Bill Belichick won’t have one notable UNC alum attending games this fall.
Marquise Williams, a two-time second-team All-ACC team QB during his four-year tenure with the Tar Heels, announced he wouldn’t be a presence in Chapel Hill in a cryptic manner on Thursday.
“I will not be attending any UNC football games this year!,” he posted on X. “The things I’m hearing man I would have never thought.”
He added a broken heart emoji for good measure, but did not elaborate on exactly what put him off.
The drama surrounding UNC football has been hard to ignore since Belichick took over last season.
Rumors surrounding the 74-year-old coaching legend and his 24-year-old girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, ran rampant as she took over headlines.
A disastrous “CBS Sunday Morning” interview led to questions about Hudson’s role in Belichick’s professional life and the school was forced to respond to reports she was banned from UNC facilities.
A 4-8 record in his first season at the helm — including a 42-19 beatdown by rival NC State to mark the Heels’ third straight loss to end the campaign — didn’t help matters.
According to Tar Heels GM Michael Lombardi, things around the program seemed worse than they actually were.
“All during those stormy times, all during when the boat was getting capsized, when people were attacking us with fake rumors and fake stories all over — nobody’s corrected them yet, but that’s OK, we understand — our players hung together,” Lombardi said on the “Pat McAfee Show” this month. “We did not lose one single recruit to another team. Now, they tried. A lot of that, to me, was the dedication of our recruiting class, and that’s what I think gives all of everybody in this program the lift that we need.
“Look, let’s face it. If you’re not worth a darn, they’re not going to attack you. Some programs are not worth attacking. They’re going to attack us. We expect it. It’s all good. We’ve been in the arena before. We don’t listen to the noise. We focus on what we have to focus on and we move forward.”
Williams, currently the quarterbacks coach at Louisburg College in North Carolina, ranks sixth in Tar Heels history with 7,970 passing yards and fifth with 61 passing touchdowns over his four-year stay in Chapel Hill (2012-15). He added another 2,453 career rushing yards and 35 scores one the ground — plus another 106 receiving yards and three IDs through the air.
His 228 total points are tied for 10th in program history, while his 47 games rank fourth among UNC QBs.