Belichick agrees to become Head Coach of UNC
- Thread starter LordSensei1958
- Start date
At least I made it challenging. You went with these three skinny dudes. Easy. Really gay but easy.
In my defense, they were dressed up as ladyboys.
That's not gay then. Fair point.
Seems weird Bill would go to college ball unless he knew with near certainty that he wasn't getting an NFL job, or at least one he would consider.
Lord Chevy
I'm home
Listen, we're not going to do a breakdown here, ok? We're on to Tiffany.
Fly Eagles Fly
Well-known member
Hudson better watch out. Belichick going for those sorority sluts
Why Bill Belichick is heading to college — and what comes next
It started with a book club and ended with the greatest to ever do agreeing to an unprecedented move
www.readoptional.com
Early in the college football season, a text popped up on my phone: “Have you read Rough Magic?”
It came from a former NFL coach who will soon be a part of Bill Belichick’s coaching staff at North Carolina — a real, actual sentence I just typed out without blacking out.
“Let me know what you think.”
On reflection, I don’t think they were asking me to review the prose.
Rough Magic is one of the great forgotten football books, penned by Lowell Cohn in 1994 about Bill Walsh’s return to Stanford in the 90s. After a successful career as a college coach, Walsh became the architect of the Niners dynasty. A power struggle in San Francisco ultimately forced him out, and he “retired” to take up a gig in media. But talking about the game did not fill Walsh’s insatiable need to coach. Walsh, he said after he decided to return to the sideline, wasn’t fussed with winning. He just wanted to be on the grass. He wanted a whistle. He wanted to hear a crowd. He wanted to teach technique again, to mold a program – a program he loved – and prove to himself that he still had it away from the glitz of Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Steve Young, and the Niners.
I write this not to name-drop, though I have been asked a mind-numbing number of times on social media about where my info on Belichick moving to the college ranks came from. For those not on social media: I first reported that Belichicks’s negotiations with UNC were legitimate, and not a ploy to conjure up interest from the NFL (everyone knew he was available; an interview with a middle-class college program was not going to frazzle NFL owners). I further reported last Friday that a hitch in the negotiations revolved around the role of Stephen Belichick, his son, who is currently the defense coordinator at Washington. On Tuesday, I reported that Belichick had agreed, in principle, to accept an offer from North Carolina if the school met strict stipulations, all featured in Belichick’s so-called “organizational bible” (we will get to that later). That’s right: Belichick agreed to a job he was not strictly offered. He didn’t want Mack Brown’s UNC job; he wanted a new job, one that would turn North Carolina into a true football factory.
On Tuesday night, the two sides hashed out the parts of the deal they were stuck on – with North Carolina offering now-or-never terms. On Wednesday morning, Belichick accepted the agreement.
Now, the greatest pro football coach of his or any era is heading to college football — for the first time in his career. He is only the second Super Bowl-winning coach in history to head to college after lifting Lombardi, and the first to do so with zero prior experience working in college.
I am no insider. I write about schemes. I scout. I coach. There is no need for me to protect sources. If I get interesting information from people in the pro or college game that can add further context to a schematic discussion, I bring that stuff to my podcast with Jon Ledyard. That’s the extent of it. My next stroll into the Schefter game will probably come when Belichick decides to move on. But if you want to know where the information came from, and why it was reliable, then there you go.
I point out that text for one reason: these guys, Belichick and his clan of support staff, have been thinking about this for a long time. This was not a spur-of-the-moment, only-job-on-the-market decision. Was the NFL the priority? Sure. But has college been a viable, interesting option for six months? Yes. Belichick and his staff have been doing their research for a year. Not only on the new college landscape, a wild west of pay-to-play, NiL deals, transfer portals and whatnot, but on the history of the game.
Belichick has spent his year out of the NFL drifting across college football. He’s popped up everywhere. But he’s also been active. He was not just a proud father swaggering around Washington in sweet Huskies gear this last season. He was helping his son, mapping out a practice roadmap through the offseason and preseason, and sending cutups and thoughts throughout the campaign to help Steve Belichick gameplan. Washington, for what it’s worth, jumped up from 50th in defensive SP+ last season to 28th in the nation this year under Belichick. Belichick Snr. also served as a sounding board to Huskies’ head coach Jeff Fisch on managing a roster.
The coach who sent that text was not interested in Cohn’s (outstanding) writing style. He wanted to bounce ideas around about an aging, legendary coach returning to the sidelines after a spell out of the NFL and working in media. Sound familiar?
What went wrong for Walsh at Stanford? What lessons are there?
Rough Magic is instructive. It shows a competitionaholic who is used to the very best — the best players, nutrition, coaching staff and scheme — coming to terms with what’s required at a lower level of the sport, and realizing that he is no longer up to it. Once you’ve reached a state of super genius (and Walsh was, by whatever definition you like, a super genius), can you unlearn what you know? Should you? Can you teach your sophisticated things to 18-year-olds, or do you have the imagination and willingness to implement fresh ideas? Can you relinquish control?
