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CHARLOTTE — For a guy who accepted a $10 million a year contract, hired his son to a key coaching position, made his girlfriend the most famous ombudsman in college football and empowered his general manager to spend ridiculous amounts of money on mid-major players, Bill Belichick made a stunning admission Friday at ACC football media days.
Asked what he had learned about himself since becoming North Carolina's coach — kind of a humorous question in itself given who we're talking about — Belichick paused for a moment, filling the silence with an extended, "Ummmmmm."
"[I learned] that I like coaching in college," he said. "I didn't know whether I would or wouldn't. But I do."
It wasn't much of a mystery that Belichick ended up at North Carolina in the first place because no NFL team would hire him. But to admit that he took a college coaching job the way most of us try kombucha — maybe you'll like the taste, maybe you won't — explains a lot about why the Tar Heels looked the way they did last season.
Belichick won't say it quite so explicitly, but we will: A year ago at this time, he had absolutely no idea what he was getting into.
And it showed.
"It wasn't like I learned a new sport, like I'm coaching soccer or something," Belichick said. "The thing I learned the most about was just the people in the university that you build relationships with — the training staff, the academics, the people you work with in other departments, athletic directors. So it's working with everybody and trying to get things done as efficiently and quickly and productively as possible. They've all been great to work with, but there's also a learning curve."
When Belichick came to ACC media days last year, it felt like an event — arguably the greatest coach in NFL history entering a fascinating, experimental chapter of his career. But as The Hoodie enters his second season as a college coach, the hype is gone.
This time, there will be no Labor Day opener in prime time on ESPN, no viral photos of Jordon Hudson to set social media ablaze, no horde of national media parading to Chapel Hill. Not only is North Carolina back to being just another mediocre, uninteresting ACC team, but you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in college football who believes Belichick will find a way out of this mess other than eventually walking away.
The only thing that hasn't changed over the past 12 months is the schadenfreude.
"It seemed like everybody was kind of against us, everybody wanting to see Coach Belichick fail," receiver Jordan Shipp said. "Nobody [was] wanting to see him be successful in his first year of college football. Nobody wanted to see that."
Bill Belichick watches a college football game. (Kirby Lee-Imagn Images)
IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / REUTERS
There's something to Shipp's theory. Belichick and his buddy Michael Lombardi, the GM, came into college football with so much unearned arrogance that other coaching staffs took an unusual amount of glee in their 4-8 record. Lombardi calling UNC the "33rd NFL team" was like throwing chum into a shark tank when they spent big in the portal for a roster of players who largely weren't talented enough to compete in the ACC.
While Belichick's colleagues may have unending respect for what he accomplished in the NFL, they sure enjoyed watching him fall on his face last season.
"Yeah, I mean, same way in the NFL," Belichick said. "There was one team that liked us and 31 that didn't like us. The one year I was out of the NFL, everybody liked me. When I was in New England, the other 31 couldn't stand me. So, you know, [I've] been there before."
Belichick is often so buttoned-up and evasive that his press conferences can seem like a waste of time. But that wasn't the case Friday, even if some of the most important points were subtle.
Relaxed and seemingly in a good mood as he made the rounds here, Belichick painted a different picture from last year when he did little to tamp down expectations that they could compete at a high level right away.
Belichick is many things, but he's not dumb. Though some of North Carolina's slapdash roster building was out of necessity last season, it became clear that he could not simply take anyone out of the transfer portal and get them to play winning football just because he's got one of the best and most adaptable minds in the history of the game.
Yes, there are once again 60 new players at North Carolina, but Belichick hinted that he's settling in now for a more traditional, slower build instead of reaching for the quick fix.
"We brought in a lot of young players that are going to be good, but it's going to take a little bit of time," Belichick said. "We'll see how quickly they come along or don't. We'll see how that goes. The only expectations are to have good days and stack them together."
As bad as his first season was — the air was completely out of the balloon after a blowout loss to UCF in mid-September — it would be foolish to write Belichick off completely right now.
Though Belichick said all the right things in the whirlwind of his Carolina arrival and leadup to his first season, it's now clear that he hadn't thought deeply about building a college football program and didn't know what it would take relative to what he'd done in the NFL.
Again, he even admitted Friday that he wasn't sure before he took the job if he was going to like it!
But if you assume Belichick is still motivated by winning and not just generating a paycheck for his friends and family as he slides into his mid-70s, he has assuredly learned a lot in 12 months about college football writ large and the complications inherent to working on a college campus.
"It's just a different model," Belichick said. "Coming into a new organization, it's been a time investment, but it's certainly paying off now. Getting to know some of the donors, getting to know some of the other important support people in our program, that's all been part of it."
Carolina was so dysfunctional last season that it feels like the world has already written off any possibility that Belichick can make it work. But the most successful NFL coach of the modern era is still in Chapel Hill and enters his second season with less attention but more understanding of how tall a mountain he has to conquer.
