On Thursday, the sports media world, the NFL and college football were all shaken up in a major way when it was revealed that Bill Belichick had interviewed for the vacant head coaching job at the University of North Carolina.
The news was particularly shocking for a few reasons. Belichick has never coached at the collegiate level, which is entirely different than the professional ranks due to several different factors including recruiting and the fact that his players would be students on top of being athletes.
On top of that, North Carolina just parted ways with legendary collegiate coach Mack Brown, who is 73 years of age. Bringing in the 72-year-old Belichick doesn’t exactly seem like the best strategy for the future depending on how long Belichick plans on coaching.
Right away, plenty have been skeptical of just how serious interest from the two sides truly is.
However, longtime college football insider Brett McMurphy believes that Belichick does truly have at least some interest in the job, claiming that he believes this is an indication that Belichick is “tired of” his role on ESPN’s ManningCast along with some of his other sports media ventures.
“I think it shows that he’s tired of doing the ManningCast and not being involved in football,” said McMurphy during an appearance on the You Better You Bet Podcast with Nick Kostos. “And yeah, I think he wants to do this. Maybe this is to give him a little more leverage with some NFL teams. Like look, if you guys are gonna keep screwing around, I’m gonna go take a college job. Belichick obviously thinks everything out. Very intelligent, very smart. One thing we know. Belichick is not going to be like, ‘You know what I feel like doing. I’m gonna go interview for the Carolina job and then go and get lunch.’
“He’s not gonna waste time in talking to a school about a job unless he is really interested. But I just don’t think that’s a route that Carolina would go. We’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff. But I do believe he has an interest or he’s not gonna go through the effort to interview for that (job). He knows it’s going to get out. No matter who you say don’t tell to, he knows it’s going to get out. So I think he legitimately wants to get back into coaching.”
Bill Belichick ➡️ North Carolina?@Brett_McMurphy gives @TheKostos & @YouBetterYouBet the inside scoop on how the legendary head coach interviewed for UNC. pic.twitter.com/3NFWvsjoYX
— You Better You Bet (@YouBetterYouBet) December 5, 2024
While the potential landing spot for Belichick is certainly a surprise, the fact that Belichick does want to return to coaching is not. All along, even after taking the numerous media gigs that he currently has, he has affirmed that he intends to coach football again.
We all assumed that he meant as an NFL head coach when he said that. And perhaps that very well may still be his intention, as this could just as easily be a ploy by Belichick to tell NFL teams that he has other options available.
Regardless, both the North Carolina Tar Heels program and Belichick now have some soul-searching to do in the coming weeks as to what each truly wants for the future.
