With two of the closest people to him gone, the inner circle that Bill Belichick built at North Carolina looks rather different now. Plus, the culture inside the football program has also become a much bigger conversation now. But dwelling on what has happened is not Belichick’s style. He is already here, talking plans!
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“There will be a plan in place to continue to make our workplace function at a high standard and do everything the right way,” Belichick said Monday. “That’s our goal: to do things the right way and be productive and consistent doing them.”
Now, that might sound simple, but there is a lot sitting behind it. UNC spent nearly two months investigating its football program, interviewed more than 60 people, and then announced that “certain actions demonstrated a disregard for Carolina’s values and standards of conduct.” The university, meanwhile, said those actions were “isolated in scope and not a systemic failure.”
Of course, that does bring the question: if problems were isolated, why did two of the most important people around him leave? Lombardi, the program’s general manager, resigned Sept. 3. Steve Belichick, Bill’s son and defensive coordinator, resigned when the university announced the investigation had concluded. Steve had already been on medical leave since Aug. 6 and is expected to depart when that leave ends in late October.
Those are not small departures we are talking about. Lombardi was one of the key figures in Belichick’s move from the NFL to Chapel Hill, while Steve spent more than a decade working alongside his father in New England before joining him at North Carolina.
Losing both in the span of a few weeks has left Belichick with a very different operation around him. Still, one thing has not changed, which is that Belichick remains North Carolina’s head coach. And UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts made the university’s support clear recently while also making sure Belichick understood that their support comes with expectations.
“Coach Belichick continues to have our support, the support of the administration and of the board [of trustees],” Roberts said last week, per CBS. “He understands that support comes with expectations around conduct and behavior. Nobody understands that better than Coach Belichick.”
So far, UNC has not released a written report detailing those findings, and the university has not publicly tied specific allegations to specific individuals. External attorney Nate Huff confirmed that investigators examined allegations involving substance use, improper relationships, and potential NCAA violations, but declined to discuss individual cases.
Belichick isn’t offering much more, either. He mentioned that he tried to cooperate as much as he could. However, he drew a clear line around what he knows and what he doesn’t.
“What all was done, who was talked to, what was learned, what wasn’t, I don’t know,” Belichick said. “The lawyer spoke on that, and that’s not really anything that I had any part of, other than when they asked me some questions.”
The school says the matter is settled, but if someone brings forward new, credible information, they would review that information and act accordingly.
“Nobody made us do an investigation,” Roberts said. “Nobody made us hire an external firm. Nobody made us reveal the existence of an investigation, but we did it because we care about the conduct standards of the football program.”
Meanwhile, Brian Belichick will still have the needed cushion, given his younger son has stepped in as interim defensive coordinator, but there is no pretending the program looks the same.
However, while all that was tough, now comes the harder part: proving the changes work! The timing certainly won’t make things easier.
North Carolina is 2-1, with wins over TCU and ETSU and a 28-20 loss to Clemson. That Clemson game brought another wave of questions after the Tar Heels blew a 17-3 lead, with quarterback play becoming one of the biggest issues coming out of the loss. Belichick was asked Monday whether Billy Edwards Jr. remains his starting quarterback. His answer was rather simple: “I do.”
He also made clear that he isn’t interested in constantly changing quarterbacks while the team searches for consistency.
“We don’t want to get into a musical chairs game there,” Belichick said. “The idea is to improve our overall consistency and performance.”
Consistency is one thing that keeps coming back, and what Belichick really wants from the offense. How Belichick backs up his words won’t take long to see, given that the next test comes rather quickly.
North Carolina will be returning from its idle week Saturday to host No. 3 Notre Dame, which enters the matchup 4-0. It is one of the biggest games of Belichick’s tenure, and at one of the tough stretches of his life.
Can Belichick make that transition without the people who were supposed to be at his side when he took this job? What do you think?