Has Bill Belichick changed the narrative?

It’s actually been kind of quiet, right?

When the month of May started and Bill Belichick had his book to promote, the flood gates opened after his interview on CBS Sunday Morning. We don’t have to relive just how badly it went, but it had since spurred on other interviews, multiple podcasts, as well as several stories that all didn’t have word one to do with UNC Football. It was all about the coach and his personal life.

Since then, though, Carolina has brought on Brandon Faber from the Chicago Bears to handle Press Relations for the team, and in the meantime the recruiting train for the Tar Heels has been rolling along. They have still signed several for the 2026 class and beyond, and despite the rolling furor at first, the winds have mostly died down on the outside the program stuff.

Of course the first question asked of Belichick last week was of his personal relationship, but the answer was one that previewed what the rest of the staff will be calling it: noise. To be fair to Belichick, if you had watched his press conferences by the end of his tenure in New England, he looked like he wanted to be anywhere west but standing at the podium. The question and answer session he held last week had him looking a little more relaxed, and while the “noise” answer was a brush off, it wasn’t in the gruff “we’re on to Cincinnati” way fans had expected. There was about a paragraph’s worth of discussion.

It does show that there is an influence from Faber on the coach. Right now, Belichick has no allies in the local media and while he still has a ways to go, his moves the last couple of weeks show that he is at least aware that there was a need to shift the focus. He went to the ACC gatherings in Florida and met with several members of the media, did a sit down with Dabo Swinney, and now had this press conference. All of a sudden the discussion locally has started to shift to…football items.

Who exactly will the quarterback be? How is the learning curve going? How much will UNC allocate to football with the House Settlement in place? What depth issues do they still have?

Another interesting thing that shows the influence of Faber is how the normally verbose Michael Lombardi has mostly been quiet since everything broke. Lombardi has shown that he will not hesitate to stick up and speak for Belichick, taking the shots for the coach and trying to put his spin on the way things have gone. He also had been very quiet in the past few months, but he made his first public remarks on ESPN Radio’s “Marty and McGee” show Saturday morning. In it he repeated the “noise” verbiage that Belichick used last week, and while he may have put his unique spin on it, it didn’t deviate from the message that football had been putting out.

Belichick, meanwhile, was seen at UNC Baseball games last weekend wearing UNC gear and the visor, and with students scattered for the summer he and Lombardi have continued their aggressive recruiting for 2026 and beyond.

The outside noise likely isn’t over. With major sports winding up their seasons and NFL training camps still about seven weeks away, there’s a lot of space to fill. Brenden Marks showed that there’s enough to still dig into with his Athletic piece last week, but with all of the brick walls he ran into it would appear that the message may have finally gotten through to all involved that the focus needs to be on football as the clock winds closer to TCU on Labor Day.

The next intriguing question—when July 24th rolls around and it’s the Tar Heels’ turn at ACC Football Kickoff, will Belichick be there and continue to try to make inroads with college football reporters? A couple of months ago it seemed like that was going to be an easy “no” but now you wonder with the new PR team if they can’t help but to see the benefit of having the coach go to various podcast and radio tables and record some quick interviews. He can give the same version of the answer of “noise” for a few minutes and interviewers can quickly determine if they want to waste their time with the same version of the answer or get some more insight.

Or will there be something else to talk about when they gather in Charlotte?