Patriots
This will stand as Bill Belichick’s first collegiate coaching job after nearly 50 years as a coach in the NFL.
We’re on to Chapel Hill.
Former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is finalizing a deal to become the new head coach at the University of North Carolina, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Wednesday’s report marks the end of more than a week of speculation regarding the future Hall-of-Fame head coach’s future in football.
Talks between the eight-time Super Bowl champion reportedly intensified on Wednesday afternoon, with ESPN reporting that “the ball [was] in Belichick’s court” when it came to joining the Tar Heels.
Among the final sticking points for Belichick were reportedly his salary at the university, a potential role for his son, Steve Belichick, and the school’s commitment to the proper resources for NIL deals and Belichick’s staffing requests.
According to The Athletic’s Ralph D. Russo, Belichick’s contract with UNC is for three years and $30 million.
Belichick, 72, is heading into uncharted waters when it comes to his new role at Chapel Hill. While his resume speaks for itself, this will mark the first collegiate coaching position he’s ever taken over a career in football spanning nearly 50 years.
Belichick served in some sort of coaching capacity in the NFL from 1975 until the 2023 NFL season, after which New England moved on from Belichick following 24 years with the organization.
Belichick has taken on several media obligations during his season away from football in 2024, with the former Patriots coach recently mapping out his vision for a collegiate program on Monday during his weekly appearance on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show.”
“If, and let me put it in capital letters: I-F. If I was in a college program, the college program would be a pipeline to the NFL for the players that had the ability to play in the NFL,” Belichick said Monday. “It would be a professional program — training, nutrition, scheme, coaching techniques — that would transfer to the NFL.
“It would be an NFL program at a college level and an education that would get the players ready for their career after football, whether that was the end of their college career or at the end of their pro career. But it would be geared toward developing the player, time management, discipline, structure, and all that.”
Belichick has some ties to the Tar Heels.
Beyond it being the alma mater to his most-beloved football player in Lawrence Taylor, Belichick’s father, Steve, served as an assistant coach at North Carolina from 1953 to 55.
Choosing UNC as his next move after an illustrious career in the NFL still comes as a surprise.
Beyond his track record at football’s highest level, Belichick sits just 15 wins behind Don Shula for the most in NFL history. North Carolina is also not exactly a powerhouse in the college football landscape, with their last ACC football title coming in the 1980s.
However, things reportedly progressed in short order after Belichick first expressed interest in the Tar Heels’ head-coaching vacancy, a result of the team firing Mack Brown last month amid a 6-6 record.
“The initial conversation with Bill Belichick and UNC was just to see what both sides thought of the idea,” Fox Sports’ Jordan Schultz reported on X. “It went so well that it resulted in several more conversations, proposals back and forth, and now a stunner no one could’ve seen a few weeks ago: Belichick in the college game.”
Schultz added: “Belichick made it clear as talks progressed that he was serious about coming to UNC if they were willing to put his vision into place. There were many back channel conversations that happened shortly after and UNC eventually went all-in.”
Surpassing Shula’s wins record was once a “driving force” for Belichick, The Athletic reported on Wednesday.
But citing sources, that same report noted that Belichick “was turned off by the NFL’s hiring cycle last winter,” especially after only the Atlanta Falcons opted to interview him despite eight head-coaching jobs being available.
According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, the sentiment from the NFL owners meeting was that Belichick “simply hadn’t garnered much NFL interest if at all this cycle.”
The level of control offered to a head coach of a collegiate football program served as an appealing pitch for Belichick in his new role with the Tar Heels.
“At UNC, Belichick can run the program without answering to anyone about football decisions. There will be other challenges — like NIL, the transfer portal and navigating boosters — that are more complicated than reporting to one owner, but football decisions in college go through the head coach, and now Belichick can yield that kind of power again,” The Athletic noted.
Boston.com Today
Sign up to receive the latest headlines in your inbox each morning.