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Pace: Belichick Will Lead UNC To College Football Playoff

JR Sports Brief / JR
The Truth Network Radio
December 12, 2024 8:12 pm

Pace: Belichick Will Lead UNC To College Football Playoff

JR Sports Brief / JR

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December 12, 2024 8:12 pm

North Carolina Tar Heels football sideline reporter Lee Pace joined JR to discuss his reaction to the Tar Heels hiring Bill Belichick, how he expects Belichick to operate and what realistic expectations are for the program.

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Lee, how are you doing? Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much for having me.

It's great to be here with you, and it's a pleasure to be here with you. I think that Phil and Chuck would be a good match for Carolina. I didn't understand why he would be interested, and I was quite skeptical, as were many, many, many people.

And the thought then was just it was both sides were just kind of having tap dancing around one another, you know, kind of courtesy conversations. But obviously, they were much more sincere than any of us really understood, particularly from, you know, if you look at why would Bill Belichick be interested, but I think there were a lot of dominoes that fell. Number one goes from his family's connection to Chapel Hill. His dad, Steve, was an assistant coach at Carolina in the mid-1950s, and there's a great picture of a three-year-old Bill sitting in the bleachers in Keenan Stadium that I used in my book 10 years ago called Football in the Forest on Keenan Stadium. He would make scouting trips to Carolina to Chapel Hill. He enjoyed the campus, enjoyed the experience. He had a close kinship to college football because his dad spent his entire career in college football, and Bill grew up in Annapolis with his father coaching at the Navy Academy. And I think that, you know, a year outside of the NFL, he spent some time with his son Steven at the University of Washington. He said today he got a lot of phone calls from college coaches wanting some advice and some opinion from him as to some of the rules changes taking root in college football that were coming from the NFL. So I think it was just a lot of things that came together to make him interested in Chapel Hill and in college football at this particular point in time. UNC sideline reporter Lee Pace is here with us.

Lee, Bill Belichick saved his shortest and more pointed words to pretty much tell everybody, I didn't come here to leave. Do you believe this is going to be the last stop on Bill Belichick's coaching journey, whether it be in the pros or in college? I think the tea leaves from what I saw and heard today and things I've read, it could very well be. Nothing's in stone, certainly, but I don't think this is a ploy to cool this jet for a couple years and then get back to the NFL. I think he is seriously interested in this. I think he looks at it as a challenge. I think he looks at it as going back to school, to college, to a different environment. There will be some frustrations in dealing with a public university and all the politics that come with it, opposed to being able to bivouac yourself and grind away in the NFL where you have simply one owner to answer to and that's it.

But I think he'll adjust, I think he'll adapt. I don't think that either Carolina or Belichick would have agreed to do this if they hadn't had very frank and honest conversations about how it would be different for him and both of us come to a sense of comfort and acceptance of those. Well, Lee, we know that Bill Belichick, one of the most successful coaches, period, every and anywhere. It doesn't matter if it's college, the NFL, he's just one of the most successful coaches in any sport history, period. Tenure things didn't end all that well in New England with the Patriots. What are the full expectations here for Belichick over the next three to potentially five years? Are we talking, hey, we'd be good with an ACC championship? Are we talking playoff?

What do you think is realistic? Well, certainly if you did win the ACC, you would be at the playoffs. Chancellor Lee Roberts said today that our goal has always been to be the number one public institution in the country and to be excellent in everything we do, whether it's academics, research, or athletics. And Carolina has had numerous national champions in basketball, in women's soccer, in lacrosse, in field hockey, in so many sports, and the same expectation is there for football. Mack Brown made a comment within the last couple years that I don't think he meant it quite this way, but it was after an 8-4 season.

He said, you know, eight wins is pretty good around here, and a lot of people did not take that well because Carolina people don't want to settle for eight wins. They want more than that. They've been frustrated that they have not been able to get more than that on a consistent basis. They did have the Larry Fedora 11-1 year in 2015 and Mack Brown's two back-to-back top ten years in 1996 and 1997, but they just haven't been consistent. And there is a desperate longing and desire among many, many people in Chapel Hill to be good at football and be good consistently and be really good.

And I think they are inking up. They're pushing all their chips into the table, and they're going to go check the resources that he needs, particularly with NIL money and having a budget to go out and sign players and retain them, which Carolina has struggled to do in the four-year history of NIL. As a sideline reporter for UNC, Lee Pace is joining us here at the JR Sport Reshow Coast to Coast. What does the next few weeks, the next few months look like for Bill Belichick?

