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It was a shocking turn of events when the North Carolina football team hired Bill Belichick as their next head coach of the program, going from a highly successful NFL career to now at the college level. As Belichick looks to get situated in his new situation, sports analyst Bill Simmons would give his thoughts on what the goals are for the new regime for the Tar Heels.
Simmons would compare Belichick to that of former Kentucky and current Arkansas basketball coach John Calipari, who turned the Wildcats into a sort of “factory” for preparing college players for the NBA. Calipari was a former NBA coach before taking the Kentucky job, which has Simmons the comparison to Belichick doing the same for football.
“He basically wants to turn it into this football factory that trains people to go to the NFL,” Simmons said on his self-titled show. “So this is something that Calipari tried to do at Kentucky right. This was a big part of their mindset of like college sports is changing, the one and done era is coming. We are going to be this factory that sends people into the lottery, Top 5 pick, whatever you want to be, we’re going to train you to do that. If you look at the success of the Kentucky guys that came into the NBA.”
“A lot of those Kentucky people did come into the league positioned to succeed and they did,” Simmons continued. “They’ve had the most success of I think any college in the last 15 years. So when I read that about Belichick I was like that’s interesting.”
North Carolina football's Bill Belichick looks to revitalize program
There have been questions about the decision of Belichick to coach the North Carolina football team, which is even though he is considered quite possibly the greatest NFL head coach of all time, could that translate with student-athletes. Simmons would bring up how it “make sense” for the team to be this type of factory, but wonders if the recruiting would work.
“Big picture, hey if you want to play in the NFL, you’re going to learn stuff here that maybe other places won’t be the same,” Simmons said. “That makes sense to me. Now whether he can sell that to some kid and their parents in Memphis, Tennessee, or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, or wherever he goes to recruit, I don’t know if that’s going to work but it makes sense to me.”
While there has been a discussion about whether the move to hire the former NFL head coach is a good or bad one, there have been former players of his making positive acknowledgments, like former New England Patriots quarterback under Belichick Cam Newton. Still, Belichick would reveal in his introductory press conference that he has “always wanted to coach” within the college football world, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network.
“I've always wanted to coach in college football,” Belichick said during his presser. “It just never really worked out…It's great to come back home to Carolina and come back home to an environment I grew up in.”
At any rate, the Tar Heels look to improve off of a 6-6 record, 3-5 in conference play, but they have a bowl game to still play on Dec. 28 against UConn.
