College football coaching hires ranked from best to worst. Where does Bill Belichick land?

Bill Belichick has never coached in college football. North Carolina has never won in college football. In this case, nothing has to give.

But we’ll all be watching. How the six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach fares with the Tar Heels will be one of the dominant subplots of the 2025 season, drawing in believers, skeptics, curious bystanders and train-crash enthusiasts to witness whether a coaching style that had grown stale and unwanted in the NFL will be rejuvenated in the transition to the college game.

There is no precedent for this type of move in coaching history — Don Shula didn’t take the Mississippi State job in retirement, Jimmy Johnson didn’t leave the Fox studio for Purdue and Bill Walsh … well, OK, Walsh did take the Stanford job in 1992, four years after handing over the keys to the San Francisco 49ers’ dynasty.

But this was Walsh’s second go-round as the Cardinal’s head coach, following a two-year stint from 1977-78, and Walsh began his coaching career with six seasons as a college assistant. To date, Belichick’s closest brush with college coaching came when he’d attend practice with his father, Steve, a longtime assistant coach and scout at Vanderbilt, UNC and Navy.

North Carolina coach Bill Belichick speak during introductory news conference at Loudermilk Center for Excellence.

Maybe Belichick rediscovers the knack that made him the near-consensus GOAT of NFL head coaches; maybe there’s a reason the league has clearly moved on. An assessment of next season’s new hires is dominated by his arrival in Chapel Hill. Will Belichick find the success that eluded him in the final stages of his NFL career?

REPORT CARD: Letter grades for every first-year college football coach

BEST TO WORST: Ranking all 35 college football bowl games

Beginning with the cycle’s most logical hires, USA TODAY…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/college-football-coaching-hires-ranked-153835055.html

Author : USA TODAY Sports

Publish date : 2024-12-16 15:38:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.