Many people are saying that college football isn’t ready for Bill Belichick. But the real question is, is Belichick ready for college football?
It’s not like he lacks experience. In case you forgot, Belichick won eight Super Bowls in his NFL coaching career, and he ranks second in wins all time by a coach in that league. He knows how to win, that’s not the issue, and he should get a lot more as the head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels. The problem is that coaching is a far different beast at the collegiate level.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Head Coach Bill Belichick of the North Carolina Tar Heels speaks to the media during a press conference on December 12, 2024. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
Read: Top Recruits Reveal Whether They'd Want To Play For Bill Belichick
Thanks to NIL and the transfer portal, the college game now provides players more leverage to make decisions about where they commit – and if they want to stay. While that’s not all bad, it can certainly create some player-coach dynamics that Belichick is not used to.
Plus, there’s recruiting, an area that’s completely different than the NFL. In the pros, you just tell players to come, in college, you have to work way harder to get players to join your program. That aspect is what makes former college coaching great Nick Saban think that Belichick (his good friend) might face a really hard time adapting to the college game.
"The difference in college is, how do you bring guys to the team? It’s different drafting guys than having to recruit them, because recruiting is like a full-time, relationship-building, 365-days-a-year [effort] in terms of not only evaluating the players that you want but creating relationships with them to get them," Saban said.
This, and the NIL aspect, is what I think will make Belichick’s time in Chapel Hill challenging. I’m not saying that Belichick couldn’t do it, but even Saban, the best college coach ever, left the game in large part because of how much NIL and the transfer portal (on top of the exhausting recruiting trail) changed the game.
Belichick’s tenure with the Tar Heels is probably going to go one of two ways: either North Carolina will be a CFP contender, or it will at most get four wins per year. We will see in a very short time how it all shakes out.
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