Colorado’s Deion Sanders and North Carolina’s Bill Belichick enter the 2026 college football season under pressure. The Tar Heels finished Belichick’s debut with a disappointing 4-8 mark last year, while the Buffaloes went 3-9. Colorado’s three-win campaign marked a massive regression from a 9-4 record the previous year.
Considering the value both coaches bring to their respective programs, along with the name recognition, a midseason or postseason firing seems unlikely. However, if the Buffaloes and Tar Heels fail to rebound in ‘26, two of the biggest coaching names in college football will enter the offseason on the hot seat with even more doubts surrounding their programs and the overall direction.
Is Sanders or Belichick under more pressure in 2026? Athlon Sports debates:
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Bill Belichick or Deion Sanders: Which Coach is Under More Pressure in 2026?
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Kyle Wood
My answer is Sanders, but it's a close call. Let's look at what Colorado has done in three seasons under his watch: 4-8 in 2023, 9-4 in 2024 (the program's best record since 2016) and 3-9 in 2025. Sanders' debut was incredibly compelling despite the second-half collapse. Year 2 showed proof of concept with hardware in the form of Travis Hunter's Heisman Trophy to back it up. But last season was shockingly. . . irrelevant, which is something I never would have expected out of a Sanders-led squad.
The Buffaloes went 1-9 against Power 4 teams and finished second-to-last in the Big 12. And unlike in Sanders' first season in charge, those struggles barely registered on the national stage. It's not that there's some grand standard for Sanders to live up to at Colorado. This is a program that has as many one-win seasons as it does 10-win campaigns since the turn of the century. But the difference between Sanders and Belichick is that the former has demonstrated a higher ceiling thus far as a college coach.
If Belichick, who went 4-8 in his first season at UNC, falls on his face again, then the Tar Heels can chalk it up to a failed experiment and part ways with the 73-year-old coach. He'll still go into the Hall of Fame — eventually — and this unfortunate foray into college will be remembered as a footnote in an otherwise extraordinary coaching career.
Colorado has already been successful with Sanders at the helm, in part because of the talent he acquired. There's an expectation that he should be able to recapture some of that 2024 magic with another hefty transfer portal haul. But if 2026 is anything like 2023 or 2025, this could be it for coach Prime. One thing is for sure: Neither Colorado nor UNC wants to pay top dollar for three- or four-win seasons from their celebrity coaches.
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Steven Lassan
Tough call. A compelling argument can be made for either Sanders or Belichick in this space. Realistically, I don’t think either is in danger of being fired at the end of ‘26. However, the pressure on both certainly increased after last season and can again this fall.
I agree with Kyle’s points on Sanders, so let’s take the Belichick side of this debate. Hiring arguably the greatest coach in NFL history was a huge coup for North Carolina. While the credentials weren’t in question, plenty of doubts were raised about Belichick’s ability to adapt to the college game after his hire and again after a disappointing 4-8 debut. In addition to the poor on-field performance, the seemingly constant drama surrounding Belichick was a headache for the program.
In addition to winning just four games against a favorable schedule, the Tar Heels failed to show many on-field reasons for optimism. The offense averaged only 4.96 yards a snap in ACC games, struggled to generate big plays, and ranked near the bottom of the conference in passing production. The defensive output was slightly better, but in seven games against teams with a winning record, North Carolina surrendered 32.3 points a contest.
Belichick took steps to address last year’s failure by landing a hefty haul of incoming freshmen (over 40 recruits) and continued to dip into the portal for instant help. Also, the hire of Bobby Petrino as coordinator should provide a massive boost for the offense. However, I still have questions about several members of Belichick’s staff (on and off-the-field), and the roster might be a year away from massive improvement.
Belichick’s hire certainly added intrigue and raised the national profile of North Carolina’s football program. However, if the Tar Heels have another lackluster season and few signs of actual improvement or reason for optimism, paying $10 million a year for Belichick to post losing records would add to the pressure and create some overall uneasiness about where this tenure is going.
