We’re onto Chapel Hill.

In a program-defining move, North Carolina hired former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick as its football coach. The school made an official announcement Wednesday night.

The school said Belichick has agreed to a five-year deal. The UNC Board of Trustees is expected to meet Thursday morning to approve the contract, a necessary step in formalizing the hire, according to WRAL sources.

The 72-year-old Belichick is a six-time Super Bowl champion as a head coach. He is known for his meticulous preparation, taciturn media appearances and fashion-less hoodies. Belichick has never coached in college, but he has the second-most victories in NFL history with 333, including the playoffs.

“I am excited for the opportunity at UNC-Chapel Hill,” Belichick said in a statement. “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, was an assistant coach for the Tar Heels for three seasons in the mid-1950s.

Sources told WRAL early on Wednesday that the board was expected to meet that day and were optimistic about the chances of completing the hire.

“This is an exciting day for Carolina football and our University,” Chancellor Lee H. Roberts said. “Carolina is committed to excellence and to creating an opportunity to succeed in everything we do, from the classroom to the field of competition. I know after speaking with Coach Belichick that he shares that commitment. His legacy speaks for itself, and we look forward to working together on the next chapter of Carolina football.”

UNC offered Belichick the job earlier this week.

“We know that college athletics is changing, and those changes require new and innovative thinking,” UNC athletics director Bubba Cunningham said in a statement. “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 Tar Heels fired the 73-year-old Brown on Nov. 25, days before the regular-season finale against NC State. Brown coached UNC in that game, which NC State won.

Belichick has emerged as the focal point of the search in recent days. He said Monday during a television appearance that he’d had “good conversations” with Roberts.

UNC has not won an ACC football title since 1980.

“It’ll have people talking about Carolina football,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper told WRAL on Wednesday.

Cooper is a UNC alum.

“When usually you talk about sports you’re talking about Carolina basketball or Carolina women’s soccer or Carolina women’s field hockey,” Cooper said. “But Carolina football hasn’t gotten the attention lately. So, it’ll be interesting to see how this works out, if it in fact does.”

UNC has been discussing Belichick’s potential candidacy for more than a month. He was part of an initial list of 30 or so potential candidates to replace Brown and has emerged as the leading candidate.

Belichick’s camp reached out to the school.

His resume is sparkling — nine Super Bowl appearances as a head coach, two more Super Bowl wins as a defensive coordinator — but his lack of college experience is glaring.

Belichick was let go by the Patriots after the 2023 season and did not land another NFL job. He has spent the year talking football on various shows and podcasts, morphing his persona from grumpy coach into football savant and game historian.

Belichick has made his first hire. Michael Lombardi announced that he was coming to Chapel Hill to be the program’s general manager.

“I’m excited to join Coach Belichick at North Carolina,” said Lombardi in an announcement posted by VSIN, his current employer.

Belichick’s son, Steve, is the University of Washington’s defensive coordinator and Belichick spent time around the program in 2024. His father, Steve, was a long-time college coach and scout at Navy. He coached at UNC from 1953 to 1955 when Bill was a toddler.

“I’ve had a chance this year to take a longer look at college football during the college season, as opposed to in the spring from the draft perspective, and that’s been interesting, as well as staying up with pro football,” Belichick said Monday during an appearance on the “Pat McAfee Show.” “It’s been a good year for me. I’ve learned a lot.”

Several NFL teams have head coaching vacancies, including the New York Jets, Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints. Other teams, such as the Dallas Cowboys, Jacksonville Jaguars, Las Vegas Raiders and New York Giants, could fire their coaches after lackluster seasons. Belichick could have been a candidate to land one of those jobs, but he faces concerns about his age and desire for organizational control.

“He wants to coach,” ESPN’s Adam Schefter said Monday on the “Pat McAfee Show.” “He’s been great this year as a media darling and media star, and he can keep doing that if he wants. But, at his core, in his soul, he’s a football coach.”

The college game is moving rapidly toward a more professional model — with general managers and personnel directors tasked with managing rosters that rely increasingly on transfers from other colleges. With the expected introduction of revenue sharing directly from the school to players, teams will have to decide how and to whom to allocate that money, almost like a NFL salary cap.

Despite the dramatic changes over the last few years — and those to come — the college game is not exactly the NFL. If he were to run a college team, Belichick plans to merge the two.

“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 Monday. “It would be a professional program: training, nutrition, scheme, coaching techniques that would transfer to the NFL. It will 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 at the end of their pro career.