If Belichick really has grown to like his new life in college football, this might be the true beginning of the climb.
Continue reading...
Asked what he had learned about himself since becoming North Carolina's coach — kind of a humorous question in itself given who we're talking about — Belichick paused for a moment, filling the silence with an extended, "Ummmmmm."
"[I learned] that I like coaching in college," he said. "I didn't know whether I would or wouldn't. But I do."
It wasn't much of a mystery that Belichick ended up at North Carolina in the first place because no NFL team would hire him. But to admit that he took a college coaching job the way most of us try kombucha — maybe you'll like the taste, maybe you won't — explains a lot about why the Tar Heels looked the way they did last season.
Belichick won't say it quite so explicitly, but we will: A year ago at this time, he had absolutely no idea what he was getting into.
And it showed.
"It wasn't like I learned a new sport, like I'm coaching soccer or something," Belichick said. "The thing I learned the most about was just the people in the university that you build relationships with — the training staff, the academics, the people you work with in other departments, athletic directors. So it's working with everybody and trying to get things done as efficiently and quickly and productively as possible. They've all been great to work with, but there's also a learning curve."
When Belichick came to ACC media days last year, it felt like an event — arguably the greatest coach in NFL history entering a fascinating, experimental chapter of his career. But as The Hoodie enters his second season as a college coach, the hype is gone.
This time, there will be no Labor Day opener in prime time on ESPN, no viral photos of Jordon Hudson to set social media ablaze, no horde of national media parading to Chapel Hill. Not only is North Carolina back to being just another mediocre, uninteresting ACC team, but you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in college football who believes Belichick will find a way out of this mess other than eventually walking away.
The only thing that hasn't changed over the past 12 months is the schadenfreude.
"It seemed like everybody was kind of against us, everybody wanting to see Coach Belichick fail," receiver Jordan Shipp said. "Nobody [was] wanting to see him be successful in his first year of college football. Nobody wanted to see that."
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Bill Belichick watches a college football game. (Kirby Lee-Imagn Images)
IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / REUTERS
There's something to Shipp's theory. Belichick and his buddy Michael Lombardi, the GM, came into college football with so much unearned arrogance that other coaching staffs took an unusual amount of glee in their 4-8 record. Lombardi calling UNC the "33rd NFL team" was like throwing chum into a shark tank when they spent big in the portal for a roster of players who largely weren't talented enough to compete in the ACC.
While Belichick's colleagues may have unending respect for what he accomplished in the NFL, they sure enjoyed watching him fall on his face last season.
"Yeah, I mean, same way in the NFL," Belichick said. "There was one team that liked us and 31 that didn't like us. The one year I was out of the NFL, everybody liked me. When I was in New England, the other 31 couldn't stand me. So, you know, [I've] been there before."
Belichick is often so buttoned-up and evasive that his press conferences can seem like a waste of time. But that wasn't the case Friday, even if some of the most important points were subtle.
Relaxed and seemingly in a good mood as he made the rounds here, Belichick painted a different picture from last year when he did little to tamp down expectations that they could compete at a high level right away.
Belichick is many things, but he's not dumb. Though some of North Carolina's slapdash roster building was out of necessity last season, it became clear that he could not simply take anyone out of the transfer portal and get them to play winning football just because he's got one of the best and most adaptable minds in the history of the game.
Yes, there are once again 60 new players at North Carolina, but Belichick hinted that he's settling in now for a more traditional, slower build instead of reaching for the quick fix.
"We brought in a lot of young players that are going to be good, but it's going to take a little bit of time," Belichick said. "We'll see how quickly they come along or don't. We'll see how that goes. The only expectations are to have good days and stack them together."
As bad as his first season was — the air was completely out of the balloon after a blowout loss to UCF in mid-September — it would be foolish to write Belichick off completely right now.
Though Belichick said all the right things in the whirlwind of his Carolina arrival and leadup to his first season, it's now clear that he hadn't thought deeply about building a college football program and didn't know what it would take relative to what he'd done in the NFL.
Again, he even admitted Friday that he wasn't sure before he took the job if he was going to like it!
But if you assume Belichick is still motivated by winning and not just generating a paycheck for his friends and family as he slides into his mid-70s, he has assuredly learned a lot in 12 months about college football writ large and the complications inherent to working on a college campus.
"It's just a different model," Belichick said. "Coming into a new organization, it's been a time investment, but it's certainly paying off now. Getting to know some of the donors, getting to know some of the other important support people in our program, that's all been part of it."
Carolina was so dysfunctional last season that it feels like the world has already written off any possibility that Belichick can make it work. But the most successful NFL coach of the modern era is still in Chapel Hill and enters his second season with less attention but more understanding of how tall a mountain he has to conquer.
If Belichick really has grown to like his new life in college football, this might be the true beginning of the climb.
Continue reading...
