Why North Carolina interviewing Bill Belichick is just a giant publicity stunt (that got the desired results)

Hit up any major sports site on the internet right now — including CBSSports.com — and you’re going to see the news that Bill Belichick interviewed for the recently vacated North Carolina Tar Heels head coaching position. Let’s be very clear: this is not happening. 

It’s all a giant publicity stunt, part of the sometimes carefully orchestrated dance that is a coaching search. I don’t doubt for a second that Belichick interviewed with UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham. And I certainly don’t doubt that Belichick reportedly “blew [Carolina] away” in the interview. 

He’s, you know, Bill Belichick. 

The dude won eight Super Bowl rings as either Giants defensive coordinator (twice) or Patriots head coach (six times). He’s on the NFL’s All-Decade Team twice over and on the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team. I’m not sure why we even couch it as “maybe the greatest coach of all-time” … he’s just the greatest coach in NFL history at this very moment. 

If Belichick decided he wanted to get into college football, I don’t doubt that he would find a way to win. He’d have a major leg up from a schematic perspective. He can clearly recruit college-aged talent. As a fan of UNC’s primary football rival, I have zero interest in Belichick coming to Chapel Hill, although my college football fandom has absolutely zero to do with why I think this is all a bunch of malarkey. 

The idea of Belichick joining the college ranks is ridiculous for a bunch of other pretty obvious reasons. But first let’s look at why the interview with the Tar Heels is a symbiotically beneficial exercise. 

Belichick wants to coach again. That was known last year when he interviewed with multiple teams, including the Falcons multiple times. Him not landing a gig was probably the shock of the offseason, just a hair ahead of Aaron Rodgers drawing headlines for spending a week on ayahuasca in a darkness retreat. Belichick’s robust presence in the media this season — from his weekly ‘ManningCast’ appearances to his Underdog Fantasy Sports podcast — was a gift to us all, honestly, and we should appreciate getting to soak in his football knowledge on a daily/weekly/however long basis. 

Interviewing with Carolina allows him to remind everyone he’s serious about coaching while also increasing his market value. Even if you don’t think this is a serious possibility, supply and demand still exist. 

For the Tar Heels, this was a brilliant move from a coaching search perspective. There isn’t a lot of optimism about football in Chapel Hill right now, not after chasing off 73-year-old Mack Brown and seeing the list of realistic candidates bandied about by people close to the program. I agree wholeheartedly with my colleague’s ranking of UNC as the top-available job as we stand today, but the program is looking at television retreads (Dan Mullen) and Group of Five coaches. I’m not saying whoever they hire won’t win at Carolina; I just don’t think the fanbase was incredibly enthused about the search. 

With the Belichick interview and subsequent leaking of said interview, the UNC coaching search is front and center in the sports world. Belichick meeting with Carolina legitimizes that job and, once again, creates an element of supply and demand to the Tar Heels’ opening that might not have been there before. If Bill Belichick is interested in a job opening, shouldn’t you be interested in that job opening? (Answer: yes, yes you should.) 

But even if Belichick’s interest is “genuine,” there’s a myriad of other reasons he’s not taking the job in Chapel Hill. 

For one, Belichick’s the greatest coach in professional football history. He has eight Super Bowl rings. Something tells me he’s not lying awake at night wondering why he never won an ACC Championship. Additionally, Belichick is 72 years old! He has never coached at the college level before. 

I repeat: he has never coached at the college level before. He just joined “InstaFace” this year.

And the collegiate game has changed massively over the past several years with the advent of NIL and the insanity that is the transfer portal. Guys like Mack Brown are the same age as Belichick and are completely worn out by the college game as it sits right now, and with good reason. Roy Williams and Coach K walked away from college basketball despite fielding highly competitive teams because of everything going on with the game. Belichick’s good friend and close confidant, 73-year-old Nick Saban, retired from college football last year for similar reasons. 

Why on freaking Earth would Belichick decide to start coaching college football at the same age these guys are walking away? It would be incredibly un-Belichickian. Not because he’s afraid of a challenge, but because he’d be putting himself at a massive, inherent disadvantage by starting in the college game at his age without any experience. 

Belichick ran things his way in New England for two decades. He was in charge of everything. You think he’d like glad-handing boosters or dealing with the NCAA? Come on, man. UNC alum Arthur Smith, a much younger coach with more college experience, quickly leaked out that he wasn’t interested in returning to the college ranks. These would-be NFL coaches know there are going to be a ton of job openings once we get through Week 18, as there always are. 

Any interest here is purely superficial and designed to generate buzz around both parties. It makes for spicy headlines, piles of social media engagement and an interesting theoretical discussion about whether someone at Belichick’s age with his experience level could thrive in the college setting. But it ain’t happening. If it does, I’ll happily print out this column and eat it live on air. 

If I’m a Tar Heels fan, I’m screaming “sign me up” all day (although some folks on their message boards, I’m told, aren’t even that enthused about the idea). Even if it doesn’t work out, you don’t pass on the opportunity to hire the goat and put him in charge of beating up on Boston College and Wake Forest. But don’t get your hopes up for something that isn’t happening.