The University of North Carolina football team and coach Bill Belichick won’t host any recruits for Saturday’s home game against East Tennessee State as punishment for a self-reported violation last season.
Home games are typically big recruiting weekends for major college football programs, an opportunity to show off your campus and game day atmosphere. The Tar Heels have five remaining home games, including against Notre Dame, Miami, Louisville and NC State.
“Last season we self-reported a violation through our normal university compliance measures,” said Kevin Best, a university spokesman. “As a result, we are unable to host unofficial visits this weekend versus ETSU. We are still permitted to host official visits this weekend but have decided as a program to concentrate our official visits on the remaining five home games. The situation has been properly resolved through the NCAA process, and we have worked with the NCAA and University compliance on appropriate and corrective action.”
Official visits are paid for by the university and can include expenses for the athlete and their family. Those expenses can include lodging, meals, entertainment and complimentary admissions to home athletics contests. Unofficial visits are paid for by the athlete, according to NCAA rules.
Schools can provide only one official visit. Athletes can take as many unofficial visits as they like, but they can’t talk with a coach during an unofficial visit.
The violation is not related to cornerbacks coach Armond Hawkins, who was briefly suspended last season for violating NCAA rules related to extra benefits before being cleared by the university, WRAL has learned.
General Manager Michael Lombardi resigned last week after being placed on paid administrative leave amid an internal investigation into the football program. WRAL reported that the investigation included investigators asking questions about alleged drug use by defensive coordinator Steve Belichick and sexual relationships between recruiting staff members, assistant coaches and at least one player.
“I’m aware of all the NCAA rules,” Bill Belichick said Monday. “I can’t tell you that I know the rule book word-for-word, but yeah.”
When asked if the program had an atmosphere of compliance, Belichick said: “Yeah, totally.”
Programs routinely self-report minor violations of NCAA rules. WRAL has requested information on UNC’s self-reported violations for the 2025-26 academic year across all sports.
Bill Belichick spent his entire career in the NFL before being hired at UNC in December 2024.
“We’ve all gone through the compliance courses, whether it be in recruiting, practices, time management, hourly requirements and so forth,” Belichick said last season. “I would say, if anything, I feel like maybe we’ve spent too much time on it, to be honest with you. I mean we’ve gone over and over and over it to make sure that we have it right. And every time we check it, I just want to triple check and make sure we’re okay on this. Right now, we’re still making sure that we’re trying to do every single thing right. I think that’s the right thing to do.
“Did something come up? Will something come up? I’m sure it probably will. It does in every program, but we’re certainly not trying to, in any way, not take advantage of our compliance people and people that have more experience with some of the subtler rules or restrictions.”