2024 Coaching Carousel has started

[Irv]

I'd love to see him get a job anywhere else. Change the landscape of football. He's been the main man bringing in all this skill talent at OSU for so long. I'm also not convinced he's HC material. So he leaves, OSU goes down, and his new team doesn't exactly fill the void.

And then he gets fired. Then NU hires him. Then mutes for days in Lincoln. /chef's kiss

 

[2010sarenevercomingback]

 

[dom91932]

Why Bill Belichick abandoned hope of landing NFL job, pursuit of wins record

Belichick realized he was going to be a long shot in the next NFL hiring cycle. "He burned a lot of bridges over his career."

www.nytimes.com

tl;dr: He's burned a lot of bridges, will not get the total control he wants, and no guarantee any NFL team hires him

Why Bill Belichick abandoned hope of landing NFL job, pursuit of wins record​

Jeff Howe

Bill Belichick’s foray into college football drew plenty of double takes across the industry, but the logic behind his decision might have been as simple as it was surprising.

“He’s a football coach,” a source close to Belichick said. “He’s going to coach somewhere.”

After 49 seasons in the NFL, Belichick made a stark career change Wednesday when he accepted the head coaching job at the University of North Carolina.




The 72-year-old’s pursuit of Don Shula’s wins record has been put on hold, perhaps permanently. Belichick needed 15 wins to surpass the NFL’s all-time mark of 347.

The record meant a lot to Belichick, particularly in recent years when it appeared to be more attainable. So, why did he call off the chase?

It’s perhaps more important to assess the situation from the opposite viewpoint.

One NFL team with a coaching vacancy had already ruled out the idea of interviewing Belichick, according to a league source. Sources with a couple of other teams with potential head coach vacancies didn’t believe there’d be enough support within the building to hire Belichick. The New York Jets, who will be hiring a coach and general manager, were never considered a possibility due to their long-running shared animosity for each other.

And among the seven coaching vacancies last year — excluding the New England Patriots, who fired Belichick — the architect of the greatest dynasty in league history only drew serious interest from the Atlanta Falcons. Several of those teams quickly dismissed the idea of interviewing Belichick, according to league sources. Some even expressed relief Belichick wouldn’t disrupt the organization’s power structure.

Belichick, the most prepared figure in the NFL for so long, had to recognize a chilling reality: He’d once again be a long shot to get a job in the league’s upcoming hiring cycle. It’s common for coaches to put out feelers to gauge their attractiveness to organizations.

“(Belichick) burned a lot of bridges over his career,” a high-ranking team executive said.

Belichick still wanted to coach, though, so it was important for him to act. North Carolina, which employed his father in the 1950s, was the most high-profile program with an opening. Belichick turns 73 in April and couldn’t run the risk of being shut out of another hiring cycle.

“If he wanted to coach again, he almost had to take this job,” another team executive said.

Another longtime Belichick associate thought the move to UNC made sense for other reasons, too. Belichick will essentially have unilateral control over the program, which wouldn’t necessarily be the case if he had gotten another NFL opportunity. And a handful of Belichick’s closest friends — Nick Saban, Greg Schiano, Chip Kelly, Kirk Ferentz and Jedd Fisch — have enjoyed success at the college level. He can use them as resources as he acclimates to a different football world.

Also consider that Belichick could have waited to see if there’d be openings with the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants or Jacksonville Jaguars — among other teams — but they ultimately might not have been great fits. Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones isn’t ceding control of his front office, and it’s too early to know what the upcoming power structure will look like within the Giants and Jaguars if more drastic changes are on the way.

“There might be some owners who want (Belichick’s) structure and stability, but he is 72,” another longtime executive from a team that was involved in last year’s NFL hiring cycle said. “I think a lot of teams want to build something long-term, and he clearly has a capped timeline.”

Belichick’s resume still stands alone. He is viewed by his peers as the greatest coach of his era, if not in history. And last season, even as the Patriots wallowed to a 4-13 record, a couple of personnel executives said Belichick’s defense still displayed some revolutionary concepts.

But they had fair and objective criticisms about the way things ended with the Patriots, with their record worsening in each of his last two seasons and failing to win a playoff game over his final five years. Parting with quarterback Tom Brady was a head-scratcher, but the failure to find a suitable successor made the matter exponentially worse.

Belichick’s push for organizational control has also been at the center of discussion with teams. One executive referred to the Patriots as a “unicorn” during the Belichick era, as he won three Super Bowls in his first five seasons, gained considerably more control after Scott Pioli’s departure in 2009 and was able to run the team how he saw fit. That’s not a common structure for much of the league.

