Just when you thought things could not get any wilder in Chapel Hill, the North Carolina Tar Heels find another way to top themselves.

On Thursday, insider Pablo Torre reported that North Carolina general manager Michael Lombardi took a trip to Saudi Arabia back in August to try and receive some fundraising for the school's football program, which hired Bill Belichick last December.

Brendan Marks and Christopher Kamrani corroborated Torre's report, confirming that Lombardi did, in fact, head to the Middle East to see if Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund would be interested in investing in UNC's program.

"The PIF has become one of the most powerful players in the global sports market in recent years," Marks and Kamrani wrote. "It bankrolls the LIV Golf tour, an upstart that once rivaled the PGA Tour that is now in discussions about a merger. It owns a majority stake in Newcastle United in the English Premier League and has stakes in mixed martial arts with the Professional Fighters League (PFL). It has organized Formula 1 events in Saudi Arabia, has multi-year partnership deals with professional tennis circuits and ambitious plans in boxing."

While seeking investments is not completely out of the ordinary, the fact that Lombardi traveled all the way to Saudi Arabia for it is certainly wild. Not that it was necessarily a bad move on his part, but definitely an eye-opening one.

Of course, the Tar Heels have not exactly gotten off to the best start under Belichick, having gone 2-3 over their first three games, featuring a trio of blowout losses at the hands of TCU, Central Florida and Clemson.

There was even recent chatter that North Carolina could cut ties with Belichick, who inked a five-year, $50 million deal with the school. However, the first three years of his deal are guaranteed, meaning that UNC would have to pay the New England Patriots legend $30 million if it decided to fire him.

The idea that Belichick could be on his way out the door was ultimately squashed by both sides, but the fact that it was ever even a public discussion demonstrates just how poorly things have gone for the 73-year-old in his first year on the sideline.