Basketball-Centric North Carolina Had to Take Its Shot at Football Glory

Bill Belichick will face an instant makeover with the Tar Heels, but a new era in college sports gives him an advantage in recruiting.

Bill Belichick becoming a college football coach was a stunning move. / Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

Bill Belichick becoming the coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels is the most stunning college football hire I can think of. Ever. It comes without precedent, and without regard for the myriad ways in which it might backfire.

That’s because the potential upside is so great that Carolina can’t resist. Nor should it.

The chance to hire arguably the greatest coach in the history of football isn’t the kind of thing that happens at basketball-centric North Carolina. Yet a confluence of events has led to a whirlwind romance and unlikely marriage. Get ready for Chapel Bill, The Hoodie’s Heels—a pro icon in a college town.

How the hell did we get here?

It took a snubbing of Belichick by the NFL, which passed on hiring him last winter and might have been prepared to do it again this winter. It took a ticking internal clock for the 72-year-old, accompanied by a fear that he might never get a final shot at that NFL. It took a very slow season in the college coaching carousel, with only four Power 4 conference jobs open at this point, to increase the desirability of the UNC job. And it took an evolving NCAA rules landscape in which the demarcation between pro and college is increasingly blurred.

Now the man who led the greatest dynasty in NFL history will try to work an instant makeover of a program historically rooted in the power-conference middle class. A man with nearly 50 years of NFL experience and none in college is going back to school. A man accustomed to coaching adults will try his hand with teenagers and early twenty-somethings.

Right place, right time … right fit? We’ll see. But I like their chances.

The only thing that comes close to the six-time Super Bowl–winning former head coach of the New England Patriots becoming a college coach is Bill Walsh taking over the Stanford Cardinal in 1992. But even that was different—Walsh had already been a college coach, and had been out of coaching for three years after winning three Super Bowls with the San Francisco 49ers. Walsh went 10–3 in his first year back at Stanford, then retired after two losing seasons.

In more modern times, Deion Sanders’s move to the Colorado Buffaloes last year was similarly seismic. But even that lacks the impact and uniqueness of this. Sanders had some familiarity with the terrain—he was already a college head coach, having led the FCS-level Jackson State Tigers for two seasons. And he’s 15 years younger.

Belichick’s firsthand college football observations essentially consist of this season, when he spent time with the Washington Huskies watching his son, Stephen, serve as defensive coordinator for one of his former staffers, Jedd Fisch. Belichick got an up-close look at how program operations have changed: expanded staffing, with more specialization between recruiting staffers and position coaches; an NIL climate and salary pools that resemble pro free agency, complete with general managers devoted to roster building; and the ability to both build and tear down rosters quickly via unlimited free transfers.

Those were all elements that helped draw Belichick to the college game. And it seems likely that his legendary NFL status will help him more in recruiting than his age will hurt him.

The best recruiting tool at Belichick’s disposal was on display on a shelf behind him during his Monday interview on The Pat McAfee Show: three of his six Lombardi Trophies. He ranks as the third-winningest coach in NFL history, and is a walking oracle of pro football wisdom. Given the motivation of elite high school and college talent to become NFL players, being developed by Belichick and learning NFL schemes should be the most compelling pitch possible.

“Capital letters, IF, I-F, I was in a college program, it would be a pipeline for the NFL,” Belichick said on McAfee’s show. “It would be an NFL program at the college level and an education that would get them ready for life after football. [Players] would be ready for [the NFL]. It would be an NFL program, but not at the NFL level.”

The Tar Heels haven’t been a legitimate national football presence very often in their history. Their last top-10 finish was in 1997, and they’ve had only four of those since the ’40s. But the expanded, 12-team playoff, coupled with the ability to transform a roster overnight, means opportunity is everywhere. Why not Chapel Hill?

Cunningham was undercut in his role as UNC’s athletic director in the early stages of the school's coaching search. / Matt Cashore-Imagn Images

In exchange for what could be a relatively brief run under Belichick at the kind of football glory that has always eluded North Carolina, the university seems to have gone to war with itself. Board of Trustees chairman John Preyer, a frequent public critic of athletic director Bubba Cunningham, and other boosters took the lead on the initial discussions with Belichick while Cunningham pursued other candidates—creating almost two separate searches. 

Actually landing Belichick wasn’t going to be easy. As the days went by, this started to look like Kentucky’s ultimately futile pursuit of Bill Parcells in 2003. And firing 73-year-old Mack Brown to hire a 72-year-old certainly was not Cunningham’s original game plan.

“There’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen,” a source told Sports Illustrated on Sunday. “North Carolina is making Auburn look reasonable right now.”

(The level of disagreement and trustee backseat driving may signal a turning point in Cunningham’s tenure at UNC. At age 62, the respected AD probably doesn’t need another job—but this might be the impetus to look for one.)

Chancellor Lee Roberts had a long weekend meeting with Belichick in Massachusetts to discuss his vision for the job, enhancing the likelihood of it happening. As other candidates steadily dropped out or declined interest, it became increasingly clear that UNC had coalesced around the idea of hiring Belichick. The job was his if he wanted it. 

Staff additions and NIL commitments will be vital parts of the deal, and the expected arrival of Stephen Belichick adds another dynamic. His role, both present and future as a potential successor to his father, are a major consideration. This season was the younger Belichick’s first working for someone other than his dad, and the Washington defense had its best season since 2018 in terms of yards allowed per play (5.0) and per game (324.8).

While a Carolina Blue Bill Belichick Era will have an aura, and create an incredible level of buzz, it has not struck fear in the heart of at least one Tar Heels rival. North Carolina State quarterback CJ Bailey had this to say Wednesday about taking on The Hoodie.

“I seen that,” Bailey said. “Shoot, Bill Belichick will get it, too. We’re going five years [of beating UNC in a row]. No matter who the coach is for UNC, we’re going to kick them … It means a lot that I could play against Bill Belichick. But if he comes to play, we’re going to kill them. We’re going to kill them.”

Maybe, maybe not, but North Carolina’s unprecedented, stunning reach for the football stars creates an entirely new perspective at a basketball school. Bill Belichick, college coach, is going to be fascinating.