Plus, the model had deteriorated in Belichick’s later years with the Patriots. There was a push for more collaboration with the 2021 NFL Draft, but that collaboration fell apart in 2022, according to league sources. Patriots scouts were often frustrated by their lack of involvement after the annual combine — nearly two months before the draft — or their general inclusion in the building throughout the season.

“I think people would be concerned about the culture in the building,” a fourth executive said. “(Belichick’s) culture worked when they were winning, but he got fired because they weren’t winning.”

Of course, the culture also extends to the locker room. Modern-day players don’t relate to the old-school coaching approach the way they did 10 or even 20 years ago. As one of Belichick’s former players recently said, “It’s nice to go somewhere and not get told how much you suck every day.”

That player was not alone in that sentiment. And adding to that, coaches and executives from other teams were turned off by Belichick’s public alienation of former Patriots quarterback Mac Jones.

Belichick has enjoyed unprecedented levels of success throughout his career. No one around the league would ever deny that.

But while teams eye a long-term solution with their next head coach, they have a lot of fair questions about the way it fell apart in New England and whether Belichick would be the right fit within their organization. And even if Belichick did turn around an NFL team, his age limits his longevity.

Naturally, the same questions will exist at North Carolina, but here’s the difference: UNC was offering a job, and it was anything but guaranteed the NFL would do the same.

 

[Baron Winnebago]

I don't believe that an NFL team wouldn't hire him, but I do believe an NFL team wouldn't hire him on his terms.

 

[dom91932]

Here’s why North Carolina is going to regret hiring Bill Belichick

What works in the NFL doesn’t necessarily work in college. Bill Belichick and North Carolina may find out the hard way.

www.nytimes.com

tl;dr: He's "completely unqualified" to coach in college and even the sure thing can miss-with shout outs to Bill Callahan and Scott Fros

Here’s why North Carolina is going to regret hiring Bill Belichick​

Stewart Mandel

Congratulations, North Carolina. You managed to hire someone completely unqualified to be your next football coach. You did that thing so many schools do where they try to win the press conference instead of win football games. It rarely works.

I realize I may get excommunicated from the football world for daring to question the merits of a six-time Super Bowl champion coach. But let’s remove the name Bill Belichick and replace it with Coach X. Here is who North Carolina just hired:

• Coach X has never coached a day in college football. He has never recruited an athlete. He has never had to deal with the transfer portal or NIL collectives. His dad was a college coach, at Navy, but that was 35 years ago.

• Coach X is known for being grumpy and introverted, two traits that don’t often go hand in hand with wooing recruits, glad-handing donors and giving motivational talks to 18- to 22-year-olds.

• Coach X made his first post on Instagram — which he referred to as Instaface at the time — on Sept. 4 of this year. He has since posted eight more times. He may not realize that many college athletes, particularly recruits, communicate primarily via social media.

• And Coach X is 72 years old, just one year younger than the guy he’s replacing, Mack Brown, as well as his buddy Nick Saban, who got out of coaching this year at least in part because, as he said at the time, “When you get to 72 years old, it gets harder and harder to promise people you’re gonna be there for four or five more years.”

But Coach X does have those Super Bowl rings. Which he’ll surely wear when he meets with recruits and potential transfers. Who will then say something to the effect of, “That’s great, but how much am I getting paid?”

Unless Belichick can magically restore eligibility for Tom Brady, I fail to see how this will end well. I’ve seen this movie so many times before: Big-name NFL coach comes to town vowing to turn the program into an NFL organization in college.

Bill Callahan and his master plan to scrap Nebraska’s famed triple-option offense for the West Coast offense.

Charlie Weis and his “decided schematic advantage” at Notre Dame.

Herm Edwards and his vaunted “new leadership model” at Arizona State.

Lovie Smith, with no discernible plan of any kind at Illinois.

Inevitably, school and coach soon realize that what works in the NFL doesn’t necessarily work in college. (And vice versa.) And yet … they just keep falling for it.

Belichick has spent time this year at Washington, where his son, Steve, is the defensive coordinator. He’s clearly put a lot of thought into how he would run his own college program, as evidenced by his comments earlier this week on Pat McAfee’s show.

“If I was in a college program, the college program would be a pipeline to the NFL for the players that had the ability to play in the NFL,” he said. “It would be a professional program — training, nutrition, scheme, coaching and techniques that would transfer to the NFL. It would be an NFL program at a college level.”

