North Carolina Predicted to 'Wash Hands' of Bill Belichick Experiment Soon

The North Carolina Tar Heels are entering training camp this summer with a cloud hanging over their head after general manager Michael Lombardi was placed on paid administrative leave last week. 

Lombardi, college football's highest-paid general manager, has done a questionable job building a team into a 33rd team that can compete with the powers in the ACC. UNC failed to make a bowl game in head coach Bill Belichick's first season, going 4-8. 

During his show on Sunday, Josh Pate predicted UNC would part ways with Belichick and Lombardi this year.

“I think they will wash their hands of this entire experiment at some point this year," Pate said. "I think that will happen, and I think the North Carolina job will be open. I don't know how else to tell you this."

UNC faces a daunting schedule to begin the season. The Tar Heels will open the season against TCU in Dublin on Aug. 29. UNC will then play ETSU, which should be an easy win before playing Clemson, Notre Dame, Pitt, and Duke by Oct. 17. 

Because of the more favorable schedule last year, Pate believes 2025 was Belichick's best shot to build a winning program. But he thinks Belichick and Lombardi underestimated how hard it would be to win in college.

"A guy that smart so badly miscalculated the situation of what it would take to win in college football, it blows my mind.... And I'm not saying, oh Bill Belichick shouldn't have taken the job," Pate said. If someone's going to offer you the job of North Carolina, if they're stupid enough to do it, yeah, take it. 

“My point is I can't believe they were dumb enough to think winning in college football was going to be easier than winning in the NFL. But I think that's the arrogance a lot of guys who coach in the NFL for a long time have when they look at college football. They think, 'Well, this is professional football, that's college. That's like a light version of what we do. Those are the minor leagues down there.'”

Pate made the argument that line of thinking might be the case at Blue Blood schools like Texas, Ohio State, and Notre Dame. But UNC is not one of those schools.

Belichick would have really needed to come in and energize the program, promoting it to young athletes. Instead, North Carolina has tried to operate too much like a professional program that it lost the plot. 

What young athlete would choose UNC over Ohio State, Georgia, Notre Dame, or Texas now? UNC didn't put one kid in the draft this year, and there's no reason to jump for the Tar Heels with Belichick unless the checks are that much bigger.