Bill Belichick: ‘I appreciate every day at Carolina’

North Carolina football coach Bill Belichick, hired in December to boost the profile of the program, has certainly delivered on that — months ahead of his first college football season.

2025-05-13

Belichick, who won six Super Bowls as the head coach of the New England Patriots, and his girlfriend Jordon Hudson have been grabbing headlines in the weeks since a rocky interview with CBS Sunday Morning and a report that she was banned from the UNC football facility.

WRAL’s Brian Murphy interviewed Belichick on Tuesday at the ACC Spring Meetings in Amelia Island, Florida, about the burst in attention on the UNC football program, why he opted to get back into the game and his expectations for this season.

As a condition of the interview, WRAL didn’t ask about Hudson, 24, who finished third in the recent Miss Maine competition and has both a personal and professional relationship with the 73-year-old Belichick.

“Just to come in and try to work with (general manager) Michael Lombardi and our staff and try to put together a good team and a good program and represent the school well on the football field,” Belichick told WRAL. “And that's really what we're trying to do. So I'm glad people are excited, but really just focused more on the product and delivering.”

Belichick spent the 2024 season out of football. Instead of returning to the NFL, where he’s spent all of his career but faced uncertain job prospects, he opted for UNC instead of another season away from the sidelines.

“I just love coaching,” Belichick told WRAL. “I love all the aspects of it. I love the team building, I love the fundamentals, working with players, strategy, game competition, and just the whole process. Football's been good to me. It's been good to my family. I grew up in a football family with my dad and around Navy football. And a lot of great players and coaches that I've interacted with in the NFL. It's fun to be a part of a team.”

The Tar Heels are gambling that their investment in Belichick will pay off in increased exposure, revenue and success. The program has not won an ACC title since 1980.

It’s paid off in some ways — the Tar Heels have sold out of its allotment of season tickets and had their season opener moved to primetime on Labor Day.

But Belichick’s relationship with Hudson has taken the story far beyond the sports pages and into tabloid fodder. Hudson, who is not a university employee, handles Belichick’s personal brand. She interrupted the interview on CBS, has filed for a slew of Belichick related trademarks and corporations and, reportedly, was banned from the football facility after weeks of bad public relations, which UNC quickly refuted.

"Bill's been great to work with, and everything relative to football is what we talk about," North Carolina athletics director Bubba Cunningham told media Tuesday. "All the other stuff is for him." 

Cunningham said Belichick is "a celebrity figure. And he's doing a great job for us."

North Carolina hired Brandon Faber, a veteran media relations strategist with more than two decades of experience in Chicago sports, to be a Belichick-specific communications professional. Faber started Monday. He arranged the interview with WRAL.

Belichick was more in his element among the ACC’s other football coaches in Amelia Island. He was seen in the hallways talking with Boston College coach Bill O’Brien, a former Belichick assistant coach, and interim Stanford coach Frank Reich, a former NFL player and head coach. He and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, a two-time national champion, participated in a joint interview — a sign of Belichick’s stature already in the league.

“It's been great to talk about some of the things, ACC college football things that all of us are involved in,” Belichick said. “It's certainly a new model here for college football: NIL, rev [revenue] share and other things that are you know being discussed with the House settlement that are sort of in the air but they're sort of coming together, so just everybody's trying to figure it out and get ready for the season.”

UNC opens its season on Sept. 1 against TCU in Chapel Hill. The Tar Heels’ roster has undergone significant changes from last season — and even since spring practice ended. UNC added South Alabama transfer quarterback Gio Lopez, who is expected to be the starter, though in true Belichick fashion, he wasn’t willing to concede that even though he said he was impressed with Lopez's play in a loss to LSU last season.

“The competition is always in the hands of the players,” Belichick said. “I can't control performance so we'll give everybody an opportunity, let the players compete and we'll see how it all turns out. We're excited to have a competition not only at quarterback, but really at most every position on the field and again it'll be up to the players to perform and earn those spots. Everything will be earned and we're not handing anything out.”

