The 2025 North Carolina football season has quickly unraveled. The Tar Heels are 2-3 and have looked lifeless in all three losses against Power conference teams. The team has looked dull, and nothing has looked great. The bigger issue has also been what has happened off the field, with some recruiting violations coming up recently, and the treatment of the players and their families being a significant issue.
Ollie Connolly, a writer for the Guardian, has reported that the Tar Heels have been in active discussions with Bill Belichick about his buyout. The school is investigating recruiting violations that might get Belichick fired for cause. Belichick has also been described as having no connection with North Carolina football players.
One assistant coach was also quoted as saying, “What we've done to these kids is fucked up.”
Andrew Jones of 247Sports.com, an outlet owned by CBS, also reported that “potential exit strategy discussions” occurred in North Carolina. While this doesn’t mean Belichick will be fired, “preliminary conversations” about the possibility have occurred, with the intention of finding a way to eliminate or minimize his buyout.
Citing an unnamed source, Jones also reported that “many other violations have occurred, many on the recruiting front.”
North Carolina fired Mack Brown on Nov. 26, 2024, days after a 41-21 loss at Boston College. He went 6-6 in his final season. Brown won at least six games yearly in his six seasons during his second stint with the Tar Heels. 2022 was his most successful season: Carolina went 9-5, won the Coastal Division, and lost in the Holiday Bowl. However, Brown struggled to win against NC State and had inexplicable losses to a few teams as big favorites, so he lost his job.
Bill Belichick was hired in December, and almost immediately, a divide started within the locker room. Reports have also emerged of preferential treatment to recruits that Belichick and his staff got themselves, compared to players from the previous regime who decided to stay.
Another aspect that was always going to be difficult was communication. Belichick is known as a cold communicator, and apparently, he has barely talked to the parents of these college players. In the NFL, it's completely fine not to be as personable, but in college football, you need to be because most of the time, this is the first time college players have been away from home.
The Bill Belichick experiment might be on borrowed time now because Chapel Hill has been a disaster.
