Bill Belichick on Coaching College vs. NFL: ‘There’s No Owner, There’s No Owner’s Son’

Bill Belichick is preparing for his first season as head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels, and the legendary former New England Patriots coach is already noticing major differences between the NFL and college football.

In an interview with The Boston Globe, Belichick highlighted the streamlined structure of college football compared to the often layered hierarchy of the NFL.

“There’s no owner, there’s no owner’s son, there’s no cap, everything that goes with the marketing and everything else, which I’m all for that,” Belichick said. “But it’s way less of what it was at that level. Generic NFL teams, you have the owner, president, general manager, personnel director, college director, pro director, cap guy, some other consultant, then head coach. I’d say when we had our best years in New England, we had fewer people and more of a direct v ision. And as that expanded, it became harder to be successful.”

Belichick, who spent 24 seasons in New England and won six Super Bowls, parted ways with the Patriots after the 2023 season following three losing campaigns in his final four years. Many interpreted his remarks about owners and their sons as a thinly veiled shot at Robert and Jonathan Kraft, with whom he reportedly had a strained relationship at the end of his tenure. Ironically, Belichick himself employs sons Steven and Brian on his Tar Heels staff.

Different Challenges at the College Level

While Belichick sees advantages to coaching in college, he admits the roster management grind is more complex than in the NFL.

“In the NFL you know whose guys’ contracts are up, that’s easy,” he explained. “In college football anybody could be in the portal, or not. You don’t know who’s in the portal. And then you have next year’s freshman class is the ’26 class, but you also have to start recruiting the ’27 and ’28 classes. You’re recruiting three classes of high school kids, plus you have to keep your eye on the portal kids.”

Another adjustment has been the need for more physical practices, since college teams don’t have preseason games to help them prepare.

“We’ve done a lot more live work here than we ever did in the NFL, at any team I was ever on,” Belichick said. “So that part of it’s been actually an interesting thing to see … we do need to do it, we’ve done it. The players have done a really good job of adapting to that. Very few i njuries to deal with, even though we’ve had quite a bit of contact in our padded days. I think that part’s been really, really good.”

Looking Ahead

Belichick and the Tar Heels open the season Sept. 1 at home against TCU in a Labor Day showdown. For the first time in nearly a quarter-century, Belichick will walk the sideline not as an NFL head coach, but as a college leader — one who won’t have to field calls from an owner’s son the next morning.