Bill Belichick Revisits UNC’s Recruiting Limitations

• "We went out and signed a lot of players," Belichick said. "We signed players who didn't have offers or offers that they didn't want. Kind of slid through the cracks in terms of the recruiting process."

• He continued, "We signed players in the transfer portal that were available. We were late in the running on a lot of them. We were late on relationships. We were late on it in contacts. We ran out of time. We did the best we could."

The General Manager

Michael Lombardi, the North Carolina General Manager, worked hand-in-hand with Belichick during his 2014-16 tenure with the New England Patriots.

Throughout his career, he won Super Bowl XIX, XLIX, and LI. The NFL world may be a complete 180 compared to the college football lifestyle, but Belichick had high praise for the GM.

• "I think Michael [Lombardi] and his staff did a great job of upgrading the roster, and then it was upgraded again in the spring after spring ball. I mean, our football team is a lot better than what it was at the end of spring ball, I can tell you that," Belichick added.

• He concluded, "In terms of the opportunities we had, could we have done some things going after some different players or whatever, I'd say we got the ones we go and there were others we were after that we didn't get."

WRAL news reported that a source informed them Lombardi was set to offer a player $50,000 to stay; however, the player was already making $100,000. Seeing as Lombardi is still new to the program, and Belichick joined three days after the transfer portal opened, the 2025 season was never going to work in their favor.

Moving forward, Belichick and his staff have a chance to change things. They may be 2-3 (0-1), but there are quite a few winnable games on the rest of their schedule. Should UNC turn things around in their next few games, all the buyout talks will fade away and the Tarheels can look towards building a successful future.

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