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Watch: Bill Belichick wins a challenge during Savannah Bananas coaching debut
The Bananas made a trip to UNC and got the former Patriots coach to throw a yellow flag.
The Savannah Bananas made a trip to Chapel Hill for an exhibition game on Saturday night, and they didn’t hesitate to make a certain former Patriots coach turned Tar Heel a part of the action.
By now, Bill Belichick has coached several games at UNC’s Kenan Memorial Stadium, but, this time, it was set up for baseball instead of college football.
The 73-year-old coach — sporting a Bananas-themed hoodie — tipped his hat to the crowd as he strode onto the field. He shook hands with a few players and waved to the cheering onlookers.
Then, after he saw a batter ground into a double-play, he decided to go for a challenge. He reached into his pocket, produced a yellow flag, and tossed it onto the field while motioning to an umpire that the runner was safe. The call was overtuned, and Belichick pumped his fist as he walked away.
The Bananas won the ball game. They said, via a post on X, that the contest in Chapel Hill was sold out.
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The six-time Super Bowl championship coach is entering his second season at UNC. The Tar Heels went 4-8 last year — a step back from where they were the year before when the fired Mack Brown.
North Carolina is hoping that time and a top-30 recruiting class will help turn things around. According to 247Sports, UNC’s 2025 recruiting class was ranked No. 29 in the nation and fifth among Atlantic Coast Conference teams.
The highest-rated player in the class is four-star quarterback Bryce Baker, who ranked No.12 among quarterbacks nationally.
They brought in seven four-star transfers and had another 30 three-stars transfer in. They are ninth in the national transfer rankings, according 247Sports.
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UNC will kick off the 2026 regular-season with a clash against TCU at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland on August 29th. TCU beat the Tar Heels 48-14 at Kenan Stadium in last year’s opener.
The Savannah Bananas, a barnstorming baseball team, play exhibition games across the country. They made a trip to Fenway Park last July.
A former Coastal Plain League team, the Bananas decided to do their own thing and go on tour playing their unique brand of baseball in 2022.
The Bananas play by their own rules, called Banana Ball. There are points instead of runs, stepping out of the batters box results in a strike, and they sometime work skits into the action.
They worked Belichick into the action during the UNC trip, and his challenge was successful.
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