Belichick's Strategy Against TCU: Can He Silence Critics?
Bobby, Steele, and Bill Bender break down Bill Belichick's strategies against TCU, aiming to silence critics. Will his tactical tweaks secure a victory?
Video Transcript
Now, is there a game you're looking forward to?
For me, I really wanna see Belichick play against TCU.
I wanna see if he's able to turn around a little bit.
But, I mean, you said there's eight games.
Is there anything that you've really got, I guess, circled that you wanna see this weekend?
Well, well, that's the one.
And, and here's my question, in I'm, article later this week we'll ask it is, what can Bill Belichick do to get off the hot seat?
Like, if we say, "Oh, he's on the hot seat, and this is that, and everything's that," well, we know that.
So, so my question is, okay, what would it take for him to, to kinda silence the critics?
What if they go out there and compete, which I think is not out of the realm of possibility.
They have a ton of transfers.
You know, I, I do see him as a coach that would make progress in year two.
I think a lot of it will hinge on the quarterback, you know.
But everybody, I do think, and you guys may disagree, that everybody's going into that game Saturday thinking we're gonna see an instant replay of the 48-14 blowout against TCU last year.
I actually think they could compete a little bit.
They get a couple turnovers.
I'm not saying they're gonna win, but man, a seven and a half point spread, that looks like a lot, in a game overseas where there's a lot of unknowns when they play over there.
Five of the last six games in Dublin have been decided by three points or less.
Well, and you look at, I believe that, was that Florida State, Georgia Tech debacle for Florida- Yeah State that was there.
I mean, it seems like things, Bill, and I, you know, having played in London in my final season with New England, it's a weird environment, like, to go over there and play.
Like, it's not a home game for anybody.
And, like, they call it, you know, you talk about playing some of these games like neutral site games.
I mean, it is a true neutral site, because I don't know that everybody even knows what the hell's going on that's there.
They're there for It's like going to a concert.
Like, they cheer for just, like, good things.
So it's really tough emotionally as a player to kinda get invested and understand kind of how you're feeling or what's going on at that moment.
Yeah, I was gonna ask.
So, like, what was the biggest adjustment for you?
I, I always wonder with college players, and you're in the NFL at the time.
In NFL, I mean, that's adults that have played all over the place, you know, what do you think the biggest adjustment for a college football player would be in that environment, where clearly, also, yeah, they're definitely at a concert, because they're having a couple beers up in the stands.
M- more than a couple if they're in Ireland too.
Well, the one thing that is, is really tough to figure out, and this, like, doesn't go into on the field, but it impacts you leading in is I'm curious how Belichick chose to fly over there.
Like, we went over, of course, like in true Bill fashion, the Rams went over.
They were there for the whole week, had a couple practices, then they got to chill and guys got to relax.
We practiced back at home Wednesday, Thursday, flew out Thursday after practice, like, like a red eye situation, landed there Friday.
They wanted to go do practice Friday, and then Bill realized how far it was gonna be and the traffic, so we end up doing, like, a glorified walkthrough, I wanna say, at, maybe that was Saturday, I don't know, one of the days, I think it was Friday, at, at Hyde Park.
Like- we're literally doing our walkthrough, like, it'd be like in Central Park, and we're setting stuff up.
There's people riding horses around.
I mean, it was totally bizarre, with everything that went on.
But the biggest, thing for me, being a guy, like, that needed to eat a lot, was how terrible the food is.
Like, English food, you think like, oh, you know, you go to Great Britain, speak the same language, you know, a lot of carryover.
Like, their food has no seasoning.
They don't really cook their eggs.
Their, their ha- their, their bacon is, like, mushy.
It's gross.
Like, it was- it was really hard to find good food while we were there.
And, like, leading in, if you're there for a couple of days, Bill, that can impact your ability to perform on the field.
So I'm curious to see how North Carolina, and obviously TCU, they've got a couple more hours to travel as they're coming from Texas.
Like, that, that's a big deal.
Yeah.
A- and I think that- Mm-hmm that's gonna be interesting to see how they respond to that.
And, you know, on the other side, TCU, they've got a new quarterback, Jaden Craig, a Harvard transfer.
So, you know, and you look at his TD to INT ratio, that's the first It's weird.
When you look at quarterbacks, that's always the first stat I look at is, okay, how many touchdown passes does this dude throw against how many interceptions, and especially at the NFL level.
And looks like he doesn't make many mistakes.
So if North Carolina can force a couple turnovers, I looked at their games last year, that's when they had success, games when they had multiple turnovers forced.
And, of course, that seems obvious, but that's when Belichick's teams were at their finest anyway, when they were winning the turnover battle.
So that's something to watch within the game.
