By R.L. Bynum
While there continue to be reports about Coach Bill Belichick’s personal life and questions about the role of his girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, the messaging in describing that media attention from the Carolina football program can be summed up in one word: noise.
When Belichick stated at Tuesday’s press conference at the Kenan Football Center that Hudson had no role in the football program, he repeatedly referred to reports about her and his personal life as noise.
On Saturday morning, during an interview on the ESPN Radio show “Marty & McGee” with co-hosts Marty Smith and Ryan McGee, General Manager Mike Lombardi hammered that point, even questioning the intent behind some of the reporting.
“The noise out there comes from a direction of people trying to be disruptive within our program,” Lombardi said. “We’re not going to allow it. We’re not going to acknowledge it. We’re going to move on. Let’s face it, the proof’s in the pudding. We’re having a tremendous recruiting class. We had a tremendous portal, and we’re going to continue to get better every day.”
Lombardi, who has helped UNC bring in 21 players from the transfer portal after 23 left for the portal, says building a successful program at UNC is his focus.
“For us to be distracted by something that has no bearing, that has no relevance whatsoever, that is a complete falsehood in terms of what people are saying or what they’re writing? It’s comical,” Lombardi said. “And, for me to really even attack anybody who’s saying it gives them credibility, which I don’t … because it’s a completely false narrative.”
Lombardi didn’t address specific reporting, but Pablo Torre reported that Lombardi was “deeply concerned” about Hudson being anywhere near the athletic program. After Torre reported that Hudson was banned from the UNC football facilities, the school released a statement saying that she was welcome to the facilities.
The reporting about Hudson ramped up after she awkwardly interrupted reporter Tony Dokoupil’s April interview with Belichick on “CBS Sunday Morning” to say that the veteran coach wasn’t going to address how they met.
Although Lombardi shot down suggestions that the highly covered exchange was a time to “circle the wagons,” UNC has since hired Brandon Faber, the longtime Chicago Bears vice president of communications. Faber oversaw the Belichick portion of Tuesday’s press conference.
“We had no reason to circle wagons. Everybody looked at each other in complete amazement,” Lombardi said, pointing out Hudson only handles business dealings outside of UNC football.
There were some stories at the end of May suggesting that, because the buyout of Belichick’s UNC contract dropped from $10 million to $1 million on June 1 — a fact that had been reported months earlier — he might leave UNC. But that hasn’t happened, and that was some of the type of reporting Lombardi was talking about.
“It’s just completely a story that was generated from basically [something] made up,” Lombardi said. “You could be a great novelist, some of the people that report this stuff. When we play Clemson, we’re going to have to circle the wagons. When we play TCU in the opening game, we’re going to have to circle the wagons. Those are competitions. This is just noise.”
Time will tell whether the “noise” dies down between now and Belichick’s appearance at the ACC Kickoff preseason media event in Charlotte on July 24.
| Month/ date | Score/ time | Opponent | Record/ TV |
|---|---|---|---|
| September | |||
| 1 | L, 48–14 | vs. TCU | 0–1 |
| 6 | W, 20–3 | at Charlotte | 1–1 |
| 13 | W, 41–6 | vs. Richmond | 2–1 |
| 20 | L, 34–9 | at UCF | 2–2 |
| October | |||
| 4 | L, 38–10 | vs. Clemson | 2–3, 0–1 ACC |
| 17 (Fri.) | L, 21–18 | at California | 2–4, 0–2 |
| 25 | L, 17–16, OT | vs. No. 16 Virginia | 2–5, 0–3 |
| 31 (Fri.) | W, 27–10 | at Syracuse | 3–5, 1–3 |
| November | |||
| 8 | W, 20–15 | vs. Stanford | 4–5, 2–3 |
| 15 | L, 28–12 | at Wake Forest | 4–6, 2–4 |
| 22 | L, 32–25 | vs. Duke | 4–7, 2–5 |
| 29 | L, 42–19 | at N.C. State | 4–8, 2–6 |
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