By R.L. Bynum
CHAPEL HILL — Carolina football has been called a sleeping giant for years. With this financial commitment and the hiring of Bill Belichick, it’s about to wake up to be a factor nationally.
The bold move makes 8–4 seasons no longer acceptable. That’s the floor, and contending in or winning the ACC, making the College Football Playoff and winning a national title become the expectations, at least by season two.
Those high goals come when you hire a legendary coach with eight Super Bowl titles. During his introductory press conference at the Loudermilk Center for Excellence, Belichick didn’t make any lofty pronouncements, just assuring that he’d make the program as good as possible.
“I’m here to do the best I can for the University of North Carolina and the program. That’s what I’m going to do — give it the best I have every day,” he said.
Returning to Carolina, where Belichick’s dad, Steve, was the backfield coach from 1953 to 1955, appealed to him. College coaching, in general, was also attractive to him after growing up around the Navy program, where his dad coached from 1956 until 1989.
“This is really kind of a dream come true,” said Belichick, who was three years old when his dad left UNC for Navy. “It’s great to come back home to Carolina and an environment that I really grew up in. Obviously, I was too young to remember a lot of things from Carolina. One story I always heard was, ‘Billy’s first words were, beat Duke.’ ”
Belichick gets a five-year, $5 million deal, but only the first three years are guaranteed. His contract includes up to $3.5 million in preseason bonuses, including $1.75 million if the Tar Heels win the CFP national championship.
You can read his contract here.
It would cost Belichick $10 million to buy out his contract before June 1, 2025, and $1 million after that. But when asked about some fans worrying that he’ll leave for an NFL job, he said that he “didn’t come to leave.”
He said he’d fill his staff with the best coaches he could hire, but there would be a “strong presence of NFL people,” and numerous coaches have already contacted him about being on his staff. Interim Coach Freddie Kitchens will be retained on the staff of Belichick and will lead the team in the Fenway Bowl.
Belichick is expected to continue making regular appearances on Monday nights on ESPN2’s ManningCast and on the Pat McAfee Show on ESPN. He makes UNC an attractive portal destination because most players want to make the NFL, and he’s a guy who can help them do it. This is taking the Deion Sanders Colorado experiment, which has proved pretty successful, to another level with a legendary, proven coach.
Belichick didn’t specify how he will build his roster, but the portal seems to be ripe for talent. He said he’d “take advantage of every opportunity we have to build the team, improve the team, get better, and keep stringing a lot of good days together, and the results will come.”
Recruiting is all new to Belichick, who said he looks forward to making in-home visits to high school recruits.
“Certainly, the head coach has a big role [in recruiting] to assure the athletes you’re giving them what they want,” he said. “And there’s not always a fit there; sometimes that doesn’t quite match up. But this university has so much to offer, and our football program has a lot to offer, that I think that we’ll be able to attract a good quality player.”
Belichick said the Carolina program will be like a pro program in many aspects, including training, developing players, and running pro systems and pro techniques.
“Similar terminology, similar techniques and fundamentals, similar training, similar preparation, techniques that have been very successful for me through the years, that I know that other NFL teams are using,” he said. “Whether the college teams are using it or not? Some are, some aren’t.
“But I just know that these will prepare the players for that,” he said. “From the general manager, head-coach model, again, it’s a similar type of situation. We’re evaluating high school kids and college transfer portal players; NFL teams are evaluating college players and NFL free agent players. There are some similarities. That’s all. I’m not saying it’s identical.”
Belichick’s general manager is former NFL executive Michael Lombardi, who left his job as a VSiN host. Lombardi was an assistant on Belichick’s Patriots staff, and the two worked together when Belichick coached the Cleveland Browns.
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Belichick got restless being out of coaching this season and said it “beats working” when asked why he keeps coaching at age 72.
“When you love what you do, it’s not work,” he said. “I love what I do. I love coaching. I love the interaction with the players. Love building a team, working with the assistants game-planning and the game itself. Working with young kids who have the energy and enthusiasm to want to be good, want to be successful? It’s great every day to wake up and come into that environment.”
The college landscape is much different than just a few years ago and is closer to the NFL model with what Belichick called “free agency in college. ” The big difference is that it is an annual dynamic since there are no contracts.
“There’s more structure in the NFL in terms of agents, salary cap, standardized contracts,” he said. “With the NIL, and the revenue share, it’s structured a little bit differently. Some logistical things like that are different, but all manageable. Every other college team is doing the same thing that we are, except for Army, Navy and Air Force. Trying to be ahead of the game, ahead of the curve, ahead of the process, and that’s what we’re always going to try to do.”
Athletics Director Bubba Cunningham was asked if he hesitated about hiring someone with no college head coaching experience. He said no, and quickly pointed out two of his coaches who won national titles in their first seasons — field hockey coach Erin Matson and women’s soccer coach Damon Nahas.
“We looked at a wide variety of people,” Cunningham said. “When it became realistic that he was available, and it certainly was a path that we really wanted to go down and explore, and we’re just really fortunate to be here today, and he’s willing to say yes and to lend his expertise and knowledge to Carolina.”
Belichick will immediately begin evaluating the players on UNC’s current roster and attempting to construct a talented group for next season.
Photo courtesy of UNC Athletics
