Michael Lombardi has made a lot of decisions for North Carolina's roster over the past year or so, which is obviously a problem the Tar Heels now find themselves in due to the whole investigation.
Even further than that, it didn't exactly seem like Lombardi knew what he was doing from top to bottom, as this wasn't exactly a program that did things right.
North Carolina was not building the proper team, especially in the NIL era, and it was very unfortunate to watch.
Ultimately, Lombardi has a lot to work on if he ends up coming back to North Carolina, and his roster construction is going to be at the top of that list.
North Carolina is not good enough on either side of the football and showed last year that it might be the worst team in all of the Power 4 ranks.
According to The Athletic, there's a feeling, or sense, around the college football landscape that him being the general manager was just as bad as anything else. In fact, some have said that his arrogance and roster management were the reasons why the Tar Heels were that bad.
“Lombardi, a longtime confidant of Belichick and onetime NFL general manager with the Cleveland Browns, generated headlines in Chapel Hill long before Monday’s news. In his first public appearance as the team’s general manager, he proclaimed UNC the NFL’s 33rd team, a comment many in college football saw as overconfident. By mid-October, amid UNC’s dismal start — including three double-digit losses to power-conference opponents — multiple sources told The Athletic that Lombardi’s arrogance and roster management were key reasons for the team’s struggles, despite having a six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach,” Bruce Feldman wrote.
Putting together a bad roster is one thing, but being arrogant and not being well-liked around the facility is another.
North Carolina obviously didn't put its program in a position to succeed last season, and it didn't look like that was going to change this year. Perhaps with Lombardi not in the mix now, we'll see some changes, but I don't expect that to be the case.