Walsh is the most impactful offensive coach of the modern era. Where others saw moving bodies, he saw a symphony. Football, he decided, was about rhythm. If you could tie the right progressions to the footwork of the quarterback, if you could have pre-defined reads that morphed based on the defensive shell, there should always be an option to complete a pass. And if you can pair those designs with JOE MONTANA and JERRY BLEEPING RICE, it won’t just work, but you will win everything.
Walsh was one of those guys who didn’t need a framework. He painted on a blank canvas. He could picture it all — every possible iteration of the sport in his head — and fought with himself, constantly, about how to express those ideas and communicate them in a way that others, the mere mortals, could understand.
What Walsh was to the offensive side, Belichick has been to the defensive side of the ball. He was not always a great innovator, but he was the best gameplan builder. Over two decades in New England, he was the finest defensive architect in the league, tracking the trends of the game and tying his scheme to his personnel.
Even at the very end, Belichick was up to stuff. He was iterating even as the Krafts had made the decision to dismiss him midway through his final season. And it should be noted that, though Belichick the GM wound up knee-capping Belichick the coach, New England finished last 8th in defensive EPA/play. After the team’s game against the Dolphins in Germany last year, when Robert Kraft decided to fire Belichick, they kept creeping up the defensive standings and finished 6th in EPA/play the rest of the way. At 71-years-old, that’s pretty damn good.
There are subtle distinctions between Belichick and Walsh: Walsh was more of a big-picture thinker, a creative. Offensive coaches typically are. They have to find fresh ways to break down long-held defensive structures. Belichick was (and is) different. He is obsessed with individual technique. While working with Nick Saban in Cleveland, Belichick was a furnace blast of ideas. That staff devised much of the defensive infrastructure (new, original ideas) that undergirds most of football at every level today. But during his New England days, Belichick would pinch things. Post-Cleveland, he was not always iterating defensive ideas but grabbing, installing, teaching and calling any idea he could find – and doing so better than anyone. What is Gary Patterson’s third down plan? What’s that Saban blitz path? How is Vic Fangio manipulating these fronts? These read blitz things Nick installed in Miami, what if we run those over and over again? This new odd-mirror thing from Kirby, you know, I think we could use that against Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen.
That extended to the offensive side of the ball, too. He was a CEO in every way. From a power-based approach, to a rhythm-based passing game, to the bomb’s away years with Randy Moss, to embracing the spread revolution while other pro coaches cried heresy, to an up-tempo, two tight-end grouping that shelled the league in a way that people are still recovering from, on to ISO ball. And then, back again. One of the beauties of the latter stages of the Belichick-Tom Brady partnership was that they could call on things from any era they liked depending on the opponent. They had a Rolodex of designs and ways to attack defenses – individual coaches and individual players – that dwarfed everyone else.
Belichick’s genius came from his willingness to adapt. He hunted market efficiencies in his roster construction and echoed that in his schematic vision. Year-to-year, scheme-to-scheme, week-to-week, play-to-play Belichick’s Patriots would bounce between anything and everything — hitting on whatever they needed based on their personnel and gameplan. No front structure was off-limits. No coverage or blitz plan was too whacky. Some years they’d be heavy. In other years, he’d feature a big safety/dime linebacker at the highest rate in the league. He was constantly evolving, chasing new ideas from the best and brightest no matter if it came from high school, college, the pros or Canada. How about robbing an ineligible receiver play from Lane Kiffin in the divisional round of the playoffs? I mean, please. The idea was all that mattered — and whether Belichick and his staff could teach it. Stubborn, competitive and controlling off the field? Sure. But within his scheme, he was never doctrinaire.
Anyone can take good ideas. Knowing when to deploy them — and how — is something else. What pushed Belichick into the upper echelon, though, was his ability to teach everything. He did not sit behind his desk and install the gameplan, leaving the fussy bits to those beneath him. He was on the field teaching individual techniques to make sure every piece fit the jigsaw.
For Belichick, “Do Your Job” is not a catchy slogan. It has a real, tangible meaning: I’ve put all this fucking effort into figuring out a plan you may not even be able to comprehend. Just run the technique I’ve taught you, don’t worry about everyone else, and, trust me, it will all come together. It’s why he is relentless about the details, and prioritizes the basics (tackling, leverage, playing to the team construct) over installing another quirky rotation.
The college game has evolved immeasurably since Walsh returned to Stanford. Colleges can effectively buy players — at least legally. The schematic bifurcation between the league and college is vast. College elements have infused the pro game, and they’re closer together than during the heyday of the spread-option revolution, but in terms of complexity and week-to-week gameplans, they’re still worlds apart.
A few years ago, college defenses had zoomed past the pro variations. Coaches had more time to work with their guys. They were not hauling in street-free agents to plug their hole at nickel. They could build amorphous, roaming, match-based coverages with players having spent multiple years in the program refining the basics. The truly great schematic thinkers and planners (Nick Saban, Kirby Smart, etc.) had the leg up of all those five-star recruits, but they were also able to install a series of complex, morphing coverages that even NFL sides can not slide into their plans regularly. The era of overloaded fronts, sim pressures, and creepers began with Rex Ryan but caught fire at the college level before working back up to the league as an every-down option.
