Colorado head football coach Deion Sanders and UNC head coach Bill Belichick have more in common than just their NFL popularity. This other thing common between them, surprisingly, is from their college football coaching roots.
Per ESPN’s David Hale, Andrea Adelson, and Chris Low, Belichick’s hiring is “something akin” to Sanders’ hire.
“According to several sources, board members viewed Belichick as something akin to Colorado’s hiring of Deion Sanders — a public relations and financial windfall that had the added benefit of improving the team on the field,” the ESPN writers relayed.
The outlook resonates with Sanders’ anecdote at CU. When Prime Time arrived in Boulder in 2022, the program was sub-par. Everything from the roster to the staff, and most crucially, the culture got a revamp.
That’s exactly what Belichick has done in his couple of months with the Tar Heels. Blank jerseys without names, numbers, or even the UNC symbol might be the sprout of another legendary Patriots-like culture.
“This is, perhaps, why Belichick is really here — to strip North Carolina of the identity it’s long held, one marked by false hope and disappointing finishes, and to build something new from the ground up,” ESPN’s staff wrote.
And just like Sanders, Belichick isn’t there to change what their program is. They are rather ensuring that it’s better.
“The arrival of a legend hasn’t changed the basic contours of football at North Carolina. Belichick isn’t reinventing the game. He won’t wave a magic wand that suddenly turns a perennial underachiever into a championship contender, even if his arrival does feel like some gift from the football gods,” Hale, Adelson, and Lowe wrote.
What it will do is magnetize crowds in stadiums and talent into his program, as Sanders has very famously done so far, likely increasing Tar Heels’ overall revenue.
Not to mention that Belichick’s success rate in 2025 would highly depend on who he chooses as his starting QB, as Coach Prime did with his son Shedeur Sanders.
His coaching experience with one of the finest teams in NFL books helping him to shape young minds is just a bonus.
There would be questions still surrounding his efficacy as a college head coach until he meets the expectations that start when they open their season on Saturday, August 30, against TCU.