THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
It was never going to be the most glamorous of matchups. After bringing tradition-rich football programs such as Notre Dame, Nebraska, Florida State, and last year’s top-25 showcase between long-time conference rivals Kansas State and Iowa State, to the Emerald Isle in recent years, a Tar Heels and Horned Frogs contest was always going to be a bit harder sell for the folks behind the Dublin Aer Lingus College Football Classic series.
Most American sports fans could rattle off a string of Tar Heel basketball legends; Dean Smith, James Worthy, Vince Carter, Michael Jordan – but gridiron greats? Not so much. Okay, Lawrence Taylor and Julius Peppers maybe, but could anyone outside of Chapel Hill come up with Jeff Saturday and Chris Hanburger?
And while TCU was a football powerhouse back in the 1930s when they won two national titles behind Heisman Trophy winner Davey O’Brien (after whom the award given to the top college football quarterback in the country is named to this day) the school toiled largely in football anonymity in the decades to follow.
In the early 2000s head coach Gary Patterson brought the program back to national prominence, culminating in Rose Bowl and Peach Bowl wins and No. 2 and No. 3 finishes in the national rankings in 2011 and 2014 respectively.
More recently, in 2022, current head coach Sonny Dykes shocked the college football world during his inaugural season in Fort Worth, leading the Horned Frogs to a 13-2 record and a Cinderella run to the national championship game, where they lost to Georgia.
And by the way, what is a Horned Frog anyway? Forgive me for digressing, but it’s more fascinating than you might think. Legend has it that when the very first edition of the TCU football team went out to practice back in 1896, they found their field covered with the critters. Turns out a ‘horned frog’ is not actually a frog; it is a small, fierce, spiky lizard that has the superhero-sounding, but in reality actual, physical ability to shoot toxic blood up to five feet from its eyes (look it up for yourself).
The team was inspired by their grit, so it seems, and in 1897, the Horned Frog appeared in the school’s first-ever yearbook.
The modern-day version of the mascot, the one patrolling the sidelines in Dublin, is referred to as SuperFrog, and he fires up the fans by getting them to show the “Spit Blood” hand sign, basically showing that you want two of something, with your index and middle fingers bent forward like fangs – or in this case frog horns. Really, you can’t make this stuff up.
Anyway, my point being that TCU has a long and rich football tradition, as would be expected from a football hotbed such as Texas, but not necessarily the national profile to match.
And while a respectable 14,000 fans were expected to travel to Ireland from Texas and North Carolina to follow their teams, that paled in comparison to the 24,000 or so who flew in last year and the estimated 40,000 who arrived in 2023 for Notre Dame vs Navy. Advertisements were everywhere around Dublin leading up to the game, a sure sign that organizers were desperate to get bodies in the seats.
Leading up to the game, it was very difficult to get away from Bill Belichick storylines. Many readers will be familiar with the 24 seasons at the helm of the NFL’s New England Patriots, the nine Super Bowl appearances and six Lombardi trophies, 17 division crowns and 19 consecutive winning seasons. He is widely regarded as one of, if not the greatest head coaches in NFL history. But after a 4-13 season in 2023, he and Patriots owner Robert Kraft “mutually agreed to part ways.”
After being unable to land another NFL head coaching gig, the then-73-year-old coaching legend with nothing much more to prove shocked the football world by announcing before last season that he would take over the helm of North Carolina’s football program. Despite having never coached on the college level in his life, Belichick supposedly had a plan to make UNC the ‘33rd NFL team’ and signed on for $50 million over five years.
But from the opening moments of last year’s highly anticipated and massively hyped season opener against this same TCU team, which the Tar Heels went on to lose 48-14 in front of a national television audience, the opening chapter of the Belichick era at Chapel Hill was nothing short of a disaster by pretty much any standard. The team finished with a disastrous 4-8 record that included one blowout loss after another, while a relentless blizzard of reports and rumors of internal strife, dissent and outright organizational dysfunction overshadowed much that was happening on the field.
And then there was the eyebrow-raising relationship between Belichick and 25-year-old Jordon Hudson that has only served to take the circus-like atmosphere to a whole other level. The former cheerleader and beauty pageant contestant has been a highly visible and constant presence at Belichick’s side, with reports that he has asked for her to be cc’d on university emails and that she scuttled a multi-million-dollar NFL Films documentary following the UNC football team by trying to control negotiations, among other things. (While Hudson can often be spotted on the sidelines before kickoff of Tar Heel games, she was nowhere to be seen in Dublin, for the record.)
