The Cost Of Hiring Bill Belichick Was Not Worth This Mess For North Carolina's Future

No wonder North Carolina had what was seemingly an internal split over whether to hire Bill Belichick as the next head coach in Chapel Hill after firing Mack Brown. 

What was one of the most surprising hires in college football history has quickly turned into one of the most puzzling storylines of the season. Six weeks in, plenty of people around Chapel Hill are already wondering what this is going to look like moving forward — and the early signs aren’t promising.

If you couldn't tell from the pictures coming out of Chapel Hill during the game against Clemson on Saturday, it should come as no surprise that this is already trending in the wrong direction. 

But if folks were paying attention to the summer blitz of bad public relations centered around Bill Belichick's girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, there was nothing normal about Belichick becoming the head coach at North Carolina.  

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From the moment Belichick’s name entered the mix, there was tension inside the North Carolina athletic department. Athletic director Bubba Cunningham reportedly wanted an established college coach, while several board members pushed hard for Belichick after he expressed interest. 

In the end, the money won out, with the North Carolina athletic director getting onboard with the thought process, so long as boosters were helping pay for the lucrative contract and providing the NIL funds needed to build a football team. 

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Did North Carolina show its fans anything on Saturday against Clemson that would give them hope for the future? Absolutely not. You can bet Mack Brown was watching from home, maybe even laughing as Belichick tried to rally his overwhelmed team.

Was Belichick really the best they could do? No. But the PR boost and ticket sales made the hire irresistible to UNC officials. For a brief moment, it worked — sponsorships surged and the hype around Chapel Hill was intoxicating.

From an outside perspective, there were plenty of people taking the "wait and see" approach, given that Belichick was going to rebuild the football team by adding over forty new players to the roster through the portal, along with high school recruits. 

UNC thought Belichick could pull off what Deion Sanders did at Colorado: flip a roster, draw national attention, and rebuild overnight. The problem? The Tar Heels don’t have a Travis Hunter or a Shedeur Sanders to carry the hype.

But, for Belichick, he wanted to be the NFL's ‘33rd Team’, which now seems like a pipe-dream. 

Since the season-opening loss to TCU, the football program has now turned into what is essentially a meme. I sometimes wonder if Bubba Cunningham is sitting on his phone, deciding whether to send that text message to board members that would read ‘Are You Happy Now?’. 

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Best Thing Would Be For UNC To Start Over 

If Bill Belichick was using this college football experience as a springboard back to the NFL, you could scratch that goal off the list. Right now, the North Carolina football program cannot be taken seriously, and that's a problem the school cannot run from. 

I think by now we can see where this is headed. Belichick would have given it the ol' college try, but set back the program for years. If he were to actually turn things around for the Tar Heels, he had better figure it out quick, because how he's doing it right now isn't working. 

It's one thing to get embarrassed on national television in the season-opener against TCU, it's another thing to have fans exiting the stadium with one half of football still to be played against Clemson. 

Sure it would take a lot of people that pushed for this hire to admit a mistake was made. But, if you're truly thinking in the best interest of North Carolina, then asking for forgiveness is undoubtedly the best route. 

The hype-train is headed for a colossal wreck. Maybe the only way to fix it is admitting you have a problem. 

Eight months ago, you had North Carolina fans excited about football. Now all they want is for the basketball season to begin. 

Who could have seen this coming?