By any reputable measurement, Bill Belichick is one of the greatest coaches in the history of professional football.
As an assistant coach, he helped the New York Giants win two Super Bowls thanks to his ferocious, unrelenting defenses. In 24 seasons as the head coach of the New England Patriots, he radically transformed what had been a woebegone franchise for much of its existence, teaming up with Tom Brady to win six Super Bowls.
In his brief time at the college level, though, he’s been much closer to a laughingstock than a legend.
In his first season as the head coach at North Carolina — and after his general manager boasted that the Tar Heels were the 33rd NFL team — his squad went just 4-8. It suffered a series of humiliating defeats, losing 48-14 to TCU, 34-9 to Central Florida, 38-10 to Clemson and 42-19 to North Carolina State. Its offense managed just 19.3 points per game, ranking it 120th among 136 FBS teams.
The struggles on the field were compounded by headaches off of it. Michael Lombardi, Belichick’s aforementioned GM, reportedly flew to Saudi Arabia to see whether the nation’s Public Investment Fund would be interested in investing in North Carolina (Lombardi was placed on administrative leave last month). Belichick’s significantly younger girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, has made a habit of threatening lawsuits and peppering the university with public records requests to try to figure out who in the athletic department had been leaking information to the media.
The outlook heading into his second season isn’t much rosier.
The Tar Heels turned over large parts of their roster and made several key coaching changes, but they were picked to finish 15th in the 17-team ACC in the league’s preseason poll, ahead of only Stanford and Boston College. Their over/under for regular-season wins, according to BetMGM, is just 4.5.
If Belichick’s program continues to flail, it raises an unavoidable question — would North Carolina really move on from the most accomplished head coach in NFL history after just two seasons?
Heading into the Tar Heels’ 2026 season-opener against TCU in Dublin, here’s a look at where things stand with Belichick and whether or not he’s on the hot seat:
Is Bill Belichick on the hot seat?Even in today’s big-moneyed, hyper-competitive landscape, and barring some kind of scandal, college football coaches are rarely fired before the start of their third season.
Belichick, though, isn’t your average coach. Nor is what he has overseen thus far at the school an average coaching tenure.
If North Carolina doesn’t improve in 2026 and the university wants to fire him without cause, his contract could make things a bit tricky. The first three years of Belichick’s five-year, $50 million contract are guaranteed. If the Tar Heels struggle for the second time in as many seasons under Belichick and the school opts to make a move, it would still owe him his full annual salary for both Year 2 and Year 3 on his contract.
For North Carolina, though, there’s a notable contractual catch. There’s no buyout specified in the contract if Belichick is fired after Dec. 31, 2027. Martin Greenberg, a sports law expert and a former law professor at Marquette, told USA TODAY Sports in October 2025 that there’s “absolutely nothing to compare this to” as far as contractual wrinkles in college football.
The question for the Tar Heels is how much they’re willing to tolerate if no progress is shown this season. Since 2008, they’ve missed out on a bowl in back-to-back seasons just once. When that happened in 2017 and 2018, coach Larry Fedora was fired. Prior to last season’s debacle, those two seasons under Fedora also marked the only times since 2008 that North Carolina failed to win at least six games in a season.
If Belichick again fails to lead North Carolina to the postseason, the school will have a difficult choice. Even waiting a year won’t get it off completely free, as the need to get a new coach in place to recruit and add transfers would almost certainly mean Belichick would have to be fired before the Dec. 31 deadline.
Beyond Belichick’s coaching prowess, there’s reason to believe the situation in Chapel Hill can improve. After last year’s woeful offensive output, Belichick fired offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens and replaced him with Bobby Petrino, who oversaw top-25 scoring offenses at Arkansas in 2025 and Texas A&M in 2023. The program doubled down on high-school recruiting and landed the No. 19 incoming class, according to 247Sports, with a group of 40 newcomers who could make an immediate impact.
As was the case last year, the season-opener against TCU could offer a revealing peek at what to expect over the next three months — and what that might mean for Belichick.
Bill Belichick buyoutThe first three years of Belichick's five-year, $50 million contract with North Carolina are guaranteed, meaning if he's fired during that time, he's owed what's remaining on his deal for those first three years. So if he's fired after the 2026 season without cause, he'd be set to be paid roughly $10 million.
After Dec. 31, 2027, though, there's no specified buyout in his contract.
Bill Belichick ageThe unorthodox structure of the deal makes some sense. Belichick, who turned 74 on April 16, is the oldest coach at the FBS level (Nick Saban, who retired from Alabama nearly three full years ago, is six months younger than him).
Even if he orchestrates a remarkable turnaround and makes North Carolina a College Football Playoff contender, he’s unlikely to be in Chapel Hill terribly long.
Bill Belichick record at North CarolinaBelichick went 4-8 in his first season at North Carolina, including 2-6 in ACC play to finish tied for 13th in the league standings. (The two ACC teams North Carolina beat, Syracuse and Stanford, went 3-9 and 4-8, respectively, in 2025).
UNC football schedule 2026North Carolina’s success in 2026 will depend on how it fares against a relatively challenging schedule.
Of the Tar Heels’ 12 games, three will come against teams in the top 25 of the preseason US LBM Coaches Poll: No. 5 Notre Dame, No. 7 Miami and No. 23 Clemson. Six other matchups will be against teams that received votes in the poll: TCU, Louisville, Pitt, Duke, Virginia and NC State.
- Aug. 29: vs. TCU*
- Sept. 12: vs. East Tennessee State
- Sept. 19: at No. 23 Clemson
- Oct. 3: vs. No. 5 Notre Dame
- Oct. 10: at Pitt
- Oct. 17: at Duke
- Oct. 24: vs. Syracuse
- Oct. 31: vs. No. 7 Miami
- Nov. 7: at UConn
- Nov. 14: vs. Louisville
- Nov. 21: at Virginia
- Nov. 28: vs. NC State
* Neutral-site game in Dublin, Ireland
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY Sports: Is Bill Belichick on hot seat at UNC? Record, buyout, age, more of second-year coach
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