“But it would be geared toward developing the player, time management, discipline, structure, and all that. That would be life skills, regardless of whether in the NFL or somewhere in business.”

The search further exposed friction between the athletic department’s leadership and John Preyer, the chairman of the school’s Board of Trustees. A senior official told WRAL that the antics of certain members of the board prolonged the search. The search was characterized as “scattered” (ESPN), “conflicting ideas and agendas” (Sports Illustrated) and “disagreement and dysfunction” (The Athletic) in various national outlets.

Cunningham and Preyer were two of four people on the final search committee, though Roberts played a large role.

“Anytime, as a coach, you join with an organization, whatever level it’s at, you just want a shared vision with that person,” Belichick said Monday. “What are your goals? What are your expectations? What do you need to achieve those? How do we achieve them?”

The Tar Heels have struggled for sustained success throughout their history. Brown, who coached UNC for 16 seasons over two stints, is the school’s all-time leader in coaching victories.

The new 12-team College Football Playoff has opened the door for more programs to compete for the national title, but access still requires an ACC title or a top-10 ranking. ACC newcomer SMU reached the conference title game and qualified for the 12-team playoff this season. Other non-traditional powers like Indiana and Arizona State won their way into the playoff.

“How do we get to 10, 11 (wins)? Who can get us to that level?” UNC athletics director Bubba Cunningham said earlier in the search. “ … We need somebody to come in and take us from good to great. How do we compete for championships, ACC and national championships? And I think we can do that.”

During Brown’s six seasons back in Chapel Hill, spending on football more than doubled from $21.8 million to more than $44.7 million. The program added 13 non-coaching positions in that time to aid in coaching, recruiting and support.

UNC qualified for six consecutive bowl games under Brown, who recruited two NFL-caliber quarterbacks in Sam Howell and Drake Maye. The Tar Heels were ranked in the top-10 in two different seasons under Brown, but collapsed late in the season both times. The Tar Heels have won more than nine games in a season just once (11-3 in 2015) since 1997, the last year of Brown’s first stint in Chapel Hill.

The Belichick hire could, school officials are hoping, provide the kind of buzz and donations needed to carry the program higher. Colorado’s hiring of Deion Sanders resulted in higher attendance, greater recruiting and, this season, a 9-3 season. Unlike Sanders, Belichick does not have a first-round NFL prospect son to plug in at quarterback.

“Definitely opens my eyes a lot more for UNC,” Keshawn Stancil, a four-star defensive line prospect from Clayton told HighSchoolOT. “I mean, shoot, it’s Bill Belichick, six-time Super Bowl champ as a coach. So it’ll be pretty interesting throughout the process.”

Another top recruit, Noah Clark told HighSchoolOT: “UNC has replaced a great coach with a great coach and can’t wait to meet the staff and talk to them.”

What he does have is a history of winning. Belichick won two Super Bowls as the New York Giants defensive coordinator from 1985 to 1990, coaching UNC legend Lawrence Taylor. He was the head coach for the Cleveland Browns from 1991 to 1995, reaching the playoffs once. After a stint as the New York Jets defensive coordinator, Belichick took over in New England, where he — along with quarterback Tom Brady — won six Super Bowls and reached another three over a 20-year period.

Belichick coached four seasons without Brady at quarterback to middling results before departing New England.

Belichick is not the first coach to win multiple Super Bowls and then coach a college team. Bill Walsh won several titles with the San Francisco 49ers before returning to Stanford in 1992. Walsh coached Stanford in 1977 and 1978 before moving to the NFL. More recently, Jim Harbaugh has found success in both college football (Stanford, Michigan) and the NFL (49ers and Chargers). He took the 49ers to the Super Bowl and won the 2023 national championship at Michigan.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Wednesday that had talks broken down between UNC and Belichick that Cleveland Browns passing game specialist and tight ends coach Tommy Rees, 32, was the favorite to get the job. Rees, a former offensive coordinator at Notre Dame and Alabama, interviewed twice for the job, according to Schefter.

Among other coaches who have been mentioned as potential candidates or were interviewed by the school: Tulane’s Jon Sumrall, Army’s Jeff Monken, UNC interim coach Freddie Kitchens, Iowa State’s Matt Campbell, Georgia defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann and former NFL coach Steve Wilks.

The Tar Heels (6-6) will play Connecticut in the Fenway Bowl in Boston on Dec. 28. UNC is scheduled to open the 2025 season — and possibly the Belichick era — against TCU on Aug. 30 at Kenan Memorial Stadium.

Source: wral.com