Early in the morning of Saturday, Oct. 18 – in a game that had started at 10:30 p.m. Friday against California – the UNC Tar Heel Football team fumbled on the first play from scrimmage allowing California to score a touchdown immediately.

 Then, at the very end of the game, when a Tarheel receiver was going in for what likely would have been the game-winning touchdown, he fumbled the ball – or rather had it punched out – at the six-inch line and it was recovered by California in the end zone.

In the end, it was yet another loss for UNC, and one in which they were able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  So far this year, the ultra-hyped team with the NFL’s supposed greatest coach of all time, has no ACC wins, hasn’t beat a good team and has some bad losses to some bad teams.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

UNC Football’s season kicked off with all the bells and whistles a program could muster. Now, even before the loss Friday night, rumors were flying that the NFL coach might be gone.

Recently, both UNC and Bill Belichick put out statements expressing their mutual commitment to each other, but the fact that they felt a need to do that five weeks in is not a good sign.  It’s kind of like a pair of newlyweds holding a ceremony to renew their vows after being married a month.

On opening night in Chapel Hill there were pyrotechnics, enormous video screens, booming music and a parade of Tar Heel legends in the stands. Michael Jordan was there. Roy Williams too. It was a special Monday night game with all eyes across the country tuned in to the spectacle.

 Hulu was there to make a documentary on the majestic UNC season and that film has now been nixed.

The message being sent was very clear: this was a new day, a new program, and the Heels were about to become something very different and great under Bill Belichick: He was the man with six Super Bowl rings who was going to make UNC into the “33rd NFL Team.”

Fans will always have that opening drive of that first game to remember.  Carolina started the game on offense and had a perfect drive down the field scored a touchdown and everyone went wild. The highest point of the year for UNC fans was the at the literal start of the season.  It’s been all downhill since then.

UNC athletic officials, students and fans had bought hook line and sinker into the idea that Belichick’s NFL pedigree would translate seamlessly to the college game. Rams Club members loved the publicity, while national outlets treated the hire like a football experiment on par with Deion Sanders at Colorado.

The preseason hype for the Carolina football team was simply as high as it could get.

However, as the season has unfolded, the distance between the marketing pitch and the product on the field has become glaring. UNC sits at 2-4 overall and 0-2 in the ACC – with three ugly losses that turned the glitz of August into the dumps of October. Against TCU in the opener, the Tar Heels were outgained 542 yards to 222 and looked completely overmatched. Clemson ran them off the field two weeks later, piling up nearly 500 yards in a blowout. Even in the two games they’ve managed to win, the offense has sputtered and the defense has looked unprepared.

Best-selling sports writer and ESPN commentator Paul Finebaum called Belichick “an absolute laughingstock in college football” and added that Belichick was “working toward being the worst coach in college football history.”

ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit was caught on a hot mic saying, “You’re bad,” which he later insisted wasn’t aimed at the Heels, though the clip made the rounds online anyway. It’s not the kind of coverage UNC had in mind when they lit up the sky with fireworks back in August.

One of the side stories swirling around the program is Belichick’s relationship with Jordon Hudson, his 24-year-old girlfriend. From the start, many have felt she is more of a distraction than a partner. Reports claimed she was barred from UNC’s facilities after an awkward CBS interview in which she cut off a reporter.

Other stories suggested Hudson tried to take control of the documentary project following the team. The university officially denied those reports, but that didn’t stop them from fueling social media chatter. Even with some UNC players insisting her presence isn’t a problem, the perception that she is a distraction persists.

Some Carolina fans were critical of the fact that Belichick, during a recent bye week, spent that time off with his girlfriend in Nantucket rather than recruiting as many coaches do during their in-season off week.

For fans already questioning the hire, Hudson has become an easy target to point to when explaining why things fell off a cliff.

Numbers tell the story.

Through the first six games, UNC ranked 128th in the nation in points per game – that’s out of 136 FBS teams. They were also dead last in the ACC in scoring offense and passing. That’s with Belichick bringing in his son Steve Belichick to run the defense and longtime confidant Michael Lombardi to oversee personnel. Instead of looking like an NFL-ready machine, the Tar Heels look more like a program of a 2000-student commuter school trying to duct-tape a new identity together on the fly.

The disappointment isn’t confined to fans: Faculty leaders at UNC have bristled at the resources poured into football at a time when the university is cutting budgets elsewhere.

 “It was frankly demoralizing to see that kind of investment made in athletics when we’re struggling,” faculty chair Beth Moracco told WRAL.

Alumni who once basked in the idea of Belichick’s brilliance are now starting to think the school made a colossal mistake.

Even betting sites and oddsmakers have begun hinting at an early exit. Covers.com wrote this week that “expecting this misguided NFL mentality to game plan for a Friday night in Berkeley is utterly foolish.” Tar Heel Blog added, “Despite some hope that he would decide this job wasn’t for him, Belichick has made it clear UNC will have to fire him.”

When gambling previews are openly discussing buyouts, it’s safe to say the honeymoon is over.

It cost a whole lot of money to bring the NFL coach to the school and it will cost a whole lot of money to get him out of there as well.

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