Legendary NFL coach Bill Belichick has been named the next coach of the North Carolina football program, the school announced Wednesday, completing one of the biggest upsets in recent football history and halting, if not potentially ending, Belichick’s pursuit of the school’s all-time wins record. NFL.
Belichick agreed to a five-year deal, which will reportedly be approved by the UNC Board of Trustees on Thursday.
Belichick brings to the university perhaps the greatest coaching resume in history: 333 NFL wins, eight total Super Bowl wins (two as an assistant) and 12 Super Bowl appearances. At 72 years old, he will make his first foray into college football after half a century in the professional ranks, and he does so by promising to offer a professional program for the Tar Heels.
Belichick’s interest in UNC and the completion of this deal were first reported by Inside Carolina, marking the first known contact he had with a college job since leaving the New England Patriots in 2023.
For North Carolina, a school best known for its men’s basketball program, the football team goes from a national championship coach in Mack Brown to a multiple Super Bowl winner in Belichick whose resume can be used to attract even more recruits and transfer players waiting to make it to the NFL.
The Tar Heels have produced just one double-digit winning season since the turn of the century, and the school now appears willing to spend millions of dollars in hopes of reaching the upper echelons with Belichick at the helm.
The UNC community has spent the last week divided over Belichick’s hiring. His age and perceived level of commitment were at the forefront of those concerns given that Belichick is just eight months younger than the 73-year-old Brown, who was fired six years into his second stint leading the program. Brown in 2024 was the only FBS coach age 70 or older.
Some prominent members of the UNC board of trustees, led by President John Preyer, defended Belichick’s candidacy, sources told CBS Sports. Preyer, who led that charge while making the ambitious run at Belichick, upset some. University President Lee Roberts, who just took office in early 2024, had to weigh Preyer’s wishes alongside those of athletic director Bubba Cunningham.
Belichick’s hiring ends the most newsworthy head coaching search process for North Carolina since then-AD Dick Baddour lured Roy Williams away from Kansas in 2003 to lead the storied men’s basketball program after a recruiting bid. previously failed.
Belichick and UNC initially spoke early last week. At the time, sources believed there wasn’t much to the conversation. The belief was that Belichick wanted to coach in the NFL while UNC was simply looking to make its vacancy seem like a more desirable option.
However, interest between the parties increased as the week progressed. Cunningham and Roberts met with Belichick in New York on Thursday, as previously reported by CBS Sports. That led to another in-person meeting in Massachusetts on Sunday that lasted nearly five hours, sources said. The last meeting was mainly about the program’s structure: “an organizational flowchart,” one source said.
On Monday, Belichick confirmed his conversations with North Carolina during an interview on “The Pat McAfee Show” but declined to go into details. He weighed in with a general speech, aimed primarily at UNC, about what a university program would look like under his leadership.
“If I was in a college program, the college program would be a conduit to the NFL for players who had the ability to play in the NFL,” Belichick said Monday. “It would be a professional program: training, nutrition, scheme, training, techniques that would transfer to the NFL. It would be an NFL program at the college level and an education that would prepare players for their career after football, whether “That was the end of his college career or the end of his professional career.”
A source within UNC texted immediately after Belichick’s appearance: “Sign me up.”
However, not everyone was convinced. A source familiar with Belichick questioned the notion of a “channel” in a world where the transfer portal dominates college athletics. The idea of developing players is more difficult with one-year rentals.
“He’s talking about draft and development when the game is now free agency,” a source said.
North Carolina had shown interest in other coaches during its recruiting process. The school interviewed former Arizona Cardinals coach Steve Wilks, a Charlotte native who is highly respected in the area for his time with the Panthers as defensive coordinator and interim head coach. Wilks was supported by Julius Peppers, a Pro Football Hall of Famer who spent his college career in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Before Belichick came into the picture, and even throughout, UNC kept its eyes on Tulane coach Jon Sumrall, one of the hot names in a coaching cycle that didn’t have many major vacancies. Sumrall lost its last two games at Tulane and opted to stay with the Green Wave over the weekend after an infusion of money from the school and donors.
On Sunday night, Belichick became the sole focus for North Carolina, which faced the transfer portal opening the next day. Army coach Jeff Monken had also drawn some interest, but Belichick remained the target.
