05/20/26
April 29, 2026
Bill Belichick Had No Players Drafted from North Carolina: Considered by many the greatest coach in NFL history, Bill Belichick didn't produce a single draft-worthy player in his tumultuous first year at the helm of North Carolina. He's going into this season with 61 new players, four-star freshman quarterback Travis Burgess and offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino.
This is a piece of trash reporting by Travis Hayes and USA Today. It's nothing more than a hit piece. Hayes forgets to include the 9 other FBS schools that had 0 players drafted. Here's the list: Colorado, Oklahoma State, Purdue, Syracuse, UCLA, Virginia, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. That's a pretty impressive group. In Wisconsin's case this breaks a multi-year string of having had a player drafted. I get it. I understand that Bill Belichick is not the most beloved figure in football, but give it a break. Unless you have some professional or financial interest in trying to run him out of football, just leave it alone. He's had one season in which to develop his program and players. Is this really enough time? It's way too easy to join the "Bash Bill Belichick" bandwagon, but perhaps we have another emotional problem to deal with called Belichick Derangement Syndrome.
posted by Howard_T at 07:33 PM on April 29, 2026
I don't think it's an unfair metric to use on Bill Belichick's team. The same thing is happening at Florida State to Mike Norvell. FSU having only one drafted player is being treated as another sign of the school's steep decline.
Belichick taking a college job is a big story. Not all of the attention he's getting is personal.
As for whether one year is enough time, college coaches usually get no more than three. Whether UNC has expectations high enough to give him a quick hook is an open question.
posted by rcade at 10:36 AM on April 30, 2026
Fortunately, UNC had Drake Maye drafted during the Mack Brown era.
Some of the Belichick venom is being vented by folks who didn't like the way the Heels ended up with Belichick without going through a normal hiring process that included considering various coaches who'd had experience and success at the college level.
Then Belichick and Lombardi waltzed in with bravado and began tossing around quotable nuggets like "33rd NFL team" after Belichick had spent a few years barely able to operate the Patriots like the 32nd NFL team. It was similar to the misplaced confidence that Steve Spurrier exhibited in the other direction when he left college ball to go coach the Washington NFL team.
It was just hard to find a lot of honest, supportable positives in the whole situation. It seemed contrived. And they overpaid.
The reputation of the UNC athletic department in general didn't help matters. No one is nominating Bubba Cunningham for Mensa membership.
There's a basketball school regional rivalry aspect to it. When Mike Elko left Duke for the big time at TAMU and quickly put the Aggies into national contention, UNC fans did not want to walk around saying "Dang, Duke is losing better football coaches than we can hire".
When Vandy and Ga. Tech make hires like Lea and Key, that's the sort of well considered decision making fans want. Belichick had shown no signs that he was capable of re-igniting his prior level of competitive momentum and had also shown no signs that he had developed a clear eyed evaluation and overview of his lackluster final years in New England. He couldn't give good explanations as to why he drafted players like Cole Strange.
Belichick still may not have a clear understanding of what was so wrong with his assignment of Patricia and Judge to run the Pats offense. He basically broke Mac Jones, who might have enjoyed an early career comparable to Maye's under different circumstances.
If UNC had hired Belichick 3 years ago, he would have been evaluated on a "give him time, let him build his program" basis.
But UNC has hired the legend with unmatched success at the professional level in what is now the Cignetti era, and when you do that, there is no slack or wiggle room in the expectations department.
posted by beaverboard at 05:30 PM on April 30, 2026
They're gonna have to live with Bill and his contract for at least this year.
It currently looks like he's got as much chance of returning to the NFL as Colin Kaepernick.
UNC's new AD will have to find out for himself if he's got the balls to stand up to the people who went over Bubba Cunningham's head to get Belichick hired.
The hope that's got UNC fans rubbing their prayer beads is that Belichick will do something that allows UNC to fire him for cause and avoid having to pay him 20 million.
Maybe Bobby Petrino does something he shouldn't, Bill knows about it and tries to cover it up.
Pablo Torre finds out about it, the story goes viral and the whole Belichick regime gets canned.