It’s on to fall camp for the Atlantic Coast Conference and new North Carolina coach Bill Belichick.
Belichick was the buzziest offseason addition for the ACC when the six-time Super Bowl championship-winning head coach agreed to take over the Tar Heels — his first time as a college head coach.
Belichick has had plenty of personnel issues to handle. Two of North Carolina’s best pass rushing threats in defensive end Beau Atkinson and linebacker Amare Campbell entered the transfer portal. But Belichick landed South Alabama quarterback Gio Lopez, who threw for 2,599 yards and 18 touchdowns as a sophomore last season.
UNC hired Belichick in December in a sign of a stepped-up investment in football. The Tar Heels opened spring drills in early March and had a practice that media was permitted to observe for about 20 minutes, then closed with a public workout in Kenan Stadium. It was hard to pick up many specifics with players working out with no jersey numbers.
North Carolina general manager Michael Lombardi said long before spring practices that the goal was for Belichick to create an NFL team.
“We want to play to the strengths of our players and that’s what we’ll do,” Belichick said in March. “That part takes a little while to figure that out, but nevertheless we’ll run a pro system on both sides of the ball and the kicking game. That’s where the foundation of it is.
“And all the training videos that we’ve shown them on how to do things, how to do certain techniques, how to run certain things are really from NFL players – the guys who are great at it, the guys who did it better than anybody. I think that’s still a great way to teach, because our players are seeing some of the best guys who have played do what they do.”
UNC’s opener is a Monday…
Source link : https://www.nbcsports.com/college-football/news/acc-and-new-north-carolina-coach-bill-belichick-head-toward-season-after-spring-full-of-changes
Author :
Publish date : 2025-04-29 22:05:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