Yet as college football becomes a year-to-year sport, with rampant transfers and squads assembled on a season-by-season basis, the playing field has evened out. Structurally, as on the offensive side of the ball, there is less on the menu of defenses these days. Does that give Belichick an advantage? Can he install a level of complexity unseen elsewhere, or will his adaptability and focus on individual technique help raise North Carolina’s floor? Maybe? Possibly? Both?
If it’s the former, like Walsh, Belichick will have to deal with a key challenge: I’m a genius, sure, but how do I get across these ideas to 20-year-olds?
“It feels like I’m just along for the ride”
Walsh’s return to Stanford was miserable. He took over a program in the ascendency. In his first season, they finished 10-3. In his final two years, they went a combined 7-14-1.Like Belichick, Walsh did not inherit a mess. The heavy lifting of raising Stanford from doormat to respectable was done by Dennis Green, who moved on to the Vikings after three seasons as Stanford boss, clearing the way for Walsh’s return.
The idea, as with Belichick at North Carolina, was to build on a baseline of success. Maybe the genius can drag us another rung up the ladder. But Walsh grew frustrated that teenagers could not crack his complex system. In the pros, Walsh experienced burnout. Back in college, he became ill.
The Stanford team Walsh inherited was built on the backs of Green’s physically imposing defense. In Walsh’s first season, that defense suffocated folks as his offense stumbled around. Walsh brought Fred Von Appen with him, a long-time confidant who bounced around the league and served three separate stints as Stanford’s DC. Von Appen was so loyal to his coach that Walsh was able to talk him out of taking a job in the NFL to patrol the sidelines in Palo Alto. But in that opening season, with the defense on fire and Walsh’s offense hitting a wall, the program was effectively split in two: A defense built by Green and run by Von Appen and Walsh’s pesky offense. One was talented, the other dire.
It gnawed at Walsh. “I feel like I’m just along for the ride,” Walsh said.
Walsh was old and tired. He had little time for the extra-curriculars of being a college czar. He just wanted to coach ball. And even that was a challenge. Walsh routinely fell asleep at his desk. In team meetings, Steven Stenstrom, his quarterback, had to point out that he had mislabeled the blocking mechanics on specific plays. “You’re right,” Walsh said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Before a game against San Jose, Walsh had incorrectly drawn up several plays on the team’s opening drive. After he was made aware, he went to his office, beat himself up, corrected the issues, and spent another sleepless night in his 60s at his desk.
That’s the danger of an aging coach. Their mind may willing, but it’s not always able. Here, Belichick differs, slightly. His authoritative approach belies the fact that he is, at heart, a collaborator. He just wants the final sign-off.
Walsh’s staff was also filled with in-fighting. It was a group divided between has-beens and want-to-bes. Walsh saw his return not as a way to pump up his own resume, but to be a legitimate school – only a football one. He wanted to get guys to the pros (sound familiar) but also give a first crack to some of his former players who wanted to coach. It left him with an inexperienced staff that was in over their heads, and the head coach lacked the vigor to paper over issues on his own. Even the loyal lieutenants started to think the old boss had lost his magic. As word leaked out that coaches were talking behind his back, Walsh lit up his staff room: “I want to remind you that you’re a well-paid staff. You work fewer hours than most college coaches, and you live in a beautiful part of the world.”
The whole experience showed a coach unable to effectively translate his ideas anymore — at least to a different generation.
“I get gloomy sometimes,” Walsh said. “And they don’t know what it means. Each coach assumes I’m thinking about him. Of course, sometimes I am.”
After a grueling defeat to Arizona, Walsh became increasingly ill. He had brought some of his former Niner stars to the game, hoping the stardust of Joe Montana and Dwight Clark would rub off on his players and potential recruits. But he absorbed another bitter loss, and it exposed the differences between the college game and the pros. In the NFL he could stew, and beat himself up. Back in college, he had to get to work. Sat at his chair after the defeat, staring into space, he whispered: “now I have to go to a cocktail party”. He stayed for ten minutes, leaving before the guests arrived.
So frustrated after the Arizona loss — the team was “lower than whale shit,” according to Von Appen — Walsh walked out of the next day’s film review. Cycling through plays, he stood up, hit the exit and went to eat a sundae. It was the last day of his career that he ran through his initial review of the tape with his coaching staff present.
How does an older coach balance the fact that they know what’s required to win at the highest level while fighting the pull of time? When it gets tough, do they lock in, review their process, adjust their approach, or do they run for ice cream?
By the middle of his first season, Walsh had already started to break his non-negotiables, and the aftershocks would ripple through his two losing seasons. He “re-assigned” staff members in the middle of the season (a kind way of saying they were fired), and took on more of the day-to-day burden. But even that thinking was muddled; Walsh would try to be involved, but he lacked the energy to take on too many duties.
“At 60, I just don’t have the vitality to go over and be a line coach,” Walsh told a friend. “I just want to be the head coach.”
He also started to verbally attack his players in team meetings:
“I’m really sick of this offensive line. I’m disgusted… At the beginning of the season of the season, I said you were the strength of this ball club. You’re the weakness. We can’t throw the ball. You’re getting the quarterback's eyes knocked out. I’m totally frustrated with this unit, and it wasn’t just them — it was a sorry offensive effort. We don’t want to finish the season thinking it was the offense that let us down.”
