Bill Belichick had gone 103-0 in his head coaching career, NFL and college combined, any time one of his teams scored 35 or more points. North Carolina hung 35 on the No. 1 team in the country on Halloween night, and Belichick lost anyway, 38-35, in a game Miami probably shouldn’t have gotten to keep.
Flipping a 103-0 career record in one night is one hell of a thing to watch happen. A loss counts the same as any other, though, no matter how historic the number behind it.
UNC walked into Kenan Stadium 0-11 all-time against top-ranked opponents, led in the fourth quarter, and found a brand new way to make it 0-12. Billy Edwards Jr. got hit as he tried to throw and fumbled. Two plays later, Malachi Toney caught a 9-yard touchdown with 2:33 left, and Miami led 38-28. One turnover on one hit is how a tied game turns into a ten-point hole in the fourth quarter.
Then the Tar Heels answered. Billy Edwards Jr. found Trech Kekahuna for a touchdown that cut Miami’s lead to 38-35 with under two minutes left, proof the UNC offense hadn’t stopped working just because its quarterback fumbled one snap earlier. Down three instead of ten, UNC needed one defensive stop or one clean special-teams play to get the ball back with a real chance to tie or win.
What the Tar Heels pulled off next should have been a text-chain legend for the next decade. Two onside kicks in a row, against the best team in the country, with the season hanging on each one, and UNC recovered both. A UNC player lined up early on the first attempt, an offsides flag that erased a clean recovery before anyone could process it. Linebacker Peyton Seelman popped a Miami player on the second before the ball had traveled the required 10 yards, and that recovery vanished too.
Replay backed up both penalties without much debate. A special-teams unit that had all week to prepare for this exact scenario needed to get it right twice in ninety-five seconds, and it didn’t either time. Belichick wasn’t interested in relitigating it afterward: “It’s probably about right. They’re both close. They looked close to me.”
Last week:
Florida State hits back to back Hail Mary TDs on Miami, refs take both away
This week:
UNC recovers two consecutive onside kicks on Miami, refs take both away
You’ll never see that sequence of events again in your lifetime
— Bad Sports Refs (@BadSportsRefs) November 1, 2026
Reaction split hard along conspiracy lines within minutes of the second flag. Florida State’s parallel is funny, real, and still misses what actually happened here: Miami has had a run of friendly officiating at home, but UNC’s problem was its own. A special-teams unit jumped early once and grabbed a loose ball a step too soon the next time. Two separate issues, and only one of them belonged to North Carolina.
Bill Belichick and UNC nearly upset No. 1 Miami, before losing 38-35. A pair of late successful onside kicks were wiped out by penalties. https://t.co/Id9acyKEAz
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) November 1, 2026
Buried under all that is a game Billy Edwards Jr. actually played well. CFB Kings, watching live, had him going pass for pass with the best quarterback in the nation for most of the night. Writing that sentence about a guy in year two of Belichick’s rebuild, going up against a Miami defense built to stop much bigger names, says something on its own. Edwards deserves to be remembered for that stretch long after the onside kick clips stop circulating.
Scoring 35 points used to guarantee Belichick a win, 103 times out of 103. Not anymore, and not because of anything his quarterback did. Edwards and this offense bought UNC a second shot at the best team in the country with points on the board. Special teams spent it twice in ninety-five seconds. Fix that before the next signature chance shows up, because this one isn’t coming back.
