Legendary NFL coach Bill Belichick confirmed Monday during an interview on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show” that he has had conversations with North Carolina and school chancellor Lee Harriss Roberts on filling the head coaching vacancy for the Tar Heels. Sources told ESPN that talks between UNC and Belichick, 73, are ongoing and it is expected that some type of resolution either way will be determined this week. Belichick said: “We’ve had a couple of good conversations. We’ll see how it goes.”
Belichick, an eight-time Super Bowl winner, earned the NFL’s top prize twice as a defensive coordinator with the New York Giants from 1985-90 and led the New England Patriots to six Super Bowl wins during his 23-year tenure as head coach. Through his stints with the Patriots and the Cleveland Browns, Belichick has an overall 302-165 record — the second all-time head coach wins in the NFL.
Belichick has not coached since 2023 when he led the New England Patriots to a 4-13 record, with the coach and the Patriots agreeing to mutually part ways in January 2024. Belichick has also said he’s open to a return to coaching: “I think anytime as a coach you join with an organization, whether it’s — whatever level it’s at, you just want to share a vision with that person. Talking through a lot of things — I don’t think it really matters where the program is. There are a lot of things that go into that. Team building and the structure of the program and so forth that take some time to just talk through. It’s a discussion. It’s not an argument or a debate. It’s just understanding what resources are available. What we need. How does that mix together? Who’s working for who? That’s all pretty common. Every interview I’ve had has had an element of that in it. This will be no different. Whatever the organization or team is, there still has to be a structure to it and I’d say a common vision for it to work well.”
Belichick also noted in the interview that he has spent the last year studying college football and paying closer attention to its inner workings, and laid out his vision if he gets the opportunity to run a college program: “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. 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 leve 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.”
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