By R.L. Bynum
Michael Lombardi used his return to ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show” to issue a strong defense of the North Carolina football program, criticizing what he described as persistent “fake rumors and fake stories” that circulated throughout Bill Belichick’s turbulent first season in Chapel Hill.
Lombardi spent most of his 45-minute Friday appearance discussing NFL topics, including his surprise that Belichick wasn’t voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But he expressed his frustration with the “attacks” on UNC’s program.
“Lets face it, if you’re not worth a darn, they’re not going to attack you. Some programs are not worth attacking,” Lombardi said. “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. When you get older, you get more ability to deflect that and move on.”
McAfee frequently has Lombardi on, referring to him as “Lombo,” and it’s usually a friendly interview, but it was his first time on the show in quite a while.
Lombardi revisited months of public scrutiny and insisted the program has emerged stronger, saying that the trajectory began to change at the end of last year. He said the program “got lifted” when it signed 39 players in the No. 19 recruiting class in the country (according to 247Sports), and Lombardi said 34 came in early.
“The beautiful thing about why it lifted our program was, 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. “We did not lose one single recruit to another team.”
The interview starts at 1:14.
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Lombardi added that the class’s unity became a source of stability during a period when speculation swirled about the futures of Belichick and his staff.
“A lot of that, to me, was the dedication of our recruiting class, and that’s what I think gives everybody in this program the lift that we need, because those players have bought into our messaging and they stood firm in a time of trouble,” Lombardi said
In addition, the Tar Heels brought in 20 players, including three quarterbacks, through the transfer portal, and hired Bobby Petrino as its offensive coordinator as the Tar Heels try to rebound from a 4–8 debut season for Belichick.
Lombardi said the offseason has finally allowed the staff to build the kind of foundation Belichick envisioned when he arrived.
“We’ve had a really good recruiting class, and we’ve been really working hard in the offseason program,” he said. “It starts with our strength and conditioning. It starts with our nutrition, and that’s really what we feel excited about going into the year. We got a lot of good young players.
“In putting the team together, which we couldn’t do last year because of the dual portals,” Lombardi said. “Because of the change in the calendar this year, allows us to be more of a Belichickian type team, where we can go out there and focus on fundamentals, techniques and improve the players.”
McAfee acknowledged that prolonged criticism created the appearance that Belichick and Lombardi might not stay in college long enough to execute that plan because of the accusations and speculation. Lombardi didn’t disagree about the intensity of the scrutiny.
“We probably have to understand that we were going to get attacked,” he said. “I didn’t think it was going to be on an everyday basis. But it is what it is and adds extra motivation.”
Lombardi, like many, didn’t understand why Belichick didn’t get voted into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.
“Winning six Super Bowls? It’s just not enough to get you in there,” Lombardi said. “And then we couldn’t even find out who voted for who. And you don’t want to get me started on this subject at all, because this is the most ridiculous thing of all time.”
You can listen to the entire interview, which included a shout out of the women’s basketball team, in the embedded video.
UNC schedule
| Month/ date | Score/ time | Opponent |
|---|---|---|
| August | ||
| 29 | TBA | vs.TCU in Dublin, Ireland |
| September | ||
| 12 | TBA | vs. ETSU |
| 19 | TBA | at Clemson |
| October | ||
| 3 | TBA | vs. Notre Dame |
| 10 | TBA | at Pittsburgh |
| 17 | TBA | at Duke |
| 24 | TBA | vs. Syracuse |
| 31 | TBA | vs. Miami |
| November | ||
| 7 | TBA | at UConn |
| 14 | TBA | vs. Louisville |
| 21 | TBA | at Virginia |
| 28 | TBA | vs. N.C. State |
| December | ||
| 5 | noon, ABC | ACC championship game in Charlotte |
Photo via YouTube screenshot
