UNC vs. TCU: Winners, Losers, and Honorable Mentions

DUBLIN, IRELAND - AUGUST 29: Jelani Thurman #45 of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels celebrates after defeating the Texas Christian University (TCU) Horned Frogs following the Aer Lingus College Football Classic at Aviva Stadium on August 29, 2026 in Dublin, Ireland. (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images) | Getty Images

When the bar is set so low that the entrance to hell is staring down at it, it doesn't take a lot to step over it.

That said, to not acknowledge that the 2026 season has started out night and day different than 2025 is really sticking your head in the sand. It wasn't pretty, TCU all but opened up their own gift-wrapped present to Carolina, the reason for the win was mostly about being the least dumb team on the field, and there's still a lot to worry about how good this season is going to be for the Tar Heels. Still, Carolina entered the game as an over touchdown underdog and instead hung on for the 15-10 win over the Horned Frogs who had-and still could have-designs on battling in the Big XII and making the CFP.

So for the first time in 2026, let's talk about the winners, losers, and honorable mentions.

Winners

Jelani Thurman-Oh my God, Carolina has a tight end they can throw to! Thurman is what the transfer portal was made for-someone in a great program that has gotten a little lost in the shuffle and needs a chance to show his talents. The 2024 CFP Champion with Ohio State was the game's leading pass catcher with 94 yards and a long of 35. His success, more than anything, exemplified just how different the UNC offense would be this season under Bobby Petrino, and he was a huge safety valve for Billy Edwards Jr. that enabled the offense to move the ball down the field. He literally began and ended the game-he caught the first pass of the game by Edwards and then got the next-to-last first down Carolina needed to seal it. He was already on the Mackey Watch List to start the season, and the spotlight performance is just going to increase that buzz. It's great he gets this sort of start, as he opened the season with a heavy heart-mourning his mother lost in a car accident this past February. He's wearing 45 for her as it was her number in the WNBA.

Xavier Lewis-Lewis is a bit of an oddity on the UNC roster. He's an in-state recruit from Rolesville, and someone who actually stuck around after last year. He was a beast on Saturday tallying up two sacks and 4.5 tackles for loss totaling 18 yards, even though he was credited with only one quarterback hurry. He was a huge part of the reason why the Carolina defense was able to time and again keep TCU from getting any sort of momentum, and he answered a big question of who else do you worry about on the defense besides Melkart Abou Jaoude. The assembled media recognized just how big he was for the Tar Heels dubbing him as the Player of the Game.

Billy Edwards Jr.-He's not going to win any awards for the performance, but he also had more passing yards than any UNC quarterback had last season. It's exactly what you want someone of his experience doing-finding the open player, moving the ball down the field, and limiting mistakes. He showed that he had worked hard on Bobby Petrino's new offense, distributing the ball to eight different players, and not turning it over once despite rainy conditions in Dublin. His play kept the person supposedly more familiar with Petrino's system, Miles O'Neill, on the sideline, and we'll see if he has a hammer lock on the job or if it's a game-to-game situation.

Losers

Michael Lombardi-You can already see the tire tracks on Lombardi with folks from UNC throwing him under the bus after this David Hale article dropped on Friday. While Bill Belichick didn't come away from the post looking great, the tone from people who spoke to Hale seemed to lay a lot of the chaos around the program at the feet of Lombardi. It would have been seen as excuse making had the Tar Heels lost, but now with a win and just how engaged and (gasp) personable Belichick seemed Saturday after the win it sure looks as if there may have been something to it. It also seems telling about the state of things when an alumna who is a long-time employee of the department leaves for a lateral move to Vanderbilt. It's truly hard to see how Lombardi can come back, especially with the words his attorney used in the post and when you realize Carolina is likely going to spend about as much as Lombardi's salary investigating him as the would have just paying him. Where Carolina goes from here, who knows, but it sure doesn't seem like it's with Lombardi at the helm.

Sonny Dykes-When a team looks as chaotic as they did, the head coach is going to get the blame, and for as much as he schooled Bill Belichick last year, he was the one needing lessons on Saturday. From a pure coaching standpoint his 1-5 on fourth down calls showed a real failure to take what the Tar Heels were giving him. A short 4th and 1 was a run right up the gut of the Tar Heels' strength instead of the stretch play that had yielded Jeremy Payne netting 142 yards on the day. Down at the goal line, the Harvard-educated quarterback thought it was better to throw across his body to the goal line instead of just running for a couple yards that were right there. Bigger than that, though, was just how Dykes seemed to lean on the officials for calls that really were his own team not paying attention. At the end of the first half, TCU ran out of time because he thought a play had been marked incomplete, but the catch was inbounds with a flag. Thus the refs were waiving their hands over the head to stop the clock, and no one bothered to look at the clock to see it winding down-or see the official winding the clock. Then near the end of the third quarter, Billy Edwards slipped to the turf, was down for a good three seconds, and yet Paul Oyewale decided to continue to play and tackle Edwards on the ground. The officials threw the obvious flag, and Dykes was arguing with the officials about the call even though in college it's been known forever that a play stops the moment the ball carrier is on the ground. The undisciplined mess helped hand the game to the Tar Heels in a classic Belichick team makes less mistakes than its opponent" fashion, and it has to have the fans of the Horned Frogs doubting whether Dykes is the coach to lead the team.

UNC Running Backs-On a day that was tailor-made for running backs to have good stats, no one really stood out except for mistakes. Benjamin Hall managed a paltry 37 yards and had a killer fumble that somehow TCU failed to score on, Jaylen McGill had about there in half the carries but couldn't really get momentum, and Demon June seemed to be relegated to the third role and mostly saw the bench up until the end of the game-partly because he committed a huge block-in-the-back penalty that negated one of the bigger plays of the game. What was supposed to be a team strength didn't necessarily look like one on Saturday, although to be fair, McGill did have the only touchdown on the day for the Tar Heels and June redeemed himself by running it well enough on the last drive to force TCU to go all-in on stopping him, which led to the game clinching catch as well as the game-ending offside call late. One can imagine they'll all have a better day in a couple weeks, and if teams have to load the box to try and stop Thurman, it likely will open space for the runners.

Honorable Mentions

He didn't have the best of days with a short punt and a missed field goal, but still credit Aeron Burrell for basically being the Ironman kicker on the day. Burrell did all of the kicking-kickoffs, field goals, punting-and put up a good effort considering the Tar Heels lost Rece Verhoff in the fifth-year eligibility mess with college sports right now...Melkart Abou Jaoude had a quiet game for him but it appears a lot of that was due to being limited by an injury sustained in the first quarter. Still, he gutted it out-a good sign about the attitude of those on the team-and still managed to pick up a sack and a forced fumble. It's good to see he has some help, though their struggles in the first half with him limited showed just how thin the experienced depth is for the Tar Heels there...Jordan Shipp also announced his presence to the world with a five catch, 71-yard effort, and he showed that with a quarterback that can get him the ball, he's going to do something with it.

The Tar Heels will be back in the States and enjoying Labor Day weekend off while the rest of college football gets going this weekend. The next time we'll see them is on September 12th at noon against East Tennessee State-a last tune up before a huge noon showdown in Clemson the next weekend. We'll see what a couple weeks of digesting the tape does to help the team.