I don't think it's a con by BB, even if it turns out to be a total failure. I think he has complete confidence in his ability to build a successful football program and believes he will do it at UNC.
What worries me is that my initial reaction to hearing BB's name in the coaching search was that it was a joke and he wouldn't be someone who was seriously considered. Then I got wrapped up on the hype and excitement around the hire. Now I'm back to feeling how I did when his name first popped up. We'll see. I'll keep going to the games and hoping for the best. But my expectations that this ends up being a success are pretty low now.
Yeah I think I agree with this,I don’t think it is a con by Belichick in the sense that he’s purposefully tanking. I think the explanation for what is happening is a lot simpler: I think Bill Belichick long ago lost his fastball, was so burnt by having been unceremoniously dumped by New England, was so desperate to get another NFL head coaching job to prove to everyone and maybe even himself that he is still the football coach coaching genius and savant that people thought he was for two decades, and then was so broken by the fact that not one single solitary NFL team would give him the time of day, that he found the one college or university desperate enough and shortsighted enough to pay him $10 million per year to come coach it’s football team.
I certainly do not think that Belichick is sucking on purpose or wants to suck. I think that he and his staff came in with unbridled arrogance and a belief that just because they coached in the NFL that they could run circles around all of these college coaches. (And to be fair to Bill, he’s not the only former NFL coach and not even the only former New England Patriot to hold that belief- Charlie Weiss and all of his “decided schematic advantage” hubris perfected it 20 years ago when he failed at Notre Dame).
I think that Belichick has surrounded himself for years now with yes men, and that’s exactly what he filled his UNC staff with- his sons, his friends, his friends’ sons, and a whole bunch of other people who have zero experience coaching collegiate football.
Last but not least, I think that it is entirely possible, if not probable, that Bill Belichick all along was never some football savant but rather some very good football coach who was fortunate enough to be paired with the greatest quarterback of all time. I’m definitely not one of those people who thinks that the New England Patriots success was all Bill, or all Tom. I do think it is becoming clear that Belichick is probably a good, solid football coach who- at least previously- did a really good job of implementing a no nonsense, no distractions, do your job, business like psychological approach to football, but that he is not really much more than that. And that’s totally OK! There’s nothing wrong with that! He’s still be better than most coaches ever. But it’s becoming pretty obvious that Tom Brady was both the icing and the cherry on top of the New England Patriots cake and that Bill- while undoubtedly a very, very good football coach- is not and has never been the be-all, end-all of football coaching acumen. There are lots and lots of examples throughout football history at both the collegiate and professional levels of good, solid coaches being exceptionally elevated by elite, generational quarterbacks.
All of the above to say, I think that Bill would have been better served enjoying retirement and UNC would have been better served pursuing more traditional collegiate football coaching candidates and pouring a similar level of investment into them as what we’ve done over the last 10 months. I think that this current arrangement is a marriage of convenience, and not a good one – I think that Bill needed some sort of coaching outlet to be able to prove to the rest of the world that he is still the coaching GOAT, and I think that UNC was desperate for football relevance, and I think that because both were available at the same time, they meshed. But I do not think it is a good long-term solution and it might not even be a good short-term solution.
TL;DR: I think this whole thing is a perfect example of hubris and desperation on the part of both Bill Belichick and UNC, and it’s backfiring on both.
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