Bill Belichick’s first year at North Carolina fell flat on his face. But before the losses started to pile up, something was already in chaos in Chapel Hill. The hiring process for the head coach was a mess in itself. During a recent interview, Tar Heels Athletic Director Steve Newmark, who served on Bill Belichick’s advisory committee and became UNC’s AD this year, also acknowledged the same.

“Generally, the most difficult decision is replacing a coach across the board,” Newmark said on the Carolina Insider Podcast. “We are working in sports, which other people are paying dollars to come see. But at the same time, there are tough decisions that need to be made when you’re trying to do what’s in the best interest of the program. There are lessons that we can learn for how you move forward and do the search process.

“Quite frankly, the most recent search that we had was coach Belichick. And for football, I think we got the right result there, but probably the process was a little disjointed. And so when we did the basketball process, we took some learnings. There were some good things that happened in [the Belichick] search and there were some things that we wanted to avoid.”

Honestly, Newmark is quite spot-on in describing Bill Belichick’s hiring as dysfunctional.

In the lead-up to the eventual hiring of the former NFL coach in 2024, the hiring committee didn’t see eye to eye. As per CBS Sports, Athletic director Bubba Cunningham was reportedly running searches for younger coaches like Matt Campbell and Jon Sumrall, while Board of Trustees chairman John Preyer quietly pursued Belichick on his own, with no official authority to make the hire.

Sources inside the search described the process as “extremely dysfunctional,” with Campbell even declining to talk to Cunningham after watching Preyer’s Belichick push gaining momentum. Cunningham, who had been AD since 2011 and won AD of the Year in 2019, watched as the board chairman took over a search he wasn’t supposed to control.

According to WRAL News, by January 2025, UNC System President Hans issued a memo sidelining the board of trustees entirely, writing that “board members seem to operate independently of their campus administration” and that these “unilateral actions pose legal risks”. That memo is still in effect more than a year later, forcing all future coach hires, including men’s basketball’s coaching replacement for Hubert Davis, to go through written consent from the president before the board can even see the contract.

In Chapel Hill, where basketball has long ruled the athletic department, hiring an NFL legend felt like a desperate bid to put football on the map. While Belichick signed a 5-year $50 million contract, it came with a price. Leaving before June 1, 2025, would cost him $10 million in buyout. That deadline passed last year, dropping to just $1 million.

But what followed in 2025 was a disastrous season that saw the program rank 120 rank out of 136 FBS teams in the country in team offense and fail to reach bowl eligibility for the first time since 2018. His tenure began with a 48-14 loss to the TCU Horned Frogs. And when it was to end, it ended in the worst way: a 42-19 loss to instate rivals NC State Wolfpack, which was their fifth consecutive loss to their rivals.

Eventually, the viewership and visibility he brought publicized the program’s downfall way more than it would have been without him. His debut on Labor Day drew about 6.6 million viewers on ESPN, which made it the most-watched Labor Day college football game in nine years, per Sports Business Journal. Ultimately, the worse their performances became, the less viewership their games drew. By week 6, their game against the Clemson Tigers dropped to 1.86 million viewers on ESPN, per Front Office Sports

Newmark claimed the hiring process brought the right result in Belichick. But that has not been proven yet. The program has tried to improve its transfers and recruitment this offseason, as they gear up for a better 2026 season that looks more like the excellence Belichick is known for. But after one season, the scoreboard tells a different story than the hype promised.

The right hiring process at UNC

The athletic director went on to draw a parallel comparison between Belichick’s hiring process and the process for the program’s basketball head coach. Michael Malone was hired in April, and according to Newmark, his hiring process was the kind the AD is “proud of”.

“I’m proud of what we did there,” Newmark added. “We had an executive search committee, we had folks from the Rams Club, former basketball players, a Board of Trustees. We had a different advisory group that was some of our supporters, and other folks who have been part of the Carolina family for years. The most important one for me was, we had coach Williams, coach Fogler, and Kenny Smith, who were just a sounding board. I probably talked to them every other night. I just can’t emphasize enough how impactful and how important that was to help us get to the right decision.”

While Malone is yet to coach the team in a basketball game, Belichick’s hiring has formed a pattern. Despite being a great coach, his poor hiring process preceded a flop season. For now, UNC hopes the lessons from a messy hire will shape a stronger future, but Belichick’s $10M gamble remains unproven on the field.