Six-time Super-Bowl-winning head coach Bill Belichick is finalizing a deal to become the new head coach at North Carolina, sources told ESPN on Wednesday.
The expected hiring of Belichick, 72, will resonate as one of the most stunning and compelling moved in college football history. He worked in the NFL in some capacity from 1975 until his divorce from the New England Patriots after the 2023 season.
Belichick’s father, Steve, served as an assistant coach for the Tar Heels in the 1950s.
Belichick’s hiring at North Carolina, which hasn’t won an ACC football title since 1980, was spearheaded by board chair John P. Preyer, who had honed in on Belichick in recent weeks. The sides met multiple times at length, including for five hours Sunday, and those talks finally culminated with Belichick finalizing the deal Wednesday.
For a program awash in apathy and mediocrity, this marks a distinct and compelling shift from Mack Brown, as Belichick gives the Tar Heels an unprecedented jolt of star power for 2025 and beyond.
The Patriots’ six Super Bowls under Belichick is an NFL record (he won two more as an assistant coach). He enters college football with 333 NFL wins, behind only Don Shula’s all-time record of 347.
North Carolina fired the 73-year-old Brown on Nov. 26 after a 6-6 season, ending his second stint at the school with a 44-33 record over six years. He coached the Tar Heels’ regular-season finale, a 35-30 loss to NC State, then said it was a “great time for me to get out.”
