Bill Belichick Reaches Deal to Coach at North Carolina

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Bill Belichick, who has proven himself as a championship coach in the NFL, will look to repeat it in the college football ranks at the University of North Carolina. Belichick and the Atlantic Coast Conference school reached an agreement on Dec. 11 on a five-year contract for $30 million, Yahoo Sports reported. The UNC Board of Regents will have to vote in order to officially make Belichick, already tabbed as "Chapel Bill," the program's next coach. Belichick, 72, will take over for Mack Brown, 73, who was fired by the school after his second tenure as Tar Heels head coach. The Athletic, NFL Network reporter Ian Rapoport and ESPN NFL reporter Adam Schefter all reported that the deal between Belichick and UNC had been done.

Belichick has been an NFL head coach with the Cleveland Browns and New England Patriots and, well, for a brief moment with the New York Jets. Before reaching an incredible level of success in New England, Belichick worked as an assistant coach in the pro ranks. Most notably, he was a part of a Super Bowl-winning staff under Bill Parcells at the New York Giants.

Still, NFL fans have watched "The Hoodie" work his coaching magic in Foxboro, Mass. Thanks to players like quarterback Tom Brady and tight end Rob Gronkowski, the Patriots won six Super Bowl championships. He also was a part of two other Super Bowl teams as an assistant coach with the Giants. Belichick is known to have an almost savant-like knowledge of pro football. In the year spent out of the NFL, he made numerous media appearances on "Inside the NFL," Westwood One Radio's "Let's Go," and regular appearances on ESPN's "ManningCast" show on "Monday Night Football."

Bill Belichick Stayed in the Spotlight

Belichick had interviews with some NFL teams for their head coaching vacancies. Nothing was finalized, though, so he spent time sharing his knowledge and wisdom on some high-profile sports shows. He is currently 18 games short of reaching Miami Dolphins legend Don Shula's NFL victory mark of 351. It looks like that has been put on the back burner at this time. There has been some word spread over the past few days that any deal Belichick reached would include a stipulation that Stephen Belichick, his son and an assistant football coach in his own right, could get the head coaching job when his father stepped aside.

Word also had been spread around that Belichick had prepared a hundreds-pages-long "bible" of some sort, detailing his plans and outlines for running a college football program. Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban, who has a number of college national championships to his name, is a longtime friend of Belichick's.

While it might be hard to see how Belichick could pull off coaching college kids, he's not going into the role blind at all. On Dec. 9, Belichick confirmed in an appearance on McAfee's show that he'd spoken with North Carolina officials. When talking openly about the ever-changing college football landscape, with the NIL influence growing stronger, Belichick was pointed in his comments.

Belichick Spoke on College Football

"You have salary cap and negotiations with NFL agents," he told McAfee. "In college, you have negotiations with whoever represents the player whether that's a family member, a high school coach, an agent or some other financial adviser, whoever it is. You have players changing teams in college as you have players that can change teams in the NFL with a different set of rules but the same general structure. And you have to value your players in some way because you have a limited amount of money whatever the revenue share is."

Even though no deal had been reached when Belichick spoke with McAfee, he did offer his thoughts about what a college program would look like under his leadership. "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," he said. "It would be a professional program—training, nutrition, scheme, coaching technique—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 whether that was the end of their college career or the end of their pro career."

North Carolina finished 6-6 in the regular season under Brown. The school got rid of him before the Tar Heels' final regular-season game, which he did coach. UNC run game coordinator and tight ends coach assistant coach Freddie Kitchens, who also has some NFL experience on his resume, will coach the team in the Fenway Bowl on Dec. 28.

Then, a new reign of coaching excellence will take hold in Chapel Hill, N.C.