It’s a telling portrait. Walsh, an intellectual, always believed there was a correct solution to a problem. He just had to think about it long enough. He didn’t resort to barking at players. If something had gone wrong, it was on him. But read that last sentence again: “We don’t want to finish the season thinking it was the offense that let us down.”
This is a man battling with a legacy. He knows how unusual/bizarre/madcap it is that the NFL’s greatest innovator is back in school. If the offense falls to pieces, it’s a reflection on him, on his standing in the game (at least in his mind) than it is on the players. Maybe that whole San Francisco thing was about Montana and Rice and Young and Clark after all.
He did not return to college to buffer his legacy but found himself battling ghosts anyway.
Walsh was famed in San Francisco for teeing off on his staff rather than players during meetings. The implication was that the staff flowed through him; so any criticism of a position coach was really a critique of himself. He would give coaches a heads-up, letting them know he was trying to get a message across without making it personal with the time.
At Stanford, that cracked. Walsh crushed his team and staff members, without telling them what was coming. “I don’t know, maybe you were told to do it,” Walsh told a lineman after highlighting another blown protection, singling out his offensive line coach.
Walsh broke the confidence of his own staff. During meetings toward the back half of his first season, Walsh became physically sick.
Walsh was away from coaching for three years. Because of the time that had lapsed, the little things, the details, were missing as soon as he walked through the door at Stanford. He bundled staffing assignments, struggling to figure out how to divvy up who was responsible for which elements of practice. He only realized his error once he saw the product on the field midway through his first season. He compounded the error by bouncing back and forth between being too hands-on and too hands-off, with the staff unclear on any given day what fresh responsibilities the boss was taking on board. He was a genius chasing his tail.
“I didn’t feel I was in control as I should have been,” Walsh said.
In the interest of transparency, that is one of the notes I sent back after reading the book: “If you’re going to do it, do it. Two years out is two too many.”
Towards the end of his first season, Walsh would dash off paranoid letters to alums who criticized him, reminding them that he had won three Super Bowls and overseen the model for a professional franchise forever more.
And that’s why, though it remains a shocker, it’s not completely stunning to me that Belichick leaped at the first college job that came calling. His thinking about what is required is clear — and North Carolina was aligned with the vision.
Belichick is a less emotive coach than Walsh, less prone to outbursts. But he also spent the majority of his career inoculated in a bubble of his own creation. At the end in New England, he took out his frustration with the Kraft family on loyal coaches. Jerod Mayo and Bill O’Brien were drafted in by the Krafts to wrestle some control away from their all-powerful football monarch. O’Brien was a Belichick guy. But for two weeks during his final season in New England, Belichick did not speak to his offensive coordinator. After being pushed on Belichick in the offseason, O’Brien was now viewed as a Kraft guy.
How will it go when Belichick has to answer the phone lines to local Carolina callers, a tried and true way for a college coach to burnish support? What if the team loses three in a row and they question his defense or quarterback decision? Will he spit back something about his eight Super Bowl rings? Will he note that he helped develop Lawrence Taylor and Dont’a Hightower and coached Darrelle Revis to his lone Super Bowl? Can you hear it now? Yeah, what do I know, I only coached Tom fucking Brady.
Even as someone who had worked at the college level before, at the same damn school, Walsh struggled to return to the amateur ranks. He had been pro-football-itized. The ass-kissing and hand-shakes-for-cash that fuel the college football economy, and help to build the roster, was seen as beneath him. He cut privileges to the locker room, even to the team chaplin. “If you’re not on the team, you can’t come in the locker room,” Walsh said.
Belichick will face similar issues. But he’s walking into a different college landscape.
The news of Bill Belichick reportedly becoming the new head coach at North Carolina rather than pursuing one of the NFL coaching openings has shaken the sports world.
Belichick going to Chapel Hill, on an announced five-year deal, is surprising for a variety of reasons. The presumption was that the six-time Super Bowl winner (with two titles as an assistant) would stay in the familiar territory of the NFL. At 72 years old, Belichick is also older than what would be expected at a program like UNC, which could take a few years to lift toward College Football Playoff contention.
Yet in looking at all the attention this decision is garnering, it's apparent why North Carolina would take the risk of hiring someone who's never coached in college before and seemingly unfamiliar with the grind of recruiting players that's necessary for success.
View: https://x.com/GaryMyersNY/status/1866978918298788253?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1866978918298788253%7Ctwgr%5Ea2a88f5f789871179943ab9370f2fe4daa7b3d4b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsports.yahoo.com%2Fbill-belichick-to-north-carolina-lawrence-taylor-mike-mccarthy-football-world-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Someone who would arguably be an authority on Belichick and North Carolina is former NFL linebacker Lawrence Taylor. Taylor was an All-American at UNC and played under Belichick during most of his Hall of Fame career with the New York Giants.
"UNC stock has just gone up!!!" Taylor texted to longtime NFL reporter Gary Myers. Apparently, Taylor was one of the people Belichick consulted while deciding whether to take the job.
