Six-time Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick has agreed to become North Carolina’s next football coach, a person with knowledge of the decision said Wednesday.
The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the deal has not yet been finalized. UNC trustees must approve any deal, although that board had not announced a new meeting as of Wednesday night.
The Tar Heels had been searching for a replacement for Mack Brown. The school announced Nov. 26 that the program’s all-time winningest coach and College Football Hall of Fame member would not return for a seventh season in his second stint in Chapel Hill, a dismissal that took effect after Brown trained his end in the Nov. 30 loss to rival NC State.
Going from Brown, 73, to hiring Belichick, 72, means UNC is turning to a coach who has never worked at the college level but had incredible success in the NFL alongside quarterback Tom Brady during most of his career. 24-year tenure with the Patriots, which finished last season.
Belichick had been linked to NFL jobs since then, notably the Atlanta Falcons in January. That’s why news of Belichick’s talks with UNC (first reported by Inside Carolina and confirmed by the AP last week) raised such eyebrows as it was an unexpected and unconventional route for both sides to take.
But the two sides had been in talks for several days working out terms before finally reaching an agreement to cap what seemed an unlikely outcome just a week earlier.
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Rob Maaddi and Aaron Beard, Associated Press