Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
CHAPEL HILL, NC (WNCN) – One of the greatest to ever work the sidelines on the gridiron is set to join the college ranks in Chapel Hill.
Legendary NFL coach Bill Belichickwho led the New England Patriots to six Super Bowl titles, the next football coach is staying on University of North Carolinaaccording to Ian Rapoport by NFL Network and NFL.com.
“The deal is done,” Rapoport wrote on social media around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The 72-year-old coach stepped away from football this year after parting ways with the Patriots after the 2023 season. CBS 17 first learned of Belichick’s consideration Inside Carolina.
He is ready to replace Mack Brownwho was fired almost two weeks ago after six years at the helm of the Tar Heels. Under Brown’s guidance, UNC compiled a 44-33 overall record during his second stint at the school, finishing 6-6 this season.
Brown, who was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2018, finished his time with the Tar Heels as the winningest coach among active FBS head coaches, accumulating a career record of 282-149 between his stints at Tulane, Texas and UNC. The 73-year-old also finished his tenure winning a program-record 113 games.
UNC tight ends coach and running game coordinator Freddie kitchensa former head coach of the Cleveland Browns, is currently slated as the Tar Heels’ interim coach in preparation for their upcoming bowl game against UConn later this month.
Belichick, who is only about seven months younger than Brown, arrives at UNC amid a turbulent and ever-changing landscape in college football, amid the rise of name, image and likeness (NIL) deals for student-athletes as well as free player movement through the transfer portal era.
He even has that less connection to the universitydating back to the time of his father, Steve Belichickspent two seasons as UNC’s backfield coach between 1953 and 1955. A photo of Belichick inside Kenan Memorial Stadium as a child went viral on Monday after being shared during a media appearance on ESPN.
This is the first time Belichick has ever worked at the collegiate level, following monumental success alongside quarterback Tom Brady throughout most of his historic 24-year tenure with the Patriots. Since leaving New England, he has been in the running for other NFL job openings, most notably the Atlanta Falcons back in January.
On Monday, the Super Bowl-winning coach appeared on “The Pat McAfee Show” and said he had “a couple of good conversations” with the UNC chancellor Lee Roberts amid recent speculation that he is linked to the job opening.
“I’ve had the opportunity to speak with Chancellor Roberts and we’ve had a couple of good conversations,” Belichick said. “So we’ll see how it goes.”
While he didn’t go into detail about his UNC discussions, Belichick broke down the parallels between overseeing an NFL franchise and running a college program, especially now that players can benefit from their athletic feats with endorsements and revenue sharing on the horizon .
“If I was in a college program, the college program would be a pipeline to the NFL for those players who had the ability to play in the NFL,” Belichick said Monday. “It would be a professional program: training, nutrition, plan, coaching, techniques that would transfer to the NFL.”
“It would be a college-level NFL program,” he added.
The exact contract details regarding Belichick’s hiring are unknown at this time.