We know that there's a ball game. We know that Kitchens is still on staff. What is the next step for Bill Belichick as a part of this program? Well, he's got a lot on his plate right now, JR. He's number one. He's got the highest staff, and he said today that some people he would be interested in are still playing, whether those are college coaches or NFL coaches.

So he will be playing that out. He has got to recruit the current players, the roster, the players who have entered the transfer portal, and if he evaluates them and decides he wants them to come back, he's got to re-recruit them and, of course, all the high school players. So everybody now recognizes that obtaining personnel now is a two-pronged effort in college football. It's recruiting high school players, and it's recruiting out of the portal. And he has, in addition to designating Freddie Kitchens as his first assistant coach, he has also designated Michael Lombardi, a longtime NFL personnel scout, personnel official, general manager, as the team's general manager.

So they are working hard to evaluate the portal, see who they want to offer, see who they can recruit, see who they can bring into campus for visits. So he will not be involved in coaching for the bowl games, but he will be involved in player evaluations, personnel evaluations, staff hiring, and he's got a lot going on. Well, Lee, one thing that we heard for a few days when we heard this being bandied about was that there was a succession plan that was being discussed. We haven't heard that as it relates to Steve Belichick. Do you still think that's a possibility, or has that been widely ignored since we've had things formally announced?

You know, now that you mention it, that hardly came up today at all. So there was no discussion of that and no addressing that issue by either Lee Roberts, the chancellor, or Bubba Cunningham, the athletic director, or Coach Belichick himself. When you think about what this looks like for North Carolina, we know about the success across all of the programs, football, no ACC championships since 1980, but you can think about things from softball and we can go on and on. UNC is certainly known for its athletics. How has he been received by the community at large?

With open arms, I would say. I mentioned my book earlier, I had to go walk to the warehouse and pick up some extra books today, and Johnny T-shirt is the purveyor who handles my book distribution. I was talking with the purveyor there and they have a shop on Franklin Street and she says just the energy in the shop and talking to people on the telephone calling to place orders, there's just a lot more energy. I've heard from people that are upping their Rams Club contributions, that are lining up for season tickets, so there's just a lot of energy. There's just a lot of frustration over the last couple years, particularly having a 6-6 season this past year, last year skyrocketing to the top 10 and then falling so badly toward the end of the year.

I think that sour taste has worn off on people's minds and now there's just a major re-energizing of the fan base. Well, Mack Brown was just here a couple weeks ago. Has anybody checked in on him?

I know he wanted to stay, they gave him the boot. Is he on vacation? What's the latest with Mack?

Does anybody know? He is, I think, planning to move back to Austin, Texas and maintain his long-term home in Lindell, North Carolina that he and his wife have had for many, many years. Good for him. Now, it is 2024, Lee. We're staring at 2025. If I hit the fast-forward button to 2030, what do you think will have happened during Bill Belichick's tenure? What do you think is most likely to take place?

Wow. Let's fast-forward to maybe 2027, 2028. I think he will do what he says he's going to do. I think he'll have the Tar Heels in the playoffs.

He talked about wanting to win a championship. So many things go into that. There's a lot of luck. There's momentum. There's injuries. Just the bounce of the ball toward the end of the game. If he can get the Tar Heels seeded in one of those four positions in the next several years, I think that would be a rousing success.

And I don't think that is out of the contrary. Carolina, over the last 30 years, JR, Mack Brown's last two years, they had one of the best defenses ever in college football. They gave up an average of 11 points a game and 210 yards a game over two years. Just incredible defenses.

And over the last three or four years with Sam Howell, with Drake May, with Amari and Hampton, having had incredible offenses. So you can do it on both sides of the ball at Chapel Hill. You just got to do it together. And I think that's Bill Belichick's challenge is to do what Mack Brown did in defense in the 90s, do what Mack Brown did on offense the last few years, what Larry Fedora did on offense in 2015, what Butch Davis was on his way to do it on defense when he was here in 2008, 9, and 10. Do it on both sides of the ball.

I think it's possible and I think it's going to be fun to see if Bill can do it here. I will certainly be tuned in as I know many people will be as well. Hey Lee, how can we keep up with you, all of your works? I know you're an accomplished author. Fill us in.

We want to know. Well, you can follow me at Lee Pace tweet and check in on GoHeals.com. I'll have a story posted about midday tomorrow on the Bill Belichick story and how he's fitting into Carolina. Thank you so much. Hey Lee, enjoy it.

It's going to be a fun cover. Happy holidays to you, okay? Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. Y'all have a good night.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-12-12 22:26:34 / 2024-12-12 22:31:31 / 5

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