Belichick is going back to school, but this time as a coach. Bill Belichick will become the next coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels, sources close to the situation told CBS Sports NFL Insider Jonathan Jones. The six-time Super Bowl champion with the New England Patriots, who has never coached a down of football at the collegiate level in any capacity, will take over the No. 1 coaching position on the open market.
Belichick agreed to a three-year, $30 million deal, according to The Athletic. Previous coach Mack Brown salary was $5 million per season.
Inside Carolina was the first outlet to report Belichick’s candidacy and that he was finalizing a deal with UNC on Wednesday. North Carolina’s Board of Trustees is reportedly set to approve Belichick’s contract on Thursday.
Belichick’s growing interest in the Tar Heels coaching vacancy was the first known interaction he had with a college job since mutually deciding to part ways with Patriots after the 2023 campaign. He has been recharging his batteries and is still involved in the game that he has devoted five decades of his life to, spending the 2024 season on the media side; however, ESPN reported in September that Belichick had aspirations to return to the sidelines in 2025.
The hire comes after North Carolina fired Brown, 73, following six seasons in his second tour of duty with the program. Brown was the only FBS coach over the age of 70; Belichick, who is eight months younger, will be embarking on a new challenge, his first job coaching college football at any level.
Belichick is regarded as the greatest coach in NFL history, winning six Super Bowls as a head coach and two more as defensive coordinator. He took home three AP NFL Coach of the Year awards during a legendary 24-year run with the Patriots and holds NFL records for most Super Bowl appearances (nine), playoff wins (19) and division titles (17) as a coach. In total, he spent 49 years coaching in the NFL.
Belichick is in an elite group, along with Don Shula and George ’Papa Bear’ Halas as the only coaches in NFL history to eclipse 300 wins, and now, Belichick will likely end his NFL career standing 14 wins short of Shula’s all-time career victories record.
There was wide speculation around the NFL community that Belichick would not seriously think about moving to the collegiate ranks when his interview with North Carolina was first reported. However, Belichick must have blown the UNC brass away and expressed the willingness to deal with the pitfalls and realities of today’s version of college football.
Embed from Getty Images“He has literally been open to all of it,” a source told CBS Sports’ Jones.
The addition of Belichick is a pivotal moment for North Carolina, an athletic department best known for their legendary men’s basketball program, notably under Dean Smith and Roy Williams and huge success in non-revenue sports. He comes into the locker room with instant credibility, even beyond what Brown brought as a national championship-winning coach, to the football team given his incredible NFL career.
Some may place the importance of Belichick’s hiring for football alongside UNC’s luring of basketball coach Williams away from Kansas University in 2003. Now the question is how Belichick will transition to the modern college football world, including recruiting, NIL and staff building.
Belichick on Monday confirmed his talks with North Carolina during an interview on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show.” While he declined to go into specific details at the time, he was transparent about his perspective of how to operate a college football program in the modern era.
“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. “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 the end of their pro career.”
His son, Steve Belichick, spent the 2024 season as defensive coordinator at Washington. It is believed that the younger Belichick having a significant role in the program was a condition of the older Belichick taking the job and was part of his overall pitch to the Tar Heels.
North Carolina had moderate success with four winning seasons in the most recent six-year stint under Brown, including 17 wins during the 2022-23 campaigns. He departed as the winningest coach in program history with 113 victories.
