Already the North Carolina Tar Heels are reigning college football. After all, the great NFL head coach Bill Belichick decided to give himself a chance to coach in college. Yes, his last chapter with the New England Patriots did not end on a cheerful note. Maybe that’s why he thought about trying his luck with North Carolina.

But here too it looks like the HC will face some roadblocks. Already, there are a lot of cracks in the coaching roster. While Belichick is trying to fix the loopholes, little by little, the transfer portal is pestering him a lot. And what about the additions? That too looks like a big miss, as his new QB could probably plague the locker room.  

Bill Belichick’s addition stirs controversy

It has been only a month since Belichick took up the HC role with the Tar Heels. But UNC has not been that welcoming. Since his arrival in Chapel Hill, the Tar Heels have seen 18 players enter the portal. The final blow came on Wednesday, January 15. Belichick lost his 19th player too to the portal. Well, the new HC would not have cared much, but this one was perhaps the most significant—player yet. We are talking about the North Carolina starting quarterback Jacolby Criswell, who announced to try his luck elsewhere. In the 2024 season, the quarterback appeared in 12 games and completed 58.1% of his passes for 2,459 yards along with 15 touchdowns. Now that’s not the only quarterback problem Belichick has to deal with. Even his additions to the players’ roster look to land him in the hot seat. 

The Crain & Company podcast tagged the new quarterback as “cringey,” even though the athlete’s name remains undisclosed in the podcast. They are unsure about the signal-caller’s ability to flip North Carolina’s luck in such a tumultuous time. Rather, he is believed to be the threat in Belichick’s locker room. The podcast host Jake Crain started with a tone of disbelief. “Do we have the video of the new transfer quarterback to North Carolina, Justin Bieber’s long-lost brother?”

For analysts and fans alike, players are normally not seen as social media influencers. Plus, North Carolina featured some of the greatest college quarterbacks of all time, including T. J. Yates, Darian Durant, and Mitch Trubisky.

Even the recent ones like Criswell and Conner Harrell proved themselves pretty well. But here the latest recruit breaks free of that construct. As seen in the viral clip, Belichick’s latest addition records a video of himself singing. To which Crain predicted his future, “I mean you can see the filters. It’s basically a filter guard commercial. I mean, he looks like he is about to go Super Saiyan with that hair. This kid will not last with Bill Belichick.”

Co-host Blain Crain had some suggestions to fix him, “I am dead serious someone b- – – y him to fix him.” However, Belichick seems to be too busy with fixing his staff.  

Bill Belichick’s challenge to rebuild the UNC coaching staff with NFL touch

Well, analysts have already started raising concerns about Belichick’s contribution to the program. According to them, the Tar Heels’ staff, which hasn’t expanded much in the weeks after Belichick’s arrival, was “making for frayed nerves.” And how could the program just let the attacks pass through like that? So on January 14, the UNC football GM Michael Lombardi broke the silence.

Re-sharing the Pro-Football Talk’s tweet where they raised concerns, Lombardi wrote, “We are not slow, just being diligent, hired three people on Sunday, not one is nervous other than this erroneous report. A completely fabricated story. Thank you.” And we are already seeing the results. As an eight-time Super Bowl winner, it was obvious that Belichick would make use of his strong NFL presence. He retained Tar Heels’ interim head coach Freddie Kitchens on his staff for a reason. 

After all, Kitchen coached the Cleveland Browns in 2019. On Wednesday, January 15, Bill Belichick made two more additions to his staff. The Tar Heels now have their new special teams coach, Mike Priefer, who worked as the head special teams coordinator for the Kansas City Chiefs, Minnesota Vikings, and others. Plus, Will Friend is now the new offensive line coach at UNC.

Let’s see if the staff can mold the recruit in their own way.