Bill Belichick is returning to the sidelines after a one-year break from coaching. But it won’t be in the NFL as many expected. Instead, the six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach is taking a surprising turn to college football and will helm North Carolina’s Tar Heels program.
North Carolina announced that Belichick agreed to a five-year deal to be the new Tar Heels head coach. The agreement is reportedly worth $50 million.
Belichick never coached at the college level. However, he has ties with North Carolina as his father, Steve Belichick, served as Tar Heels assistant coach in the 1950s.
“I grew up around college football with my dad and treasured those times,” Belichick said in a press release. “I have always wanted to coach in college and now I look forward to building the football program in Chapel Hill.”
After parting ways with the New England Patriots at the end of the 2023 NFL season, Belichick found little interest from other NFL teams. He only interviewed with the Atlanta Falcons, which ended up going with Raheem Morris instead.
Belichick spent the 2024 season working on television and was widely expected to be a top candidate for one of the head coaching vacancies in the NFL this upcoming winter. However, it appears that Belichick grew tired of waiting and went with the first coaching opportunity he received.
It is unclear whether the move to college football means that Belichick gave up on pursuing Don Shula’s all-time wins record. Belichick has 333 wins as a head coach and needed just 15 more to jump over Shula, who is sitting at the top with 347 wins.
At North Carolina, Belichick will be tasked to bring back a struggling program back to relevance. Tar Heels won their last ACC title in 1980 and haven’t won a Bowl game since 2019. They went 6-6 under legendary coach Mack Brown in 2024.
