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Future Hall-of-Fame New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has returned to coaching. The 72-year old legend is taking the football reins – as a college coach – at the University of North Carolina next season after signing a 5-year contract on Thursday.
After beginning his coaching career in 1975 as an NFL assistant, this will be Bill Belichick’s first paid job working at the collegiate level.
Depending on your point of view, this marriage might be a good idea or a bad idea.
The Chapel Hill-based Tar Heels of the University of North Carolina are predominantly known as a college basketball power. By hiring a living legend in Bill Belichick, the school immediately gained national attention (much like Deion Sanders’ hiring at the University of Colorado). The school is expecting an immediate improvement in football interest along with season ticket and merchandise sales.
There was also a dirty little four-letter word which motivated this hiring. D-U-K-E.
Carolina is a public university. The Duke Blue Devils are a nearby private school in Durham and is located less than ten miles from UNC.
Though best known for their ACC basketball rivalry, these two schools are adversaries in every sport.
This fall, Duke’s football team went 9-3. North Carolina lost 3 of its six home games and finished at 6-6.
Don’t forget about UNC’s home attendance
With a listed capacity of 50,500, UNC home football attendance in 2024 showed only one sell-out (a loss to James Madison). I watched that game on television. It appeared that 25% of more of those seats were empty as JMU scored 70 points in an embarrassing home loss for Carolina.
For the year, North Carolina averaged 47,216 fans per game. That is 93.5% of stadium capacity.
September 7, 2024 – 48,431 vs. Charlotte (won 38-20)
September 14, 2024 – 45,491 vs. NC Central (won 45-10)
September 21, 2024 – 50,500 vs. James Madison (lost 70-50)
October 5, 2024 – 46,033 vs. Pitt (lost 34-24)
October 12, 2024 – 44,482 vs. Georgia Tech (lost 41-34)
November 19, 2024 – 48,364 vs. Wake Forest (won 31-24)
UNC’s Kenan Stadium is relatively small by today’s standards. Despite season ticket revenues, no-shows at football games translate into a significant loss of parking, concessions, and merchandise sales. Those items contribute millions of dollars every season.
Football revenues at most major schools are utilized to offset annual losses from most other sports.
The University of North Carolina is counting on their new head football coach to put fans back into each one of those 50,500 seats in Chapel Hill beginning this fall.
Hiring Bill Belichick at UNC will be good for business
During Thursday’s press conference announcing his hiring, Bill Belichick surprised the assembled crowd by unveiling his father’s UNC #38 sweatshirt during his time as a Tar Heel assistant coach in the 1950s.
The younger Belichick had saved his Dad’s sweatshirt for several decades.
A reporter asked Bill Belichick why he desired to coach college football in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
“All the things the University of North Carolina stands for…the academics, the culture, the research…everything it stands for…on the field, off the field and the destination that Carolina is for so many student-athletes,” said Belichick. “There’s so much opportunity here. I’m honored to have an opportunity and thrilled to be a part of it.”
Football recruits with NFL ambitions (which includes most FBS large school players) will want to learn pro techniques from the top NFL coach over the past few decades.
Age = Experience. Is that good or bad for a college football coach?
UNC recently terminated another senior citizen coach.
After five years as the Tar Heel’s football coach, Mack Brown (age 73) was fired a few weeks ago after posting a disappointing 6-6 season.
His coaching record at UNC during this period was 44-33 (a 57% winning percentage).
Mack Brown was the oldest head coach of a major college football program in 2024.
Entering 2025, Mack Brown’s successor has just become the oldest head coach in major college football.
The 72-year old Bill Belichick brings a ton of experience from decades of coaching professional athletes in the NFL. Though quarterback Tom Brady’s relationship with Belichick was generally positive, many other players in New England did not care for the coach’s “all business” style.
Brady’s ascension into the top quarterback in the NFL sparked the New England Patriots to six Super Bowl titles and a record 11 consecutive playoff appearances. A long-time defensive coordinator, Coach Belichick built top defensive units to keep Tom Brady’s offense within striking distance in most games.
It was a match made in NFL football heaven.
After Tom Brady left the Patriots for Tampa Bay, Coach Belichick’s New England Patriots declined from 12-4 in 2019 to 7-9 in 2020. A 4-13 season in 2023 sealed the decision for the Patriots as Coach Belichick and the team announced an amicable parting about a year ago.
Love him or loathe him, Bill Belichick has always been his own man
After leaving the NFL, Bill Belichick appeared to have struggled on whether to retire or return to coaching in some capacity.
Not exactly a warm fuzz ball type of personality, Coach Belichick’s dry humor found a following on ESPN2’s Monday Night Football “Manningcast” this fall with Peyton and Eli Manning. As I watched these shows, it was apparent that the long-time coach was still on top of his game in breaking down the action on the field.
