general manager <\/a>Michael Lombardi have described their goal as building a pro-style model at the college level. It’s been a key pitch as the 73-year-old Belichick made his first foray onto the recruiting trail, as well as the volume of players transferring in and out of the program.<\/p>\nBelichick’s first on-field work in Chapel Hill came during spring workouts, lodged between portal windows in December and April.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, these are great kids to work with, they really are,\u201d Belichick said Tuesday. “We’ve had great buy-in. There have really been no problems at all. These guys are on time, they’re early, they work hard, they put in the work in the weight room, out on the field. They spend time on their own, whether it’s doing extra training or coming over and watching film and that type of thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’ve made a ton of improvement and these guys are a lot better than they were when we started in January, on every level. So it’s exciting to see where that’s going to take us.”<\/p>\n
Enticing opportunity<\/p>\n
For the players, part of the adjustment had been the reality that their coach was winning Super Bowls with quarterback Tom Brady while they were growing up and watching on TV.<\/p>\n
Intimidating much?<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, maybe at first when you see him, all you see is the Super Bowls that he\u2019s won,\u201d said offensive lineman Christo Kelly, a Holy Cross transfer and Belichick’s first portal commitment. “But when you get here and you see the way he cares, you see the way that he approaches the game, you see how hard he works, there\u2019s no question why he has the success that he has.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe attention to detail, the emphasis on fundamentals, and really just kind of creating competition for the guys, that\u2019s what\u2019s getting built here. Guys are embracing it. He treats everybody with tremendous respect and it\u2019s been great.”<\/p>\n
Defensive back Thad Dixon had met Belichick before when he was at Washington, playing under Belichick’s son Steve \u2014 now the Tar Heels’ defensive coordinator and linebackers coach. The two shared a few conversations then, and he jumped at the chance to head east.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really just wanted the opportunity just to learn from somebody like that, that had did it in the league for so long,” Dixon said.<\/p>\n
Behind the curtain<\/p>\n
Yet not every surprise has been about X’s and O’s. Sometimes it’s simply when Belichick has dropped the all-business facade to expose an unexpectedly humorous side.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like that’s the biggest curveball, you’re coming to the first meeting and you’re expecting it to be serious, 100% locked in,” said Shipp, who played 12 games for UNC last season. \u201cHe comes in and he introduces himself and then he busts a joke. That’s the second thing he said.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hardy pointed that vibe, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are times when he’ll just crack a joke out of nowhere,\u201d he said. “And just him being kind of monotone sometimes will make those jokes so funny.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Hardy noted it’s mingled amid the work, such as film sessions when \u201cthere’s no hiding\u201d when Belichick highlights a mistake.<\/p>\n
UNC opens the season on Labor Day against TCU in a college version of Monday Night Football.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve loved having 1-on-1 conversations with him,” Hardy said. “It’s cool to see and meet him personally, because you grow up and see him on TV and everything. And he’s just a completely different coach and guy when you get to be around him all day. It’s cool.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Jordan Shipp remembers the conversation with his roommates after learning Bill Belichick was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5662,5570,331,7,49,48,941,1875,12463,6493,4156],"class_list":{"0":"post-122290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-belichick","9":"tag-coaching","10":"tag-college-football","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-football","14":"tag-north-carolina","15":"tag-players","16":"tag-super-bowls","17":"tag-tar-heels","18":"tag-transfer-portal"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114666741785913962","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}