In the wake of the tumultuous 2025 season, Belichick attempted a revamp of sorts, bringing in one of the largest signing classes in the nation with 40 new players, including quarterback Billy Edwards Jr., who arrived on campus after stops at Wake Forest, Maryland and Wisconsin. He also hired decorated offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino to turn around an offense that ranked 131st out of 134 FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) teams in total offense.
But the program couldn’t completely dodge controversy as Belichick’s hand-picked right-hand man, Michael Lombardi, whom Belichick made the highest-paid general manager in college football, was placed on administrative leave due to a human resources complaint shortly before the trip to Dublin. And Bill’s son and defensive coordinator Steve was placed on medical leave, in what rumors have hinted was related to a dustup between Steve’s wife and Hudson following a game last season.
With so much off-field drama to keep up with, it sometimes seemed difficult to focus on the game itself, but it was also hard to escape the speculation that coaching legend or not, Belichick might be in the proverbial hot seat as the season kicked off.
TCU’s back story seemed tame in comparison. Sonny Dykes’ team finished 9-4 in 2025 and topped the season off with a victory over USC in the Alamo Bowl, earning a No. 25 ranking in the final AP poll. And though they entered the new season unranked, the Horned Frogs also sported a new QB in Harvard transfer Jaden Craig, and a new offensive coordinator in Gordon Sammis, who was coming off a successful stint at UConn.
As the pre-game festivities ramped up with all of the pomp and circumstance of an American sporting spectacle – blaring heavy metal music, pyrotechnics, marching bands, mascots, giant waving flags, mascots waving giant flags and cavorting cheerleaders in tight white short shorts – and the TCU purple-clad and Carolina blue-wearing fans took their seats, one (or at least I) couldn’t help noticing the swaths of empty green seats in the upper reaches of the Aviva Stadium. The crowd was vociferous and the atmosphere electric, but not quite to the level of years past.
The teams took the field to great fanfare, and finally Mr. Belichick himself made a long, slow, solitary walk across the field to the ‘visiting’ team sideline, and we were ready for kickoff.
Things started promisingly enough, with the teams trading field goals on the opening two drives. After a 3-and-out from the Tar Heels, TCU took advantage of a short punt from UNC’s Aeron Burrell and a 35-yard return by Ed Small to set up shop at the Tar Heel 25-yard line. Four plays later, running back Jon Denman punched it in from two yards out and the Horned Frogs jumped out to a 10-3 lead.
Not to be outdone, the Tar Heels took the ensuing kickoff and drove 70 yards in seven plays, with RB Jaylen McGill scampering into the end zone on first-and-goal from the 9-yard line to even things up, and it was looking like we might have a barnburner on our hands.
But hold those horses. The next TCU drive stalled out at the UNC 35 when the Horned Frogs couldn’t convert on fourth-and-10. Then UNC punted, TCU punted, and the Tar Heels punted again. Facing another fourth-and-10 on their own 31, TCU lined up to punt again. This time the snap sailed over punter John Hoyet Chance’s head. With defenders bearing down and the ball skitting into the end zone, Chance kicked the ball out of the back of the end zone to take a safety and avoid a worse outcome.
UNC responded to the momentum swing with wide receiver Trech Kekahuna fumbling the ball away after a 10-yard reception from Edwards, and the teams went to the locker room with the Tar Heels holding a 12-10 lead.
After taking the opening kickoff of the second half, the Horned Frogs took an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty to set up a second-and-24 at their own 40. As QB Jaden Craig dropped back to pass, he was sacked and fumbled, with the Tar Heels’ Jaylen Harvey recovering at the TCU 31-yard-line. But UNC could only muster a 28-yard Burrell field goal in response.
After managing just 16 yards on their next drive, TCU punted yet again, only to see the Tar Heels serve them up a gilded chance on a golden platter when running back Benjamin Hall lost a fumble at his own 24-yard line two plays later. Surely this was their chance to turn things around.
But seven plays and 19 yards later, the Horned Frogs faced fourth-and-1 from the 5-yard line. Rather than take the three points with a quarter to play, coach Dykes rolled the dice. Belichick stacked the line of scrimmage with defenders, daring TCU to run, and Dykes obliged, sending running back Jeremy Payne straight up the gut. But the Tar Heel line held and they took over on downs once again.