View: https://x.com/MikeBeauvais/status/1866533168087519588?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1866533168087519588%7Ctwgr%5Ea2a88f5f789871179943ab9370f2fe4daa7b3d4b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsports.yahoo.com%2Fbill-belichick-to-north-carolina-lawrence-taylor-mike-mccarthy-football-world-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Naturally, such an unconventional hire led to jokes, such as Belichick resembling UNC's grouchy Tar Heel logo.
Changing Chapel Hill's name to "Chapel Bill" was also a popular reaction.
View: https://x.com/DKSportsbook/status/1866974774989299980?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1866974774989299980%7Ctwgr%5Ea2a88f5f789871179943ab9370f2fe4daa7b3d4b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsports.yahoo.com%2Fbill-belichick-to-north-carolina-lawrence-taylor-mike-mccarthy-football-world-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Many observers pondered why exactly Belichick would choose to likely end his career in college, which may or may not affect his legacy. For instance, he is now very unlikely to overtake Don Shula for most wins by an NFL head coach, something which was presumably important to him.
View: https://x.com/YahooSchwab/status/1866977560782856332?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1866977560782856332%7Ctwgr%5Ea2a88f5f789871179943ab9370f2fe4daa7b3d4b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsports.yahoo.com%2Fbill-belichick-to-north-carolina-lawrence-taylor-mike-mccarthy-football-world-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Several pointed out that just coaching football is most important to Belichick, rather than analyzing it or providing commentary in the media. Author David Halberstam noted this in his 2005 book on Belichick, "The Education of a Coach."
View: https://x.com/SethWickersham/status/1866977411893527027?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1866977411893527027%7Ctwgr%5Ea2a88f5f789871179943ab9370f2fe4daa7b3d4b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsports.yahoo.com%2Fbill-belichick-to-north-carolina-lawrence-taylor-mike-mccarthy-football-world-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy reinforced the "coaches want to coach" sentiment, and had high praise for both UNC and Belichick (who many thought might replace McCarthy).
https://x.com/toddarcher/status/186...rld-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Belichick reportedly visited several college coaches during his year away from the sideline to learn. He's consulted college coaches throughout his career, including former Alabama coach Nick Saban, former Ohio State and Florida coach Urban Meyer and current Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz.
Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio is among those who asked if some of those coaches would have been as forthcoming if they knew Belichick was migrating to the college game.
https://x.com/ProFootballTalk/statu...rld-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Another angle on the legacy question is that Belichick may see coaching at North Carolina as bringing the coaching history of his family full circle.
Belichick's father, Steve, coached running backs at UNC from 1953-55. If, as expected, Belichick adds his son Stephen, currently the defensive coordinator at Washington, to his staff, the limbs of his family tree at the school could stretch out further.
https://x.com/tvippolis/status/1866...rld-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Others wondered if Belichick might get the band back together in Chapel Hill and hire several of his former assistants — including Charlie Weis and Joe Judge — and players for his staff.
x.com
Prior to Belichick's hiring becoming official, current Patriots quarterback and former UNC alum Drake Maye thought the coach and school were a great match.
"A legendary coach, with the success he had here," Maye said. "What a great place Chapel Hill is... I think coach will love Chapel Hill."
https://x.com/MikeReiss/status/1866...rld-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Patriots receiver Kendrick Bourne, who played three seasons for Belichick, shared some advice on what the Tar Heels' student-athletes should expect from a "tough coach."
x.com
"Stay tough," Bourne told reporters on Wednesday. "Have a gritty mindset because it's not gonna be easy."
"Just don't miss class," he added.
Belichick going to Chapel Hill, on an announced five-year deal, is surprising for a variety of reasons. The presumption was that the six-time Super Bowl winner (with two titles as an assistant) would stay in the familiar territory of the NFL. At 72 years old, Belichick is also older than what would be expected at a program like UNC, which could take a few years to lift toward College Football Playoff contention.
Yet in looking at all the attention this decision is garnering, it's apparent why North Carolina would take the risk of hiring someone who's never coached in college before and seemingly unfamiliar with the grind of recruiting players that's necessary for success.
View: https://x.com/GaryMyersNY/status/1866978918298788253?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1866978918298788253%7Ctwgr%5Ea2a88f5f789871179943ab9370f2fe4daa7b3d4b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsports.yahoo.com%2Fbill-belichick-to-north-carolina-lawrence-taylor-mike-mccarthy-football-world-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Someone who would arguably be an authority on Belichick and North Carolina is former NFL linebacker Lawrence Taylor. Taylor was an All-American at UNC and played under Belichick during most of his Hall of Fame career with the New York Giants.
"UNC stock has just gone up!!!" Taylor texted to longtime NFL reporter Gary Myers. Apparently, Taylor was one of the people Belichick consulted while deciding whether to take the job.
View: https://x.com/MikeBeauvais/status/1866533168087519588?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1866533168087519588%7Ctwgr%5Ea2a88f5f789871179943ab9370f2fe4daa7b3d4b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsports.yahoo.com%2Fbill-belichick-to-north-carolina-lawrence-taylor-mike-mccarthy-football-world-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Naturally, such an unconventional hire led to jokes, such as Belichick resembling UNC's grouchy Tar Heel logo.
