North Carolina Tar Heels news out of Dublin: Bill Belichick's second season started with a 15-10 win over TCU in the Aer Lingus Classic, on a wet Saturday where nobody was going to look pretty and nobody did.
Billy Edwards Jr., the new quarterback, threw for 232 yards in his first start for the program. Aeron Burrell handled the kicking and put two field goals through. That is a 25-point football game played in Irish rain by two teams who had not hit anybody in a different jersey since last year, and if you were expecting fireworks in that setting, you have not spent enough late Augusts watching college football open on foreign grass.
The number that tells the story is 10. That is what TCU scored. Sonny Dykes has built his reputation in Fort Worth on offense that arrives fast and often, and this one never got going. Wet ball, new pieces, unfamiliar surroundings, an opponent whose head coach has spent thirty-odd years turning other people's offenses into arithmetic problems. Belichick did not stop being Belichick when he changed addresses.
checked the almanac: dublin has been doing this for a while now. notre dame and navy played there back in 1996 and again in 2012 and 2023, and georgia tech knocked off florida state at the aviva to open 2024. week zero abroad has a way of producing a result nobody had penciled in.
For Belichick, year two started the way year one was supposed to: a defense that held serve and a quarterback who did not lose it. Edwards arriving with 232 yards through the air in weather like that is a real data point, not a stat-line mirage. For TCU, it is one September Saturday, a long flight home, and a lot of tape to sit through. Dykes has recovered from worse.
What I am watching next is whether the UNC offense looks like this on a dry field, and whether TCU's answer comes quickly. Openers lie constantly. The good ones tell you a little truth anyway.
