North Carolina obviously hasn’t had the football season it was hoping for, and there are many factors to consider when discussing why.
If North Carolina wants to improve in the future, better decisions will have to be made, and ultimately, many of those will involve more than just Bill Belichick.
For now, however, we know that North Carolina is paying Belichick $10 million per season over the next four years, and the roster costs $14 million, according to the latest reporting from ESPN.
"They paid $14 million for a football team that's really not very good, and that doesn't count the money they paid for the coaches," says a source who works closely with the UNC athletic department and requested anonymity to speak freely, per ESPN’s Tim Keown. "At the very least, that feels like a very bad business decision.”
One of the bigger issues with what North Carolina has done on the offensive side of the football this year, and a big reason why the team hasn’t met expectations, is how poorly quarterback Gio Lopez has played.
According to Keown, Lopez is being paid $4 million over the next two seasons. There’s a very good chance North Carolina looks to replace him during the offseason, despite that number.
“The busiest guy in the program is the one who makes sure the punt team is ready. The Heels are scoring 18.7 points per game, 121 out of 134 FBS teams. The roster formation, handled mostly by people with no experience with the NCAA's ever-changing landscape, looks in retrospect to have been haphazard. Quarterback Gio Lopez is being paid a reported $4 million over two years despite being rated ESPN's No. 100 player in last season's portal. He has improved throughout the season, but he is a left-handed passer who struggles to throw moving to his right, a fact that serves to shorten the playbook.”
Seeing all these numbers written out is concerning for a team that expected much more this season.
However, it’s also important to recognize that this is UNC’s first season under Belichick, so it deserves some grace, and there’s reason to hope things improve in the near future.