Bill Belichick will coach his first college football season starting September 1 when Texas Christian visits Kenan Stadium.

How Belichick’s first campaign will go is anyone’s guess at the juncture, but in an effort to find common threads between North Carolina’s first-year head football coaches dating back to Bill Dooley was worth the dig.

We aren’t sure we found any real consistencies among the coaches, but it was an interesting dig nonetheless.

Here is how each of UNC’s first-year head football coaches have fared since Dooley’s inaugural campaign in 1967:

Note: 2011 intermim HC Everett Withers not included.

Bill Dooley (1966-1977)

*11 seasons (69-53-2 overall, 38-28-2 ACC)

*First season: 2-8 overall, 2-5 ACC

UNC had three winning seasons over the previous 17 years with two of those campaigns ending with 6-4 records prior to Dooley's arrival. The Heels were 5-5 once as well. Otherwise, it had 13 losing seasons over those 17 years, which came right after the Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice era.

Carolina went 2-8 and 3-7 in Dooley’s first two seasons, respectively, and had a 5-5 mark in 1969. The 1970 team went 8-4 and played in the Peach Bowl. It also touted running back Don McCauley broke O.J. Simpson’s national season rushing record with 1,720 yards that season.

Dick Crum (1978-87)

*10 seasons (72-41-3 overall, 38-24-1 ACC)

*First season: 5-6 overall, 3-3 ACC

Crum was hired after a very successful stint at Miami (Ohio), which was long nicknamed the “Cradle of Coaches” because so many head coaches there moved on to bigger programs and experienced plenty of success. He also came in after the re-energizing 11-year tenure of Bill Dooley.

It didn’t start out so well, as the 1978 Tar Heels went 5-6 overall and 3-3 in the ACC, including a road loss to Richmond. But his second team made national news when it beat Michigan in the Gator Bowl, and Crum’s third and fourth UNC clubs finished ranked in the top 10 with combined records of 21-3. That started a stretch of four consecutive bowl wins for UNC, including two over Texas in the state of Texas.

Mack Brown (1988-97)

*10 seasons (69-46-1 overall, 40-33-1 ACC)

*First season: 1-10 overall, 1-6 ACC

Brown came in after Crum was fired following three five-win seasons in a four-year span. Brown tore it down, so to speak, rebuilding the program from the ground up. His first two teams were 1-10, but his fifth won 10 games and his last two both finished ranked in the top 10, were a combined 20-3 and arguably fielded the nation's top defense both seasons.

The 1997 Tar Heels actually won 11 games, but Brown left for the job at Texas before the bowl game and does not get credit for that victory.

Carl Torbush (1997-2000)

*3-Plus seasons (17-18 overall, 10-14 ACC)

*First season: 7-5 overall, 5-3 ACC

Torbush was hired after Mack Brown left for Texas and before the Tar Heels romped Virginia Tech in the Gator Bowl. That was Torbush’s first victory.

Yet, it would not get better. Carolina plummeted fast under Torbush. A 7-5 season with a win in the Las Vegas Bowl following by a 3-8 season in which the Tar Heels didn’t have a healthy quarterback for a long stretch sent the season spiraling. Following a 6-5 mark the next season, Torbush was let go.

John Bunting (2001-06)

*Six seasons (27-45 overall, 18-30 ACC)

*First season: 8-5 overall, 5-3 ACC

Bunting was hired serving as co-defensive coordinator of the St. Louis Rams cluib that won the Super Bowl. He played at UNC and regularly expressed his love for the school and program.

His first season was his best although the Heels started out 0-3. The did beat No. 6 Florida State, destroyed Clemson on the road, and beat Auburn in the Peach Bowl to finish with an 8-5 record. From there, Bunting’s teams struggled mightily on defense and he was terminated following a 3-9 campaign in 2006.

Butch Davis (2007-10)

*4 seasons (28-23 overall, 15-17 ACC)

*First season: 4-8 overall, 3-5 ACC

Davis arrived in Chapel Hill giving optimism to the fan base it hadn’t had in nearly a decade. Massive crowds and a belief UNC was committed to being a big boy in football.

Davis did some positive things, including bringing a lot of talent to UNC, but his teams couldn’t get over the hump before he was fired amid an NCAA investigation into the program that forced UNC to forfeit a lair of 8-win seasons in 2008 and 2008.

Note: With Davis fired less than a week before football practice was to begin in 2011, defensive coordinator Everett Withers took over as the interim coach that season and went 7-6.

Larry Fedora (2012-18)

*Seven seasons 45-43 overall, 28-28 ACC)

*First season: 8-4 overall, 5-3 ACC

Fedora was tasked with pumping energy back into a UNC program that had lost every bit of mojo it generated under Butch Davis. Fedora's open, fast-paced spread offense, gimmicky uniforms, and old-school Texas mannerisms served him well.

His first Carolina team was banned from playing in a bowl because of NCAA sanctions, but it still went 8-4 overall and tied for the ACC Coastal Division title with a 5-3 mark. It was also the year of the famous Gio Bernard punt return to beat NC State. he later led UNC to anb 11-win season and spot in the 2015 ACC title game.

But five wins over his last two seasons cost Fedora his job.

Mack Brown (2019-24)

*Six seasons (44-33 overall, 27-23 ACC)

*Firt season: 7-6 overall, 4-4 ACC

Brown came in after two bad years leading to Fedora’s firing at the end of the 2018 campaign. The legendary coach, who was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame not long after being hired by UNC, was intent on fixing the culture, stacking the program with talent, and winning.

He did those things, starting with a 7-6 record and bowl victory to kickstart his program. But it got stale in year five when the team didn’t win more with Drake Maye at quarterback, and Brown was terminated the week of the NC State game that closed out the 2024 campaign.