Starting on their own 6-yard line, Edwards and the Tar Heels ground down the field, taking six minutes off the clock, as the third quarter turned to the fourth, with the Horned Frogs gifting UNC two costly 15-yard penalties for a facemask and a late hit. The drive stalled finally at the TCU 24-yard line and Burrell came on for a 42-yard field goal attempt to stretch the lead to eight points, but again the Tar Heels couldn’t take advantage, as Burrell pushed the kick wide right.
Once again, the door was open for TCU. One first down, then two, then three. Then came fourth-and-2 at the UNC 32, and for once the Horned Frogs converted. Another first down and TCU was at the UNC 18-yard line. After three more rushes, TCU faced yet another fourth down at the 10-yard line, with two yards to go. With 4 minutes left, a field goal would mean TCU would still need to get the ball back and score. Once again Dykes rolled the dice and went for it.
Craig took the snap and rolled out to the left, and kept rolling and rolling, holding the ball and looking for an open receiver. As he neared the line of scrimmage it appeared that he could put his head down and barrel the two yards for the first down – but at the very last second he dumped the ball towards the endzone with an awkward, cross-body throw in the general direction of a receiver who was well-covered. Yet again, the Horned Frogs had turned the ball over on downs in the red zone with nothing to show.
“Should have just trusted my eyes and used my legs,” Craig said after the game of the decision to throw.
“Looking back obviously I wish we’d have kicked the two field goals,” coach Dykes added later with perfect hindsight. “When you’re not moving the football you’ve got to try and get the ball in the endzone.”
Now the Horned Frogs would need to hunker down on D and get the ball back to try finally to get it in the endzone. After three rushes and one first down, Edwards Jr. hit Jelani Thurman for a huge 25-yard gain to the UNC 46-yard line, with TCU burning their final timeout. After three more rushes and the clock running out, it came down to fourth-and-1 with 30 seconds left. A stop and the Horned Frogs would have at least a Hail Mary chance to pull it out. Edwards Jr. brought his team to the line, set up and gave a hard count. Sure enough, TCU jumped offsides. First down UNC, and game over. A fitting end to a spluttering TCU performance.
11 penalties for 89 yards, one-for-five on fourth-down conversions, a costly fumble, a bad long snap. Over and over, TCU shot themselves in the foot, and again and again the Tar Heels gave them another chance. The Tar Heels weren’t great, but the Horned Frogs seemed the more determined to give it away.
“I thought our effort was okay,” Dykes said after the game. “I don’t question the effort, I don’t question that we played hard… Make those kind of mistakes in critical situations like we just did, you’re just not going to win.”
While it was by no means a stellar display by North Carolina, it felt a bit like a hurdle cleared for Belichick and the Tar Heel program, at least for a week. There weren’t really too many other ways to go than up, but there were green shoots to build on. Edwards Jr. looked good at times, while throwing for 232 yards and no interceptions. They committed only 3 penalties. Tight end Jelani Thurman was impressive with four catches for 94 yards, and the defensive line, led by Melkart Abou Jaoude and Xavier Lewis dominated the line of scrimmage.
Belichick, who is known for his surly and obtuse press conferences (he once said "Defensively, we send our defense out there to prevent the offense from scoring"), the mood of which can vary wildly depending on the outcome of the game, was downright loquacious by his standards afterwards, if not particularly enlightening: “It was a great team win for us. I can’t say enough about the efforts of everybody. Long way to go but good start. Really proud of our team. It was a great team effort,” though he did sidestep a question about the defensive play calling in the absence of his son Steve in rather typical Belichick fashion, “Defensively, we game-planned, and, you know, we won as a team.”
A thing of beauty it wasn’t. I saw a comment somewhere about how if a local Irish person had walked into the Aviva on Saturday for an introduction to American football, they wouldn’t exactly have seen the best the sport has to offer. While the players and coaches continue to talk about how great and rewarding the experience of coming over to Ireland is, after five straight years, one has to wonder if these sojourns to Irish shores are perhaps losing a bit of their luster.
I personally will be more than a little interested to see if some of the shine can be restored next year with my home state team Wisconsin coming over to my adopted hometown to face the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt), and ultimately whether the series will be continued beyond then.
Badgers and Panthers, though. Now that sounds more like it.
