Bill Belichick, Michael Lombardi are invaluable assets for North Carolina in new era of college sports

There are questions surrounding Bill Belichick as the head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels. Yes, he's a six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach, but the 73-year-old has never coached at the college level before.

North Carolina is in an interesting position. In Belichick, the Tar Heels have a head coach who is well-versed in the business side of football as well as the Xs and Os.

“Dealing with the revenue share the NIL packages, agents, if you will, representatives of players, all those kind of things — that’s the life we’ve lived,” Belichick said on Wednesday, according to Barkley Truax of On3. “We’re very comfortable with that.”

College players are getting paid not just through NIL deals, but from the school directly via revenue sharing. NIL is one thing, but revenue sharing has essentially created a salary cap. Being able to pay student-athletes has allowed programs to recruit players and keep them out of the transfer portal. 

Each school at the Power Four level can now distribute $20.5 million a season to its student-athletes. At most schools, a majority of that will go to the football program.

That essentially makes every offseason a bit like NFL free agency, and that's where Belichick's many years in professional football will pay off for North Carolina.

He has qualified help as well: Michael Lombardi, who spent more than three decades in the NFL, first as a scout and then as a front-office member. He was the general manager of the New England Patriots from 2014 to 2016, and now he's Belichick's GM at North Carolina.

It's a newer position cropping up in college football, but it's become essential. Coaches like Belichick focus on the football side of things, while the GMs have become responsible for team building, NIL, some recruiting and, now, revenue sharing.

The NFL has a salary cap, and as Belichick explains it, college football programs will essentially have to operate in the same manner.

“We don’t have an unlimited amount of money,” Belichick explained. “Which, we didn’t have in the NFL either. So, you have to figure out how to distribute it and how to, let’s say, negotiate, and also manage the assets and the resources that you have — which are good here at Carolina. But again, it’s not like we have a blank checkbook, nor does any other team.

“So management of the team, the players, the salaries — or the payments that they get and so forth — are, again, something that we’ve we’ve dealt with for a long time. You have to value certain players in certain positions in order to afford to put together a good team.”

When it comes to winning, few coaches have been better than Belichick. Throw in his ability to run a team, and the help he's getting from people like Lombardi, and North Carolina seems poised to thrive in this new era of college football.