The Tar Heels athletics program is going all-in on an experiment
You can’t help but give credit to UNC for their hiring of Bill Belichick. That’s a program that hasn’t been able to get over the hump since Mack Brown dumped them for Texas back in the 1990’s, experiencing just one great season since then – a fluke 2015 run under Larry Fedora. Even Mack returning to Chapel Hill to try to revive the glory days and having the two best quarterbacks (and three of the best running backs) in school history at his disposal couldn’t pull the Tar Heels program out of mediocrity.
I’m sure losing four in a row (and seven of the last nine) to an NC State program that UNC routinely tops in the recruiting rankings didn’t help sentiments on that campus in Orange County.
So the Tar Heels dysfunctional brass pulled a move that could either be called desperate or incredibly forward thinking: they handed the keys to a 72-year-old curmudgeon with no college coaching experience whom the NFL casted aside despite his successful track record in that league.
Make no mistake, with the financial investment UNC is putting into this experiment – and that’s the absolute best way to describe this – Belichick now holds in his hands the future of the entire athletics program.
Basically, UNC had in it’s garage a classic truck that needed some work. You know, that one that doesn’t quite run right but everyone always says – especially every summer – could be amazing if in the right hands.
Well, in walks the 72-year-old drunk uncle who lays out an absurdly aggressive plan. “Give me a bunch of money, I’m going to get some of my friends together, we’re going to load this thing up with fireworks, shoot some starter fluid in the intake, and come hauling out of that garage in an amazing display this place has never seen before.”
And, hey – it could be an amazing result and exactly as described and expected.
Or it could burn the whole house down.
Time will tell, but it shouldn’t take long. Time is the one thing this level of financial investment will not afford Belichick and the decision makers who signed off on this. When you’re paying a coach at the level of college football’s elite, results better come quick. The patience will run even thinner when you’re increasing your NIL contribution for the football program fivefold, putting you up there on level with the highest spending program across all of college football for 2024.
And maybe nothing happens. Maybe the drunk uncle takes that wad of cash you just gave him and leaves before doing anything (or more hilarious, just hands the keys over to his mullet loving son). If that happens, the downstream ramifications to the rest of the Tar Heels athletics programs will be devastating. It would also likely lead to a cleaning of house from the UNC Board down to the Athletics Director.
Regardless of the outcome, this is going to be interesting to watch.