Changing Chapel Hill's name to "Chapel Bill" was also a popular reaction.
View: https://x.com/DKSportsbook/status/1866974774989299980?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1866974774989299980%7Ctwgr%5Ea2a88f5f789871179943ab9370f2fe4daa7b3d4b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsports.yahoo.com%2Fbill-belichick-to-north-carolina-lawrence-taylor-mike-mccarthy-football-world-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Many observers pondered why exactly Belichick would choose to likely end his career in college, which may or may not affect his legacy. For instance, he is now very unlikely to overtake Don Shula for most wins by an NFL head coach, something which was presumably important to him.
View: https://x.com/YahooSchwab/status/1866977560782856332?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1866977560782856332%7Ctwgr%5Ea2a88f5f789871179943ab9370f2fe4daa7b3d4b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsports.yahoo.com%2Fbill-belichick-to-north-carolina-lawrence-taylor-mike-mccarthy-football-world-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Several pointed out that just coaching football is most important to Belichick, rather than analyzing it or providing commentary in the media. Author David Halberstam noted this in his 2005 book on Belichick, "The Education of a Coach."
View: https://x.com/SethWickersham/status/1866977411893527027?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1866977411893527027%7Ctwgr%5Ea2a88f5f789871179943ab9370f2fe4daa7b3d4b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsports.yahoo.com%2Fbill-belichick-to-north-carolina-lawrence-taylor-mike-mccarthy-football-world-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy reinforced the "coaches want to coach" sentiment, and had high praise for both UNC and Belichick (who many thought might replace McCarthy).
https://x.com/toddarcher/status/186...rld-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Belichick reportedly visited several college coaches during his year away from the sideline to learn. He's consulted college coaches throughout his career, including former Alabama coach Nick Saban, former Ohio State and Florida coach Urban Meyer and current Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz.
Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio is among those who asked if some of those coaches would have been as forthcoming if they knew Belichick was migrating to the college game.
https://x.com/ProFootballTalk/statu...rld-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Another angle on the legacy question is that Belichick may see coaching at North Carolina as bringing the coaching history of his family full circle.
Belichick's father, Steve, coached running backs at UNC from 1953-55. If, as expected, Belichick adds his son Stephen, currently the defensive coordinator at Washington, to his staff, the limbs of his family tree at the school could stretch out further.
https://x.com/tvippolis/status/1866...rld-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Others wondered if Belichick might get the band back together in Chapel Hill and hire several of his former assistants — including Charlie Weis and Joe Judge — and players for his staff.
x.com
x.com
Prior to Belichick's hiring becoming official, current Patriots quarterback and former UNC alum Drake Maye thought the coach and school were a great match.
"A legendary coach, with the success he had here," Maye said. "What a great place Chapel Hill is... I think coach will love Chapel Hill."
https://x.com/MikeReiss/status/1866...rld-react-to-stunning-decision-003204016.html
Patriots receiver Kendrick Bourne, who played three seasons for Belichick, shared some advice on what the Tar Heels' student-athletes should expect from a "tough coach."
x.com
x.com
"Stay tough," Bourne told reporters on Wednesday. "Have a gritty mindset because it's not gonna be easy."
"Just don't miss class," he added.
OSUBuckeye
Well-known member
That’s what Mike Lombardi is for. Bill has this all lined out & ready to go.
Mazz22
Tom Brady GOAT
Sickened by the politics of the NFL, Belichick aims for a college restart
Without an ideal NFL situation available, Bill Belichick decides to shake up the college football world.
THEY MET EVERY week, Bill Belichick and a handful of his former assistants with the New England Patriots. Matt Patricia, Michael Lombardi, Josh McDaniels, to name a few, men with whom he had won Super Bowls, all of them out of work. They'd chat over Zoom, and go through each NFL game, as they once did in Foxboro, as only they could. Teams. Trends. Salaries. Schematic shifts. Stuff only they knew to look for, questions only they knew to ask, a common language and way of thinking, once the envy of the NFL and beyond, from other sports to business schools, now valued less around the league. The subtext was unspoken, but understood: Which NFL teams might make a coaching change this year? And of those teams, which of them might be interested in a 72-year-old, eight-time Super Bowl champion? And of those teams, which would Belichick want most?
According to sources with direct knowledge, the group deemed that the Chicago Bears were probably the most attractive job, but that team brass was unlikely to consider Belichick. The group expects the same thing that most around the league do: that the Bears will go offense, hoping to give quarterback Caleb Williams a chance at a career, probably targeting Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson.
The New York Jets were a nonstarter; Belichick had issues with owner Woody Johnson back in 2000, before Johnson officially bought the team, and he had been critical this past season in his media roles with Johnson's horrific stewardship. Maybe the Giants, where he had spent the '80s, could work, but Belichick knew that it would be a rebuild, with the New York press at his heels. Plus, he believes the team would do best to retain its current coach, Brian Daboll. Dallas was a potential spot -- nobody can take a collection of talent and turn it into a team like Belichick -- but nobody knew if owner Jerry Jones would move on from Mike McCarthy, and if he did, if he'd want to hand over the team to Belichick. Jacksonville was another potential landing spot, but was it the right one? On his podcast, Lombardi took a shot at Tony Khan, son of owner Shad Khan who for years has run an analytics department emblematic of the problems with the current NFL. Additionally, there wasn't a lot of back-channel communication between anyone close to Belichick and owners; the league and three teams are almost two years into battling a discrimination lawsuit by Brian Flores.
