All eyes are on Bill Belichick after North Carolina hired the man considered the most accomplished coach in NFL history to lead the Tar Heels football program.
It’s a first for Belichick, who has eight Super Bowl championships as a head coach and coordinator, as he’s never held a position with a college team.
His counterparts in the ACC, like everyone else, are interested to see how this develops.
“How Bill adjusts to the structure of the college game is gonna be crucial,” one unnamed ACC football coach told Athlon Sports.
He added: “It’s less time you get with the players, which means it’s less football intelligence.”
College football coaches do get less time to discuss strategy with their players than in the NFL thanks to NCAA rules, limiting that exposure to just 20 hours per week during the season and 8 hours per week during the offseason.
Compare that with the upwards of 14 hours per day NFL players can get in training, so Belichick will have far less opportunity to instruct his players to his liking.
Another key aspect that could predict Belichick’s success or failure is how well or poorly North Carolina embraces the NIL revolution.
Belichick suggested he would push the school to drastically increase its spending on football recruitment and raise UNC’s profile to something like a semi-pro organization.
“They’ve been vocal about criticizing other programs on how they spend and evaluate. There’s talk about how they’re going to become an advanced, pro-level scouting program that implements NIL better. We’ll see,” another coach said.
He added: “We do expect a better overall haul from these guys in high school recruiting than from Mack [Brown], at least until the novelty wears off or Bill gets a bad reputation.”
Some PR experts might say Belichick is already in a reputation deficit, but not because of anything he’s done or not done relating to the X’s and O’s.
The big story around Belichick this offseason has been his relationship with Jordon Hudson, the woman he describes in his new book as his “idea mill” and “creative muse”, and whose presence around the coach has been a hot topic.
There has been growing scrutiny around Hudson’s influence over Belichick in her role as his perceived publicist and handler, and the negative perceptions it has occasionally brought the North Carolina football program.
That interest was fueled in part by the age gap between the two ─ Belichick is 73 and Hudson is 24 ─ but surged after Hudson’s profile increased in the months following Belichick being hired as UNC’s football coach.
And while she or North Carolina clearly haven’t enjoyed all that exposure, it’s likely going to continue at least until the start of football season, when most of the attention will move to what kind of team Belichick is able to put on the field.
Belichick denied that Hudson plays any role involving his management of the football program.
“Honestly,” another ACC coach said, “no one really has any idea what to expect on the field when they start this season.”
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