Monday marked exactly five months since Belichick’s introductory press conference in Chapel Hill, which was a monumental day for UNC and college football. At the time, he called the opportunity “kind of a dream come true,” and talked about his his father coaching at Navy. Hudson was there, but kept a low profile, opting not to speak with media. Since then, Hudson’s visibility has been a point of contention within the athletic department. She’s been seen with Belichick on campus, at UNC basketball games and at an open spring practice mic-ing Belichick up. During the winter, Hudson was seen with Belichick in their Super Bowl commercial for Dunkin’ and looked glamorous with Bill at her side on the red carpet at the NFL Honors awards ceremony.

Since then, there’s been some off-the-field distractions uncharacteristic of his legendary run with the New England Patriots. The dysfunction has served as red meat for news outlets and brought on even more curious onlookers for the experiment of bringing Belichick to college.

In April, The Athletic reported Hudson was to be copied on certain emails that discussed business within the football program.

The noise reached a fever pitch after an interview on CBS Sunday Morning episode that aired on April 27 to promote the release of his book, “The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football.” At one point, interviewer Tony Dokoupil asked Belichick how he and Hudson, who sat in off-screen, met. She interrupted before Belichick, a 6-time Super Bowl champion, could answer with a curt “we’re not talking about this.” The interjection grew a life of its own and prompted questions about the nature of their relationship. Days later, Hudson posted screenshots to Instagram that showed an email that appeared to be sent by the Belichick. 

The fallout from the CBS Sunday Morning interview led Belichick to hire a PR professional to reshape his image and help promote UNC football. Belichick has interviews scheduled to air with ESPN and Good Morning America later this week.

It's Belichick's goal to reshape the program into a professional-style operation from top-to-bottom. UNC has sold out its allotment of season tickets for 2025 and finalized plans to open the 2026 season in Ireland. 

"We have well over 200 years of NFL experience on the [coaching] roster," Belichick said. "Spring training, chef, scouting, it’s important that we provide athletes with a great experience to be successful, if we do a good job developing, they can achieve their individual goals and our team goals."

Belichick is the highest-paid public employee in North Carolina, and has a five-year, $50 million contract. The contract includes a $10-million buyout if he were to leave UNC before June 1. On June 1, it drops to $1 million. But Belichick didn’t sound like someone that’s leaving anytime soon, discussing how he’s managing the program’s roster amid ongoing uncertainty about limits for football.

He said the Tar Heels’ roster turnover is not cause for concern.

“It's not dissimilar to the model that we had in the NFL where you, after the draft and free agency signing and all that, you bring in about a third of your team that's brand new and we'll be somewhere in that range when we start fall camp,” Belichick said.

Complete transcript: WRAL interview with Bill Belichick on May 13, 2025

Brian Murphy: Let me start with this. I was at your introductory press conference - it was a full house. You're going to be on primetime on ESPN. Did you think when you took this job that there would be so much attention that you would bolster the profile of Carolina football this much? 

Bill Belichick: You know, I wasn't really focused on that, Brian. It was more just to come in and try to work with Michael Lombardi and our staff and try to put together a good team and a good program and represent the school well on the football field. And that's really what we're trying to do. So I'm glad people are excited, but really just focused more on the product and delivering. 

Murphy: Has it surprised you at all that so many people want to hear about Bill Belichick at Carolina? So much interest...you guys are going to Ireland. 

Belichick: Yeah. Well, that's a long way off. We got a full season ahead of us before that. But yeah, that'll be exciting. But no, the support's been amazing. The alumni, you know, Carolina fans and great response from you know the players, the people there that are on the football staff and on the team. How hard they worked and their commitment to you know to doing the best they can and try to put a good team together.  

Murphy: Can I ask you what motivates you to stay in coaching? You've accomplished probably more than anybody who's ever picked up a whistle, and now you're kinda starting over in college. What are you trying to prove? What do you have left to prove? And maybe to who do you have anything to prove? 