No question, player development is crucial to success as a college coach. But is he under the impression the current top programs aren’t already doing this exact thing? It’s delusional to think Belichick will show up, flash his rings and suddenly North Carolina will start producing more high-end NFL players than Georgia or Ohio State.

You need to do something else to distinguish yourself in this era.

The college coaching landscape is currently in a bridge process, following the exits of national championship coaches Saban, Brown and Jim Harbaugh. Kirby Smart and Dabo Swinney are the only ones left. As the next generation begins establishing itself, two specific archetypes are emerging.

The young/youngish high-energy guys: Smart, Dan Lanning, Steve Sarkisian, Kenny Dillingham, Deion Sanders, Spencer Danielson, Matt Campbell, Marcus Freeman, Shane Beamer, Eli Drinkwitz, Rhett Lashlee, Jon Sumrall, Fran Brown.

And the career college guy who just wins: Curt Cignetti, Jeff Monken, Chris Klieman, Lance Leipold (this season notwithstanding).

Belichick is so far from fitting within either of those groups it’s hard to think of any close comparison. It may actually be Coach Prime, who, though he came from Jackson State, has filled his staff with NFL coaches and welcomes all manner of NFL guests.

But he and Belichick fall on polar opposite ends of the personality spectrum.

Nailing a coaching hire is hard, and it can be futile trying to predict which guys will succeed and which guys will fail. Like many, I thought Scott Frost would lead Nebraska to glory, and that Lincoln Riley would be contending for national championships by now at USC. Whereas I doubted Sarkisian was the guy to do that at Texas or that Josh Heupel would become Tennessee’s best coach in two decades.

But there have been a few over the years I felt were obvious disasters from the moment they were announced — Weis and Les Miles at Kansas, Edwards at Arizona State, Mike Riley at Nebraska and Karl Dorrell at Colorado come to mind.

I hereby add UNC/Belichick to that distinguished class of regrettable hires. Check back in two to three years.

 

[dom91932]

Why is Bill Belichick heading to North Carolina? It’s all about control

NFL teams seemed hesitant to give Belichick the kind of omnipotent power he can get in college.

www.nytimes.com

​

tl;dr: The headline says it all

Why is Bill Belichick heading to North Carolina? It’s all about control​

By Chad Graff
5h ago

Bill Belichick sat on the 295-foot yacht of Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, surely delighting in the opulent world of billionaires, hoping (and quite sure) this was the man who was going to give him another shot.

Belichick had split from Robert Kraft and the New England Patriots four days earlier, but he took no time to decompress. He wanted another job and made his pitch to Blank.

The initial surprise was that Blank’s Falcons were the only NFL team interested in Belichick last January. Then the real shocker came. Blank went in a different direction. The Falcons didn’t want the future Hall of Fame coach either.

There was a hold-up that was tough for Blank and company to get past. Belichick wanted to lead the football operations department the way he did for so many years in New England, one of the perks of building a dynasty and becoming the most decorated NFL coach of all time thanks to the six Lombardi Trophies that now reside in Foxboro.

But after watching the Patriots crater after Tom Brady departed for Tampa Bay, NFL teams seemed hesitant to give Belichick the omnipotent football power that he sought.

That leads us to Wednesday and the latest shocking news surrounding Belichick. The NFL lifer is headed to college at age 72, set to take over at the University of North Carolina, a football program long overshadowed by the school’s own basketball team.

On the surface, the move is perplexing. Belichick has been in the NFL for 49 years. Now, nearing the end of his illustrious career, he’s going to tackle college football? And deal with the transfer portal? NIL? Boosters? All those off-the-field aspects of the job that drove his buddy Nick Saban out of the sport?

Sure, there are interesting facets of the story that range from the heart-warming (Steve Belichick, Bill’s father, coached at UNC from 1953-55!) to the practical (college football is functioning increasingly like a professional sport).

But do you want to know why Belichick is really headed back to college? Control.

After the way things ended in New England — with a roster that was falling apart, an outdated front office and an undermanned coaching staff — NFL teams were reluctant to fully hand over the keys to Belichick. Maybe a couple would’ve been interested this winter in hiring him to coach while keeping him separate from the decision-makers in the front office. But it didn’t seem likely any were going to let him run the team the way he did in New England.

But who does get that power? College football coaches.

