Bill Belichick will turn into the following coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels, sources inform CBS Sports NFL Insider Jonathan Jones. The six-time Super Bowl champion, who has by no means coached on the collegiate degree in any capability, will take excessive teaching place on the open market.
Belichick agreed to a three-year, $30 million deal, in accordance with The Athletic. Previous coach Mack Brown was paid $5 million per season.
Inside Carolina first reported Belichick’s candidacy and that he was finalizing a take care of UNC on Wednesday. North Carolina’s Board of Trustees spent the day establishing an emergency assembly to approve Belichick’s contract, in accordance with Inside Carolina and ABC11.
Belichick’s curiosity within the Tar Heels opening was the primary identified contact he had with a school job since leaving the New England Patriots in 2023. He has been spending the 2024 season working in tv; nevertheless, ESPN reported in September that Belichick hoped to return to teaching in 2025.
The rent comes after North Carolina fired coach Mack Brown, 73, following six seasons in his second stint with the staff. Brown was solely FBS coach older than 70; Belichick, eight months youthful, will probably be embarking on his first job teaching school soccer at any degree.
Belichick is arguably the best coach in NFL historical past, successful six Super Bowls as a head coach and two extra as an assistant. He gained three AP NFL Coach of the Year awards throughout a legendary 24-year run with the Patriots and holds NFL data for many Super Bowl appearances (9), playoff wins (19) and division championships (17) as a coach. In whole, he spent 49 years teaching within the NFL.
Belichick, Don Shula and George Halas are the one coaches in NFL historical past to clear 300 wins, and now, Belichick will possible finish his NFL profession standing 14 wins shy of Shula’s all-time profession victories report.
There was perception across the NFL that Belichick wouldn’t critically take into account transferring to the collegiate ranks when his interview with North Carolina was first reported. However, Belichick seemingly impressed UNC brass and expressed openness to coping with the problems and realities of school soccer.
“He has actually been open to all of it,” a supply instructed CBS Sports’ Jones.
The addition of Belichick is a watershed second for North Carolina, an athletic division finest identified for its males’s basketball program and immense success in non-revenue sports activities. He immediately provides an air of credibility — even past what Brown introduced as a nationwide championship-winning coach — to the soccer staff given his legendary NFL profession.
Some could place the significance of Belichick’s hiring for soccer alongside UNC’s luring of basketball coach Roy Williams away from Kansas in 2003.
Questions now shift to how Belichick will transition to the fashionable school soccer world, together with recruiting, NIL and workers constructing.
Belichick on Monday confirmed his talks with North Carolina throughout an interview on “The Pat McAfee Show.” While he declined to enter specifics on the time, he did share his perspective of find out how to function a school soccer program within the trendy period.
“If I used to be in a school program, the school program can be a pipeline to the NFL for the gamers that had the flexibility to play within the NFL,” Belichick mentioned.”It can be knowledgeable program: coaching, diet, scheme, teaching, methods that will switch to the NFL. It can be an NFL program at a school degree and an schooling that will get the gamers prepared for his or her profession after soccer, whether or not that was the top of their school profession or the top of their professional profession.”
His son, Steve Belichick, spent the 2024 season as defensive coordinator at Washington. It is believed that the youthful Belichick having a considerable function in this system was a part of his father’s general pitch to the Tar Heels.
North Carolina posted 4 successful seasons in the newest six-year stint underneath Brown, together with 17 wins through the 2022-23 campaigns. He left because the winningest coach in program historical past with 113 victories.