Belichick's feelings toward the NFL have shifted he has told confidants. Look at the past year. Robert Kraft, whose life and legacy was forever altered by Belichick, fired him in January. Only one out of seven teams with openings showed interested in hiring him. The Falcons interviewed him twice, but when it came time for the team's brass to rank choices, Belichick failed to land in anyone's top three candidates -- in part, ESPN later reported, because Kraft helped torpedo his chances. Weeks later in February, "The Dynasty," the Kraft-owned Patriots documentary, launched on Apple and minimized Belichick's role in the team's historic run so roundly that former Patriots players spoke out against it. Belichick was entertaining in his myriad media roles, but the league seemed to move on without him. Owners spoke of him respectfully, but not desirably.
A few months ago, Belichick started to bring up college programs on the Zooms. He was spending a lot of time at Washington, where his son Stephen is in his first year as the Huskies' defensive coordinator. His former offensive coordinator in New England, Bill O'Brien, and longtime assistant, Berj Najarian, are at Boston College. Another former assistant, Joe Judge, served as a senior analyst at Ole Miss.
It reinforced and reaffirmed that there was another option out there. At first, the image of Belichick as a college coach made no sense. It was hard to picture Belichick sitting in a teenager's living room, in a hoodie with jagged sleeves, delivering his recruiting pitch. Nick Saban, one of Belichick's longest and closest friends, had retired from college football in large part because of the transfer portal and NIL. Tom Brady did an impression on television of Belichick last weekend: "Listen, you really wanna come here? We don't really want you anyway. I guess you could come. We'll figure out if you can play."
But something about ending his career by not chasing Don Shula's NFL wins record, but instead on campus, appealed to Belichick. When he agreed to terms with North Carolina, it was not only because of a new challenge after coaching only in the NFL since 1975, at a school where his father, Steve, had worked when Bill was a boy, and not only because his future in the pros was unclear.
It was because, in the words of a confidant, Belichick is "disgusted" in what he believes the NFL had become.
"This is a big f--- you to the NFL," another Belichick confidant says.
BELICHICK HAS ALWAYS cared about football's history, and his place in it. And he has always cared about leading a true football program. Unlike Bill Walsh's philosophy, it was not primarily based on a playbook; indeed, Belichick's schematic ideology is his lack of ideology, tailored and adapted to situation and circumstance. He has always wanted to build a team -- a true team -- despite the cultural and financial forces conspiring against that idea and ideal.
Will Belichick's particular style work in the ACC? Just one of many questions that will have to be answered next season. Barry Chin/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
What became known as the Patriot Way was rooted in more than mutual sacrifice and mastery of situational football, ruthless decision-making and Brady's greatness. It was about teaching and education. Only Belichick's Patriots had full-team meetings in which players were quizzed not only on the opponent's statistics and playmakers, but the résumés of all of the assistant coaches. It was a football laboratory, augmented by some of the greatest players in NFL history.
Belichick was raised on campuses and has loved helping shape young minds. In April 2006, I watched him deliver the annual Fusco Distinguished Lecture at Southern Connecticut State University, on a stage that had also featured Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright and Christopher Reeve, among others. Like many, I worried that it would be a two-hour version of his news conferences. But he was in his element, relaxed and energized, speaking to students as they prepared to enter the real world. He told them to chase not money, but a job that was a continuation of a passion. One of the proudest moments of his life was when he passed on a career in finance and moved to Baltimore to do whatever the Colts asked of him.
When Belichick was fired by Kraft, despite it initially being presented as a mutual parting -- Kraft later cited trust and an eagerness to reclaim organizational power as factors -- he knew that his next job was not going to resemble the one he'd held for more than two decades. The NFL had moved away from the coach-centric model that Belichick learned under Bill Parcells. There are more layers now. Belichick insisted to the Falcons and made clear to other teams with openings last year that he wasn't seeking the total control of football operations he enjoyed for most of his head coaching career, both in Cleveland and in New England. He was willing to work with existing staff, whether it was Falcons general manager Terry Fontenot or Commanders general manager Adam Peters or Jerry Jones or Howie Roseman, if the Cowboys or Eagles, respectively, had decided to change coaches.
But something about it was always hard to buy -- and owners didn't. It wasn't that Belichick was disingenuous or too set in his ways; it was that if you hire Belichick, you hire him to do it his way. Belichick's system is him, from his player procurement program to contract incentives to the types of players he drafts. Because so much flowed out of his mind and because he almost always was the ultimate decision-maker, the Patriots were able to withstand the losses of key players and coaches -- everyone except Brady. How would Belichick, who ran a thin operation in New England, without many layers, handle running a team with a huge infrastructure? Was Belichick, who has had his share of player-evaluation whiffs but has also drafted the greatest quarterback and tight end ever, along with Hall of Fame defensive tackle Richard Seymour and several others who will join him in Canton, really going to abide by the philosophies of someone like Fontenot or Bears general manager Ryan Poles, if Chicago had hired Belichick after this year?
