Hit up any major sports site on the internet right now — including CBSSports.com — and you’re going to see the news that Bill Belichick interviewed for the recently vacated North Carolina Tar Heels head coaching position. Let’s be very clear: this is not happening.
It’s all a giant publicity stunt, part of the sometimes carefully orchestrated dance that is a coaching search. I don’t doubt for a second that Belichick interviewed with UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham. And I certainly don’t doubt that Belichick reportedly “blew [Carolina] away” in the interview.
He’s, you know, Bill Belichick.
The dude won eight Super Bowl rings as either Giants defensive coordinator (twice) or Patriots head coach (six times). He’s on the NFL’s All-Decade Team twice over and on the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team. I’m not sure why we even couch it as “maybe the greatest coach of all-time” … he’s just the greatest coach in NFL history at this very moment.
If Belichick decided he wanted to get into college football, I don’t doubt that he would find a way to win. He’d have a major leg up from a schematic perspective. He can clearly recruit college-aged talent. As a fan of UNC’s primary football rival, I have zero interest in Belichick coming to Chapel Hill, although my college football fandom has absolutely zero to do with why I think this is all a bunch of malarkey.
The idea of Belichick joining the college ranks is ridiculous for a bunch of other pretty obvious reasons. But first let’s look at why the interview with the Tar Heels is a symbiotically beneficial exercise.
Belichick wants to coach again. That was known last year when he interviewed with multiple teams, including the Falcons multiple times. Him not landing a gig was probably the shock of the offseason, just a hair ahead of Aaron Rodgers drawing headlines for spending a week on
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