Bomani Jones, a former ESPN personality that's found success going independent with his podcast, "The Right Time", has been a long-time follower of Tar Heels sports. He's often spoken of his respect for Dean Smith and, maybe more importantly, his dislike of Coach K.
He has generally refrained from talking much about Bill Belichick and UNC football. But after this weekend's disastrous showing against Clemson, Jones could not hold back any longer.
"[Clemson] could've scored 80 points against Carolina if they had wanted to. Did it feel to you like Dabo [Swinney] just decided we're going to put the screws to them early just to show them that we can....but I'm going to show some love at the end?," Jones said.
Clemson put up 28 points in the first quarter en route to a 38-10 win. The Tigers seemed to quickly shut things down by halftime, treating the Tar Heels like an overmatched FCS opponent.
Jones goes on to say that many of Belichick's issues at North Carolina are the ones that caused his demise in the NFL — an inability to identify talent and hiring the wrong people.
""Carolina did not have their starting quarterback, but there's no excuse for them to be this bad. And the only reason they're this bad is the reason I tried to tell y'all was going to be the biggest issue with this team coming into the year, which is talent identification," Jones explained. "What did Belichick in, at the end, in the NFL, was that he could not properly identify talent. And he made his general manager [Mike Lombardi] a guy who was a bad general manager in the NFL.""Bomani Jones
Lombardi's struggles at building a roster have been a topic of conversation this week. The UNC football general manager signed a contract making $1.5 million a year and is a target for the lack of a competitive product being put on the field.
GM Michael Lombardi has been described as “rude” and “nasty.' https://t.co/42tOu27Rhb
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) October 7, 2025
The biggest embarrassment from last Saturday's beating was the visual of the student section leaving the game before halftime, choosing to spend the rest of their weekend trying to get the bad taste of Tar Heel football out of their mouths.
Jones' message to those fans — basketball season is almost here.
"Let me tell you something about North Carolina football fans...they become North Carolina basketball fans quick...fast...in a hurry."