It certainly appeared that the coach wanted to get back into the game.
After a lengthy NFL coaching career, Bill Belichick might be starting a new trend
With the advent of the NCAA Transfer portal (allowing nearly immediate transfers) and payments to players via the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rules (?), college football is morphing into a developmental league for professional football.
Bill Belichick’s knowledge of the pro game could be a magnet for recruiting talented players to come to the University of North Carolina…most with their hands outstretched looking for cash.
“A lot of colleges are looking at NFL-type models to structure personnel and coaching, said Belichick recently. “You need a general manager, a coach and salary cap manager.”
Bill Belichick and Nick Saban have much in common
Coach Bill Belichick was part of a very successful NFL operation in New England. His no-nonsense style in many ways mirrors his long-time friend and college coaching legend, Nick Saban.
By the way, both of these top coaches majored in Business for their undergraduate degrees. Belichick was an Economics major at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Saban earned a degree in Business Administration at Kent State along with a Master’s in Sports Administration.
After Nick Saban won his first national championship at LSU in 2003, the Tigers’ coach left Baton Rouge after the 2004 season to try his hand at coaching in the NFL with the Miami Dolphins.
After two years and (by his standards) mediocre results, Nick Saban returned to college football by taking the top job at the University of Alabama on January 3, 2007. He coached in Tuscaloosa through the 2023 football season and picked-up six more national championships along the way.
At the same time, Saban’s long-time friend, Bill Belichick, was having similar success in the NFL coaching at New England. During his 24 years as the head coach, he collected six Super Bowl rings prior to leaving the Patriots after the 2023 NFL season.
Like Nick Saban, Bill Belichick began 2024 without a coaching job for the first time in decades
Nick Saban surprised many by retiring from the University of Alabama and becoming a television analyst at ESPN.
Meanwhile, pro football fans in Atlanta, Dallas, Jacksonville, and other cities dreamed of having Bill Belichick become their team’s next head coach this fall in 2024.
However, his strong personality and need for control may have scared-off some potential pro football owners.
At the University of North Carolina, Bill Belichick will be given the chance to build something new with the encouragement of the university’s athletics department.
With top football players transferring from school to school for more playing time and/or money, the new college football world is beginning to look more like the NFL. Schools are raising millions of dollars in order to lure top high school and transfer students via the burgeoning NIL collectives (ie – banks).
Several of the top college NIL collectives have accumulated as much as $20 million to spread around to (primarily) college football players.
The stress of being a college head coach has started to take its toll
Today’s role of a college football head coach has been changing so quickly that some head coaches are retiring (like Nick Saban) while other are happily taking lesser roles.
For example, former National Coach of the Year Gus Malzahn recently resigned as head coach at the University of Central Florida.
The 59-year old former Auburn coach will become the Offensive Coordinator at Florida State next season.
Gus Malzahn seemed happy to take a big cut in pay (from $5 million to $1.5 million per year) for less hassles and stress as an assistant coach.
“The job description of a head college football coach has changed dramatically in the last two years with everything — transfer portal to collectives to agents and everything that goes with that,” said Malzahn. “I’m just an old-school football coach.
North Carolina believes that Bill Belichick can handle the “new” college game
The University of North Carolina’s leadership believes that their new head football coach will succeed – even if he has a unique way of doing things.
“In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, ‘The future ain’t what it used to be,'” said North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham. “The future of college athletics is changing, and we want to be at the forefront of that. Coach Belichick has demonstrated his passion for teaching, for coaching and for lifelong learning, and he is an absolute perfect fit for us at this time in the history of the university and the history of college sports.”
Bill Belichick plans to stick around Carolina for a long time
Tasked with building a contender at the University of North Carolina, Coach Belichick signed a five-year deal with the school.
“I grew up in college football with my dad as a coach at Navy for 50 years, so as a kid all I really knew was college football,” Belichick quipped at Thursday’s press conference. “It’s great to come back home to Carolina and back in an environment I really grew up in.
He added, “I was too young to remember a lot of the things from Carolina, but as I grew up you hear the same story over and over again. And so, one story I always heard was, ‘Billy’s first words were beat Duke.'”
A reporter later asked the new coach about the possibility of him staying for a couple of seasons at North Carolina and then returning to the NFL.
“I didn’t come here to leave,” said Belichick.
After a 24-year stay with his last employer in New England, Tar Heel fans should warm-up to the idea that their new football coach might decide to stick around for much longer than just five years.
The school’s fight song may fit the tough attitude of their new football coach.
I’m a Tar Heel born,
I’m a Tar Heel bred,
And when I die, I’ll be a Tar Heel dead.