Sweatshirt-wearing fans in the greater Chapel Hill area can begin cutting their sleeves; Bill Belichick is coming to town.
The eight-time Super Bowl champion and future first-ballot Hall of Famer has signed a five-year deal to become the next head coach at the University of North Carolina, the university announced on Wednesday.
The five-year deal is pending approval by the University’s Board of Trustees and Board of Governors.
Belichick, 72, has no experience coaching in the college ranks. He has been an analyst and guest host on ESPN’s ManningCast this year since leaving the Patriots at the end of the 2023-2024 season. During his 24-year tenure as head coach in New England, Belichick guided the Patriots to nine Super Bowl appearances and six championships.
In addition, he holds the record for most Super Bowl wins (8), six with New England and two as a defensive coordinator with the New York Giants. Belichick is a three-time AP NFL Coach of the Year (2003, 2007, 2010) and enjoys a lifetime .652 winning percentage. His 333 wins put him only 14 behind the all-time NFL wins leader, Don Shula.
Now, Belichick will start from scratch in the wins column.
However, despite his inexperience in coaching in the college ranks, he carries with him treasured memories of college football from his early years when his father coached as an assistant at UNC.
“I am excited for the opportunity at UNC-Chapel Hill,” Belichick said in the UNC press release. “I grew up around college football with my Dad and treasured those times. I have always wanted to coach in college and now I look forward to building the football program in Chapel Hill.”
Belichick’s father, Steve, served two years as an assistant at North Carolina (1953-1955) before heading to Annapolis and coaching at Navy, where he would spend the next three decades.
North Carolina fired their previous head coach, Mack Brown, before the end of the season.
“We know that college athletics is changing, and those changes require new and innovative thinking,” said UNC Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham. “Bill Belichick is a football legend, and hiring him to lead our program represents a new approach that will ensure Carolina football can evolve, compete and win — today and in the future. At Carolina, we believe in providing championship opportunities and the best experience possible for our student-athletes, and Coach Belichick shares that commitment. We are excited to welcome him to Chapel Hill.”
The University of North Carolina has been known almost exclusively as a basketball school. The hire of Belichick – the most accomplished coach in the history of the NFL – puts the football program at a visibility level on par with its far more famous team on the court.
Will Belichick bring the football team the same level of success the basketball team has enjoyed?
Anyone’s guess is as good as anyone else’s. News that Belichick interviewed for the job was greeted with skepticism and even became the source of jokes among his former players, given his gruff style and the apparent contradiction that posed to the world of college football, where a coach has to “win the livingroom” by selling himself and his program to an athlete and his family.
However, college football has changed.
Players make money now and are motivated to go where they can make the most money. The athletes are also mobile, with thousands of players hitting the portal yearly. In short, college football has become a heck of a lot more like the NFL than it ever has been. It could be precisely this changed environment—along with a desire to take on a new adventure—that makes Belichick believe he can succeed on the college gridiron.
On Monday, Belichick outlined his vision for using his NFL experience to make North Carolina a success.
“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 explained. “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.”
Next, Belichick will assemble his staff, which is expected to include his son Steve, who served as defensive coordinator at Washington in 2024.