Belichick: Yeah, well I just love coaching. I love all the aspects of it. I love the team building, I love the fundamentals, working with players, strategy, game competition, and just the whole process. Football's been good to me. It's been good to my family. I grew up in a football family with my dad and around Navy football. And a lot of great players and coaches that I've interacted with in the NFL. It's fun to be a part of a team. 

Murphy: You mentioned your dad's connection to UNC when you got the job. Was UNC like a specific school that you would have come to? Or if Pitt or Maryland or Oklahoma State had called, would you have entertained more options than just North Carolina?  

Belichick: Well UNC is special because of the brand. It's a great academic school. It's a great athletic tradition and again the fact that there were some roots there for me early in my life that was coming full circle was a good feeling.  

Murphy: What surprised you the most, good or bad, about being the head coach at North Carolina? 

Belichick: I just enjoyed the process, really. Enjoyed the people. The support's been great. It's a great opportunity and I just appreciate every day at Carolina. 

Murphy: You've turned your roster over through the transfer portal, including after spring ball. How difficult, you know, you're only gonna have a couple weeks of fall practice. How difficult will it be to build a cohesive team, a winning team, with just a couple of weeks to kind of pull all the pieces together?  

Belichick: Well, it's it's not dissimilar to the model that that we had in the NFL where you after the draft and pre-hg signing and all that you bring in about a third of your team is brand new and so that's we'll be somewhere in that range when we start fall camp but we'll have a couple months with them here in the summer and we've had a good spring with with a lot of these guys as well, so It is what it is. I mean all schools are you know have a similar situation Maybe not quite the same numbers but some degree of you know freshmen coming in and transfer portals, some more than others. And we'll take it as it comes and excited to have the players that we have and work with them.  

Murphy:  I know you like to talk about, you don't want to set expectations. You just want to get better every day. But what does success look like for you at North Carolina? 

Belichick  : Getting better everyday. Just come in and have a good day, having a productive day and then rest, recovery, and do another one tomorrow and keep stacking them on top of each other. That's how you achieve success is consistency and the discipline to do it repeatedly over and over. So that's what we're going to try to do. We'll let the process play out, but it's important that we develop a good solid routine. 

Murphy: How important was it that you get to work with people like Michael Lombardi, your sons, you have a lot of I guess people call Belichick guys around you as you embark on this on this adventure?  

Belichick: Well we have a few Brian but we also have you know well over 200 years of NFL experience on the roster in various capacities from our chef to our nutritionist, strength training, scouting operations and so forth. So it's really important that we provide the student-athletes with a great experience and everything they need to be successful and then if they put in the work and and you know we do a good job developing then hopefully they can achieve their individual goals and collectively we can achieve our team goals so that that's what we're about. 

Murphy: Two quick ones, you have a quarterback it looks like in Geo Lopez, how are you gonna handle that quarterback battle when it comes to the fall and who do you think might even be in that competition?  

Belichick: Yeah well the competition is always in the hands of the players. I can't control performance so we'll give everybody an opportunity, let the players compete and we'll see see how it all turns out. You know we're excited to have a competition not only a quarterback but really at most every position on the field and again it'll be up to the players to perform and earn those spots. Everything will be earned and we're not handing anything out. It'll be competitive and the guys will get what they earn and they're all competed hard, they're working hard and so I look forward to seeing what that brings.  

Murphy: You certainly got a lot of attention here in the last couple months. What's it like to be with football guys, talking football? I know you have some old friends in there, Bill O'Brien, Frank Reich. What's it been like to be at these meetings and really getting into the season? 

Belichick: Yes, it's been great. You know, it's been great to talk about some of the things, you know ACC college football things that you know are all of us are involved in you know it's a new certainly a new model here for college football NIL Rev share and other things that are you know being discussed with the house settlement that are sort of in the air but they're sort of coming together so just everybody's trying to figure it out and you know get ready for the season.  

Murphy: How much are you talking in those meetings? Obviously, you're a respected voice when it comes to football, but there are people who've been coaching college football a lot longer. So are you speaking up or are you sitting back and kind of taking it all in? 

Belichick: I'm listening to people like that, though. I've had a lot of success and I've been doing it a long time.