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The Bill Belichick Era at North Carolina has not gone according to plan. The team stinks. There’s a new controversy surrounding Belichick and his 24-year-old girlfriend Jordon Hudson each week, and the program is the laughing stock of college football.
Things are so bad that Belichick is already reportedly working on an exit strategy and Carolina running back Caleb Hood just straight up retired from football.
But for as bad as that may sound, it turns out that the reality is actually way, way worse.
New Report Shines Light On Bill Belichick Disaster At North Carolina
Watching perhaps the greatest NFL head coach fall flat on his face in college football and tarnish his legacy has been nothing short of fascinating. So much so that several reporters from The Athletic did a deep dive to find out how exactly things could have gone this badly this quickly.
What they uncovered was genuinely jarring.
“It was like this weird revolving door of people in and out of meetings,” an ex-staffer said of the atmosphere immediately after Belichick was hired. “They fired some GAs and QCs, and then realized they didn’t have enough help and called a couple of them to come back after having fired them.”
But it’s only gotten worse since that point. Much, much worse.
GM Michael Lombardi Is At The Center Of The Problems For UNC
The Tar Heels badly struck out in the transfer portal when trying to build a competitive roster for 2025. As it turns out, program general manager Michael Lombardi was a big reason why.
“One (agent) who took his client on a visit there said Lombardi told him, ‘We don’t fall in love (with players)’ and, ‘gave me the sales pitch about why would you say no to Bill Belichick?,” the report states. “Another said Lombardi made a strong initial offer for his client, then lowered it considerably over a subsequent series of calls: ‘He made it impossible to get a deal done because at some point, I’m being a bad agent for my client.’
Despite bringing in 70 new players, the UNC roster is somehow completely devoid of top talent.
“We don’t have one pro player on the whole roster,” one person within the program told The Athletic.
Lombardi and Belichick reportedly plan to sign a massive high school recruiting class in 2026 and develop players over multiple years. But according to one agent, that’s setting themselves up for disaster.
“If that’s their plan, then they’re not taking a step forward, they’re taking a step back,” the agent stated. “I don’t care who it is — Bill Belichick, Jimmy Johnson — if you don’t use the portal you’re not going to win.”
Lombardi and Belichick have asked donors and fans for patience. But this isn’t pro football. You don’t get four full years, especially in modern college football. That disconnect, above all else, has led to the current situation. And it doesn’t sound like things are going to get better anytime soon.