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The North Carolina Tar Heels finally received a long-overdue revamping of their football program in December 2024 – one that has the entire sports world on notice.
On December 11, UNC made its biggest offseason splash by hiring Bill Belichick to be its next head football coach. Belichick, who won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots and coached Tom Brady, the greatest football player to walk this Earth, will coach in college for the first time.
One of the first things Belichick said, upon his initial hiring, was wanting to turn North Carolina into an NFL-style program. That included hiring a general manager: for the Tar Heels, their GM is Michael Lombardi, the Cleveland Browns’ 2013 GM and former New England coaching assistant.
Belichick can’t wait to get to work on the field, but Lombardi is equally excited for the current and future growth of UNC’s program. Watch and read what he said in a recent interview at the Kenan Football Center in Chapel Hill:
“We have a great brand,” Lombardi said of North Carolina. “This UNC logo is worldwide, so we shouldn’t limit ourselves. I think that we can walk into any school and say, “We’re North Carolina, we have the greatest coach in the history of football and we have a great university. Come play for us. I think it’s a powerful message.”
Transitioning to recruiting, the Tar Heels’ coaching staff is spending seemingly every waking hour visiting recruits. Belichick made a trip to New Jersey powerhouse Bergen Catholic and offered several players, got 4-star Class of 2025 quarterback Bryce Baker to re-affirm his UNC commitment and has Jared Curtis, the Class of 2026’s top-ranked quarterback, giving Chapel Hill additional looks.
“That’s been the most rewarding thing – to get players to come in and buy into the system,” Lombardi said. “We talk about who…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/unc-football-gm-michael-lombardi-020047891.html
Author : Tar Heels Wire
Publish date : 2025-02-13 02:00:00
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