At North Carolina, Belichick will get to pick his whole staff. He’ll get to decide on the players. He’ll have control over the schedule. He’ll have a say over how the facilities are shaped. He’ll get to control everything from offseason workouts to the game plan on Saturdays. That’s part of being a college coach these days: power over every aspect of the football program.

Some coaches have fled head college jobs for what appear to be demotions amid the increasing demands on NCAA head coaches and the relentless schedule they face. Former Boston College coach Jeff Hafley left to become the defensive coordinator with the Green Bay Packers. Former UCLA coach Chip Kelly gave up that post to become the offensive coordinator at Ohio State.

But those all-encompassing aspects of the job are actually perks for Belichick, who is football-mad and obsessed with details and processes.

The question now is whether it’ll all work.

Yes, the college game has changed thanks to revenue sharing, the transfer portal and NIL creating something resembling free agency. But Belichick has never had to woo boosters, deal with recruits (and their parents) or negotiate the Wild West of NIL.

Yes, Belichick will now have the power he sought. But while he had only one man to report to with the Patriots — Kraft — he is now thrown into the middle of a reported tussle between the board of trustees and athletic department, not to mention the chancellor and a group of boosters who may feel like they occasionally deserve the ear of the coach.

There’s also the issue of relating to younger players. Belichick was never known for his ability to connect with people. He often walked past Patriots players without so much as a “hello.” Compliments from him are rare. Will that work with a Gen Z locker room?

Then there’s the issue of roster construction and the unavoidable truth that his management of the Patriots led to a disastrous 4-13 season that prompted his divorce from the team he coached for 24 years. In reflecting on what went wrong, Kraft said this year he regretted not having more “checks and balances” on Belichick.

That’s not to say this can’t work. No one knows the NFL better than Belichick. As he suggested on “The Pat McAfee Show,” maybe he can turn UNC into a pipeline to the league, thus attracting better players and yielding wins along the way. Despite how bad his last Patriots teams were, ol’ Bill can still put together a great defensive game plan.

Maybe such a high-profile hire rejuvenates the program the way Deion Sanders did for Colorado. Maybe Belichick’s defensive mastery befuddles the poor ACC coaches who don’t know what they’re up against. Maybe he combats concerns about his longevity in Chapel Hill by building a program that prepares players for the pros better than anywhere else.

But for now, as the shock wears off and the idea of Belichick pacing the sidelines at Wake Forest and Syracuse begins to crystallize, the reason this happened is clear.

In college, Belichick will get a level of power and control he couldn’t have again in the NFL.

 

[dom91932]

Clawson resigns as Wake coach, becomes advisor

Wake Forest football coach Dave Clawson has resigned after 11 seasons with the Demon Deacons and will remain with the university in an advisory role.

www.espn.com

 

[Baron Winnebago]

Clawson resigns as Wake coach, becomes advisor

Wake Forest football coach Dave Clawson has resigned after 11 seasons with the Demon Deacons and will remain with the university in an advisory role.

www.espn.com

RIP to the Clawfense, but if you've made enough money why waste your life?

 

[Dr.DrakeRamoray]

RIP to the Clawfense, but if you've made enough money why waste your life?

Would have loved to have seen what he could do at a bigger school with more resources. Hes a good ball coach

 

[KidsSeeGhosts]

 

[Goskers07]

Why not? Worked well with the last fast paced offense he worked with.

 

[KidsSeeGhosts]

Why not? Worked well with the last fast paced offense he worked with.

redemption arc intensifies

 

[Kazman5k]

Literally the bad news bears

 

[doublewing]

At some point the CFB world will realize he's not a good DC. Or maybe the CFB world has already done that and Frost is yet to catch on and/or Grinch is a good wingman.

 

[Kinish]

from ted roof to alex grinch

my god, id just kms if i was a ucf fan

might as well hire brian ferentz or noel mazzone as the oc

 

[dom91932]

Sources: Vick plans to take Norfolk State job

Former NFL star Mike Vick has told people close to him that he plans to accept the job as Norfolk State's head football coach, sources told ESPN.

www.espn.com

 

[Frogsker30]

Sources: Vick plans to take Norfolk State job

Former NFL star Mike Vick has told people close to him that he plans to accept the job as Norfolk State's head football coach, sources told ESPN.

www.espn.com

Sc state Bulldogs better watch out

 

[HerbRedman]

Sc state Bulldogs better watch out

 

[KidsSeeGhosts]

 

[Dr.DrakeRamoray]

Great hire