Until the North Carolina Tar Heels make their 2025 on-field debut against the TCU Horned Frogs on Monday September 1st, any sort of read on just how successful the Bill Belichick era in Chapel Hill will be is purely speculative. But hey, it’s June, and there’s nothing to do but speculate at this point, so let’s have a go at it, shall we?
Even if you’re able to tune out all of the noise related to Belichick’s suddenly high-profile love life and instead just focus on the stuff that matters, it’s still relatively unclear just how competitive the Tar Heels can be right out of the gate. With the announcement of the departure of previous head coach Mack Brown, it was expected that there would be an exodus of talent regardless of who was named North Carolina’s next head coach.
That assumption turned out to be accurate. The Tar Heels roster was completely overturned, but in a strange way, this new reality of college sports – where most programs are decimated by the transfer portal – could actually turn out to be a built-in advantage for Belichick, his general manager Michael Lombardi, and the Tar Heels.
“It’s an area that (general manager Michael Lombardi) and I are very familiar with,” Belichick said of the transfer portal during a recent press conference, according to Chandler Vessels of On3. “We’ve spent a lot of time in that free agency space over the course of our careers in the NFL. I think the biggest difference in college is the volume. There are just so many players. The college portal is in the thousands.”
Predictably, the selling point that North Carolina is pitching to prospects is one that highlights the strength of Belichick both as a head coach and recruiter.
“What we’re selling is to be a pro,” Belichick said. “To be a pro on the field, to be a pro off the field in terms of life learning and, of course the academics here are outstanding. So, we’ll get players ready to go to the next level. Whether that’s training, scheme, fundamentals, preparation, film, situation football. All those things. That’s what we do and that’s what we’re selling. Most kids are interested in that. They really are. So we’ve had great buy in.”
So far, 42 players have bought in since Belichick’s arrival, giving Carolina one of the largest transfer portal hauls in the country. But it’s not just the quantity that makes the Tar Heels stand out, it’s the quality of the player they’ve brought in. According to On3, the Tar Heels have the 8th-ranked transfer class in the country this year, trailing only Miami in the ACC.