio State is the reigning national champion. Another Michigan upset could factor in all this, of course, but Ohio State wins the conference. Atlantic Coast: Miami is a dark horse. Clemson has the goods and quarterback Cade Klubnik.Video below: Prep football star is suing NCAA for eligibility this fallBig 12: Let’s assume, just because they’re a Power Four conference, that this league will produce one of the four best-ranked conference champions. But not by much. Kansas State has QB Avery Johnson returning, which could be enough to win a conference in which at least six teams, including defending champ Arizona State, have a chance.Group of Five: If Boise State, sans Ashton Jeanty, wins at Notre Dame on Oct. 4, the Broncos are in. If not (more likely), then let’s assume Tulane takes care of business at home against both Duke and Northwestern and makes the playoff. Texas: Longhorns split against Bulldogs with another matchup potentially in store? Alabama: Hard to imagine the Tide losing four games again this season (or the committee overlooking any ugly number in the ‘L’ column if they do, regardless of their strong schedule.)Oregon: QB Dante Moore chose Oregon, then UCLA, then Oregon again, and if he lives up to expectations, the Ducks could go far.Penn State: CFP semifinalists last season, the Nittany Lions try to, once again, take advantage of the second chance the playoff offers. Miami: QB Carson Beck came over from Georgia, but this defense will need to improve.Notre Dame: The Irish game against better-than-expected USC on Oct. 18 will be the equivalent of a playoff play-in.Mississippi: If only to save us from another Lane Kiffin social media barrage. But seriously, this program had one of the best transfer-portal hauls in the country. The Rebels are also getting used to winning 10 games a year and you can’t ignore that forever.The bye teams: No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Texas, No. 4 Clemson.The first-round matchups, on campus: No. 12 Tulane at No. 5 Alabama: This will be the conspiracy theory game. Tulane, probably ranked about 16th, will take the spot that could’ve gone to yet another SEC team. (Did you know Tulane was once in the SEC?) Meanwhile, Alabama might be good enough to be ranked fourth but the committee wanted to assert its independence by not handing byes to three SEC teams.No. 11 Kansas State at No. 6 Oregon: The fifth, final and probably most decisive of the Big 12 vs. Big Ten matchups in 2025.No. 10 Mississippi at No. 7 Penn State: They met in the Peach Bowl in 2023. Now, Ole Miss gets a cold welcome to the big time. No. 9 Notre Dame at No. 8 Miami: They play a regular-season game Aug. 31. You can’t ever get enough of a good thing.
It is a well-versed group of athletic directors, former coaches and players, along with a sports writer, who will be armed with statistics, analytics, charts and graphs and enough highlights to start their own college football network as they settle into their work on the College Football Playoff selection committee.
In the end, though, the sport’s method of determining a champion – or at least deciding who gets the right to play for the championship – comes down to a matter of opinion.
Video above: Bill Belichick speaks on his transition to college football at UNC-Chapel Hill
Now in its second year with an expanded bracket, 12 teams will make the playoff to close out the 2025-26 season. Five of those slots will go to conference champions. The rest will be at-large bids to be handed out by the 13-person committee.
Here’s a far-too-early prediction at where they will end up, and what the toughest choices will be before the bracket comes out on Dec. 8.
There’s no debate over this: The five conference champions with the best ranking from the committee will make the playoff. But in a change from last year, the top four won’t be guaranteed first-round byes.
Best guess here says these champions will be:
Southeastern: Texas, with Arch Manning, is the favorite. But Georgia wins a rematch of a Nov. 15 showdown with the Longhorns in the SEC title game that won’t have all that much riding on it, CFP-wise, since, after all, these both look like top-four teams.
Big Ten: Penn State coach James Franklin is 1-10 against Ohio State. Buckeyes have two Heisman Trophy hopefuls in Jeremiah Smith and Julian Sayin. Game is at the Horseshoe and Ohio State is the reigning national champion. Another Michigan upset could factor in all this, of course, but Ohio State wins the conference.
Atlantic Coast: Miami is a dark horse. Clemson has the goods and quarterback Cade Klubnik.
Video below: Prep football star is suing NCAA for eligibility this fall
Big 12: Let’s assume, just because they’re a Power Four conference, that this league will produce one of the four best-ranked conference champions. But not by much. Kansas State has QB Avery Johnson returning, which could be enough to win a conference in which at least six teams, including defending champ Arizona State, have a chance.
Group of Five: If Boise State, sans Ashton Jeanty, wins at Notre Dame on Oct. 4, the Broncos are in. If not (more likely), then let’s assume Tulane takes care of business at home against both Duke and Northwestern and makes the playoff.
Texas: Longhorns split against Bulldogs with another matchup potentially in store?
Alabama: Hard to imagine the Tide losing four games again this season (or the committee overlooking any ugly number in the ‘L’ column if they do, regardless of their strong schedule.)
Oregon: QB Dante Moore chose Oregon, then UCLA, then Oregon again, and if he lives up to expectations, the Ducks could go far.
Penn State: CFP semifinalists last season, the Nittany Lions try to, once again, take advantage of the second chance the playoff offers.
Miami: QB Carson Beck came over from Georgia, but this defense will need to improve.
Notre Dame: The Irish game against better-than-expected USC on Oct. 18 will be the equivalent of a playoff play-in.
Mississippi: If only to save us from another Lane Kiffin social media barrage. But seriously, this program had one of the best transfer-portal hauls in the country. The Rebels are also getting used to winning 10 games a year and you can’t ignore that forever.
The bye teams: No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Texas, No. 4 Clemson.
The first-round matchups, on campus:
No. 12 Tulane at No. 5 Alabama: This will be the conspiracy theory game. Tulane, probably ranked about 16th, will take the spot that could’ve gone to yet another SEC team. (Did you know Tulane was once in the SEC?) Meanwhile, Alabama might be good enough to be ranked fourth but the committee wanted to assert its independence by not handing byes to three SEC teams.
No. 11 Kansas State at No. 6 Oregon: The fifth, final and probably most decisive of the Big 12 vs. Big Ten matchups in 2025.
No. 10 Mississippi at No. 7 Penn State: They met in the Peach Bowl in 2023. Now, Ole Miss gets a cold welcome to the big time.
No. 9 Notre Dame at No. 8 Miami: They play a regular-season game Aug. 31. You can’t ever get enough of a good thing.
