Here’s why North Carolina will regret hiring Bill Belichick

Congratulations, North Carolina. You managed to hire someone who was completely unqualified to be your next football coach. You did that thing so many schools do by trying to win the press conference instead of winning football games. This rarely works.

I realize I could be excommunicated from the football world for daring to question the merits of a six-time Super Bowl champion coach. But let’s remove the name Bill Belichick and replace it with Coach X. Here’s who North Carolina just hired:

• Coach X has never coached a day in college football. He never recruited an athlete. He has never dealt with the transfer portal or the NIL collectives. His father was a college coach in the Navy, but that was 35 years ago.

• Coach

• Coach X made his first post on Instagram – which he called Instaface at the time – on September 4 of this year. Since then, he has posted eight more times. He may not realize that many college athletes, especially recruits, communicate primarily through social media.

• And Coach said at the time, “When you reach 72, it becomes more and more difficult to promise people that you’re going to be here for another four or five years.”

But Coach X has those Super Bowl rings. Which he will surely wear when meeting with potential recruits and transfers. Who will then say something like: “That’s great, but how much do I get paid?”

Unless Belichick can magically restore Tom Brady’s eligibility, I don’t see how this will end well. I’ve seen this movie so many times before: A big-time NFL coach comes to town vowing to turn the program into an NFL organization in college.

Bill Callahan and his master plan to take away Nebraska’s famous triple-option offense for the West Coast offense.

Charlie Weis and his “decisive schematic advantage” at Notre Dame.

Herm Edwards and his much-touted “new model of leadership” at Arizona State.

Lovie Smith, with no discernible plans of any kind in Illinois.

Inevitably, the school and coach quickly realize that what works in the NFL doesn’t necessarily work in college. (And vice versa.) And yet… they continue to fall into the trap.

Belichick has spent time this year in Washington, where his son, Steve, is the defensive coordinator. He’s clearly given a lot of thought to how he would run his own college program, as evidenced by his comments earlier this week on Pat McAfee’s show.

“If I was in a college program, the college program would be a pipeline to the NFL for players who have the ability to play in the NFL,” he said. “It would be a professional program – training, nutrition, program, coaching and techniques that would transfer to the NFL. It would be an NFL program at the college level.

There is no doubt that player development is crucial to success as a college coach. But does he feel like today’s best programs aren’t already doing just that? It’s delusional to think that Belichick will show up, show off his rings and suddenly North Carolina will start producing more high-end NFL players than Georgia or Ohio State.

You have to do something else to stand out in this era.

The college coaching landscape is currently in a process of transition, following the departures of national championship coaches Saban, Brown and Jim Harbaugh. Kirby Smart and Dabo Swinney are the only ones left. As the next generation begins to establish itself, two specific archetypes emerge.

Young/young energetic guys: Smart, Dan Lanning, Steve Sarkisian, Kenny Dillingham, Deion Sanders, Spencer Danielson, Matt Campbell, Marcus Freeman, Shane Beamer, Eli Drinkwitz, Rhett Lashlee, Jon Sumrall, Fran Brown.

And the career college guy who just won: Curt Cignetti, Jeff Monken, Chris Klieman, Lance Leipold (despite this season).

Belichick is so far from fitting into either of these groups that it’s difficult to consider a close comparison. It may actually be Coach Prime, who, despite being from Jackson State, has filled his staff with NFL coaches and welcomes all kinds of NFL guests.

But he and Belichick are on opposite ends of the personality spectrum.

It’s hard to hire a coach, and it can be futile trying to predict which guys will succeed and which guys will fail. Like many, I thought Scott Frost would lead Nebraska to glory and Lincoln Riley would now contend for national championships at USC. While I doubted Sarkisian was the guy to do this at Texas or that Josh Heupel would become the best coach Tennessee has had in two decades.

But there have been a few over the years that seemed like obvious disasters to me as soon as they were announced – Weis and Les Miles at Kansas, Edwards at Arizona State, Mike Riley at Nebraska and Karl Dorrell at Colorado come to mind. the mind.

I hereby add UNC/Belichick to this distinguished class of regrettable hires. Come back in two to three years.

(Illustration: Meech Robinson / Athletics; (photos: Andy Lewis, Grant Halverson / Getty Images)