Off the field, the North Carolina Tar Heels are investigating an issue involving general manager Michael Lombardi. On the field, the program has resumed training practice ahead of the 2026 season, a season where head coach Bill Belichick is under immense pressure to deliver. However, according to sports broadcaster Colin Cowherd, this could be the UNC head coach’s last year at the program.

“I think he’s got one year left,” Cowherd said on the August 2 episode of his podcast when John Middlekauff asked if this was Belichick’s last year at UNC. Before coming to this conclusion, Cowherd threw light on what’s been going wrong for Belichick in his final years at New England and now at UNC.

“It’s funny with Bill. Every coach, every broadcaster,, everybody’s got a hole, and I think Bill’s hole is he has such confidence in his intelligence that he tends to think, ‘I just want to hire somebody I know.’ I don’t want to teach them how to do a thing. If they know how I do business, my kids, Lombardi, I’m good with it. And I think Bill has so much confidence with his football knowledge, scouting.”

“He’s just an intellect, he’s a football intellect that I think it actually hurts him in the hiring process, where he’s like, ‘I’m not going to do a deep dive. He knows me; he won’t get in the way. I don’t have to teach him football; I don’t have to teach him my personality. He won’t get offended when I chew his b-tt.’ I look at his Carolina staff and his late New England staff, and it kind of feels like he’s just not pursuing the best of the best.”

Belichick spent years building his football reputation while prioritizing familiarity, trust, and continuity when hiring his coaching and front office staff. His coaching philosophy has been a conservative one that shows no admiration for other systems.

Following his transition to college football, this tendency even became more pronounced. Two of his sons Steve and Brian, are UNC assistant coaches. Matt Lombardi, the quarterbacks coach, is the son of the general manager and Belichick’s confidant, Michael Lombardi.

The linebackers coach, Jamie Collins, played for him at New England. In fact, when his former assistants, Josh McDaniels and Matt Patricia, left for head coaching roles and failed, Belichick was never hesitant to rehire them back into prominent roles.

Particularly, Middlekauff had an issue with Belichick hiring Lombardi when he made the move to college football. In all of Lombardi’s decades of professional experience, not one year was dedicated to college football. And in an era where even college football personalities are finding it difficult to cope with the evolution of the college football landscape, a newbie general manager was never going to be the answer for UNC.

While this method brought him numerous wins and trophies, the fact that his latter years in the NFL did not go well was enough reason to change what was not working. However, Belichick’s blind eye to changing times and seasons would continue his failures that he witnessed in his final years at New England.