After Clemson football rallied from down 14 points to beat UNC on Saturday, Tar Heels coach Bill Belichick didn’t appear to be in much of a talking mood.
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A widely shared video showed Belichick spending less than two seconds on his postgame handshake with Clemson coach Dabo Swinney after Clemson’s 28-20 win at Memorial Stadium and turning away as Swinney tried to talk further.
Per the clip posted by sportscaster Claire Foley of WACH FOX, Swinney took off his hat as he approached Belichick around midfield, shook his hand and tried to pull UNC’s coach in closer to keep speaking with him and pat him on the back.
But Belichick turned away after their handshake and headed toward UNC’s locker room. The video has recorded 1.1 million views on X (formerly Twitter).
Swinney was asked about the handshake during his weekly news conference Tuesday. Although he jokingly described his exchange with Belichick as a “drive-by moment,” Clemson’s coach said he wasn’t offended by how Belichick handled it.
“I think I’ve had some (games) along the line where I’m not even sure I’ve had a handshake,” Swinney said. “… Coach Belichick’s great, man.”
Handshake between Dabo Swinney and Bill Belichick after Clemson wins 28-20, plus Dabo’s postgame reaction to ESPN@ClemsonFB | @wachfox pic.twitter.com/nvSncSkFTh
Swinney said he imagined Belichick, 74, was also a little thrown off by the postgame “chaos” at Clemson’s Memorial Stadium during his first gameday visit to the venue.
Clemson has traditionally allowed fans to stream onto the field and “gather at The Paw” (Clemson’s midfield logo) as soon as the stadium clock hits 0:00.
The school tweaked that procedure last year to fit within the ACC’s guidelines for field storming and court storming, and now asks fans to wait until after the opposing team clears the field and the home team sings the alma mater to come onto the field.
But that transition is a work in progress: Although Clemson’s PA announcer reminded fans of the rule change Saturday, a few groups of fans appeared to get onto the field as soon as Saturday’s exciting comeback win ended.
“This guy’s been coaching a long time,” Swinney said of Belichick. “I’m not sure he’s been on many fields where he’s got, like, some random person right here, and you don’t even know who he is — he just came out of the bleachers, and he’s talking to (Belichick). … Let’s give him a little bit of slack here.”
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Swinney also said both teams were ready to get going after Saturday’s game was delayed two hours and 28 minutes in the fourth quarter because of lightning, the longest delay on record in Memorial Stadium’s 84-year history.
Clemson-UNC kicked off at noon and didn’t end until 5:54 p.m.
“It was just a drive-by moment,” Swinney said of his handshake with Belichick. “Like, ‘OK, let’s get on.’ I mean, the game went for 22 hours.”
Swinney, 56, raved about Belichick earlier this week and said competing against him was a “bucket-list” moment he’ll be telling his grandchildren about later in his life.
Belichick coached the NFL’s New England Patriots to six Super Bowls (the most ever by a single coach) and is the second-winningest coach in league history.
Clemson beat UNC 38-10 in Chapel Hill last year before coming back from down 17-3 in the first half and 20-15 in the fourth quarter to win Saturday’s game.
Clemson and UNC’s games the last two years represent two of only three all-time meetings between a college coach with multiple FBS national championships (Swinney) and a college coach with multiple Super Bowl wins (Belichick).
The only other instance came in 1993 when Bill Walsh and Stanford beat Joe Paterno and Penn State in the Blockbuster Bowl.
Swinney praised Belichick as an “insightful” and “intuitive” coach Tuesday and said they had an extended pregame conversation Saturday. In their talk, Swinney said, Belichick praised Clemson’s football gameday atmosphere as “special.”
Belichick was specifically impressed at how some Clemson fans had set up tailgates miles away from the stadium, which his team noticed on its bus ride in.
“That’s Clemson, and we all know that,” Swinney said. “But he hadn’t really ever experienced that. So I thought that was a good perspective from him.”
This story was originally published September 24, 2026 at 7:00 AM with the headline “Why Dabo says Bill Belichick deserves ‘slack’ for handshake after Clemson loss.”
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