"Listening to Fontenot discuss drafting systems last January, as if he knew it all, bothered him," a Belichick confidant says.
All of those things were on his mind this fall. He told confidants that Shula's record mattered to him, but it wasn't the essential thing. It wasn't why he has worked hours that have come with a steep personal price. He has always competed as if his self-worth was tied to the result. Losses took on a life of their own. Imagine the throttled rage inside him all spring after a group of men who routinely botch their most important hire not only mostly ignored him but gloated about it, telling ESPN that he was "voted off the island." He never forgets. Belichick knew that he'd have to compromise if he got another NFL job, maybe even more than the year before, and also knew that he faced a league that was skeptical of him.
By bringing in Belichick, University of North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham will firmly step into the national spotlight. Chris Seward/AP Photo
If he didn't fix his new team right away, he'd be dealing with a media narrative for the third straight year in coaching that he'd lost his fastball. College coaches have many headaches -- they essentially re-recruit their players daily -- but Belichick came to believe that he'd have the space to run his program, winning or losing on his terms, all he has ever asked for. He'll have what he had in New England: He'll be the football czar. He knows there are politics, the way there are politics in the NFL, and challenges to building a team, but they feel manageable and worth the risk.
Says a source with knowledge of his thinking: "I'll go be the highest draw in college football, and will have the greatest coach in the ACC, instead of you guys who don't want [him] anymore because there are people who don't deserve to be empowered. ... Everyone is running away from college football. I think Bill thinks this landscape is better for him. ... More transactional and less relational. In his mind, this is better for me."
Maybe the signs were there a month ago, when Belichick told "The Pat McAfee Show" of the horror stories of answering asinine questions from owners. He told a confidant within the past week that he's "tired of the stupidness" of the NFL. Unlike Brady, Belichick has always embraced his darker side, with actions more often than words, and made no secret of his grievances. He turned the postgame handshake into a spectator sport. He seethed at the piousness around the league after Spygate. After Deflategate, he walked out of a league meeting when commissioner Roger Goodell spoke. And then, after his unquestioned greatness was suddenly questioned and became talk-show fodder for two years -- How good is he without Brady? -- he watched owners display abject indifference to his services. "He's disgusted," a confidant says.
If we've learned anything about Belichick over the years, it's that he'll often do the unconventional thing -- and that when at a crossroads, he will take control of his career.
TWO DECADES AGO, legendary journalist David Halberstam wanted to write a book about Belichick. They knew each other casually. Belichick respected Halberstam but initially was cool to the idea; it would go against every fiber of his being if he turned the spotlight on himself. Halberstam rethought the pitch and gave it another shot: "I suggested that there might be a book in the education of a coach, especially since the most important teacher in his life was his father, Steve -- a coach's coach," Halberstam later wrote. "It was an idea that interested him, and eventually he agreed to cooperate." After Belichick had become the first coach to win three Super Bowls in four years, Halberstam spent more time with him than any reporter to that point, working on what would be an authorized biography. Later in 2005, "The Education of a Coach" was published. Halberstam hit the media circuit, promoting the book, and on a Boston radio show, he was asked, "Will [Belichick] ever get sick of this?"
Tar Heels QB Jacolby Criswell hands off to RB Omarion Hampton in a November win against Florida State. UNC finished 6-6 this year, but going forward the stakes and expectations will be much higher. Don Juan Moore/Getty Images
At the time, Belichick was 53 years old. He had yet to be busted for Spygate. He had yet to coach a team to within a minute of an undefeated season. Had yet to tell a documentarian that he'd never coach into his 70s, then blow past it, knowing deep inside that he needed the game more than it needed him. He had yet to draft Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman, Devin McCourty, Matthew Slater, and Dont'a Hightower, had yet to win 11 games with Matt Cassel, had yet to deploy the "Baltimore" and "Raven" formations, had yet to pass Deflategate into Brady's lap, had yet to send Malcolm Butler into the final seconds of Super Bowl XLIX, had yet to look up at a Super Bowl LI scoreboard that read 28-3, had yet to curtail access for Alex Guerrero, had yet to be called the "biggest f---ing a--hole in my life" by Kraft, and had yet to win a sixth Super Bowl. He had yet to watch his daughter, Amanda, coach lacrosse at Holy Cross, had yet to watch Stephen coach at Washington.
"He's really a coach and a teacher," Halberstam told the hosts. "I mean, you could almost see him, when this is done, saying, OK, I've ... you know, if he's done it and won X rings, saying OK, I'm going to go and teach at an Ivy League school or something like that. I'm going to do something smaller, without as much pressure."
And without the NFL, which he left before it could leave him. Again.
Mazz22
Tom Brady GOAT
LOL What a bunch of spin coming from BB now. Wasn't he just interviewing for the Falcons last offseason? How much did the NFL change in 1 year? More like no team wanted him so he went to college.
HSanders
Cracker bitch
Maybe that whole process with the falcons is part of what the final straw was for him with the NFL?