Sources said the school needed to make a “respectable” offer for Belichick’s salary. In his final years with New England, he earned more than $20 million a year. Georgia’s Kirby Smart, a two-time national champion, is the highest-paid coach in college football with compensation just shy of $14 million.
As one university source put it, UNC has been blessed in recent years to have excellent advisors on below-market deals. Williams won three titles but did not ask John Calipari for money. Before his firing, Brown was one of three active coaches who had won a national championship and had a contract averaging $5 million.
Belichick also required a financial commitment from UNC as a means to attract players. From revenue sharing to the NIL, Belichick needed the Tar Heels to be willing to compete with players at the highest level, comparable to other programs competing for national titles.
It was evident that he was satisfied with that compromise; however, there are unique challenges to coaching at UNC.
What makes training in North Carolina unique?
The men’s basketball program is blue blood, and many within the university community fear that a financial commitment to Belichick and football will detract from basketball in its pursuit of a seventh NCAA title.
North Carolina also has a proud Olympic sports program. The women’s soccer team just won its 23rd national championship Monday night, and field hockey is seeking its 12th overall title this year. Baseball, men’s and women’s tennis, soccer, and lacrosse also regularly compete for national titles.
There were questions about potentially draining the well of top-tier programs simply to fund football.
Plus, as much as Belichick knows football, he’s an outsider in Chapel Hill. His father, Steve, was an assistant coach at UNC in the mid-1950s, where a young Bill sat on the steps of Kenan Stadium. Belichick has connections to some in the Heels’ lacrosse program, and made a few stops in Chapel Hill on the pro day circuit in previous years.
But North Carolina is a school that typically doesn’t hire coaches outside the family. The last time UNC hired a major NFL football coach it was Butch Davis, who ended up delivering a Music City Bowl victory and an NCAA scandal that lasted the better part of a decade.
Why not the NFL?
North Carolina’s lust for Belichick has been obvious, but its fascination with the position is not. First, there is no way to break Don Shula’s all-time NFL wins record in Chapel Hill. Belichick is 15 wins away from eclipsing the mark, and that could have been accomplished with two solid seasons in the NFL.
The Chicago Bears, New York Jets and New Orleans Saints have openings; However, league sources have not believed Belichick would fit on any of those teams (and would not have entertained coaching the Jets). Sources anticipated that the Jacksonville Jaguars would have an opening at the end of the year, and most believed that was the place where he would fit best given that he could have complete control over a program with a large new facility, a relatively weaker divisional competition and a franchise. quarterback with several young and talented players on the roster.
Some thought Belichick wanted his conversations with UNC made public so he could get more job interviews in the NFL. Sources said Belichick wouldn’t necessarily have demanded full organizational control to coach an NFL team.
Whether Belichick could have landed a job in the NFL this cycle will never be known. Since he did not have a contract with another team, a club with a vacancy could have interviewed him before the end of the season.
Instead, his foray into North Carolina comes a year after Belichick went through a full cycle as an NFL coach after not being hired following their mutual parting ways in New England. There were six vacancies (not including the Patriots) and only the Falcons interviewed Belichick. Atlanta hired Raheem Morris to be its next coach, and Belichick spent the year gathering information from various football colleagues in preparation for his next opportunity.
During that time, Apple TV’s “The Dynasty: New England Patriots” premiered and left a bad taste in Belichick’s mouth, sources said. The 10-part docuseries chronicles his more than two decades of success in New England, but came up short on some Super Bowl victories and many controversies. There was an overwhelming feeling that Belichick got too much blame and not enough credit, and sources said that affected the coach.
While Belichick will have people to answer to in North Carolina, there is no equivalent to an NFL owner within the university structure. He hopes to run the program as he sees fit, and that’s what more than a week’s worth of talks have been about.
Belichick’s removal from the NFL coaching staff could alter that training cycle. The agents have reflected that his transfer to the university weakens a group of candidates that has a lot of depth. If there are ultimately six to eight vacancies, as anticipated, are there credibly six to eight candidates who will be better than those who previously held the position?
That’s no longer Belichick’s problem. Now he can focus on NIL, the transfer portal, and cutting the sleeves off his North Carolina hoodies to make sure the Jumpman logo remains visible.
