UNC Football Catch-all | Bill Belichick Era underway

[superrific]

Belichick's record:

Cleveland Browns: 37-45

New York Jets: served one day, announced resignation at his hiring press conference

New England Patriots with Brady as starting QB: 249-75

New England Patriots with someone other than Brady as starting QB: 34-50

His process works, as long as he has the sport's greatest quarterback.

In fairness, most teams aren't good when their starting QB is on the bench. It's hard to win consistently like that. And then in the end years, the Pats were depleted. What was remarkable wasn't that their window closed, but rather that it stayed open so long.

I haven't followed all the ins and outs on this thread because I'm not involved enough in the program to know or really care, but putting it altogether, I think the big takeaway is that BB's success or failure in the NFL doesn't really have much to do with what is happening at UNC. He could be legitimately the best coach in NFL history by a wide margin and still struggle in college if he refuses to adapt and thinks he has all the answers.

CFord helped show me why. As did all the other stuff being reported.

 

[akillesheel]

I will say, even though my dislike of him is obviously widely known on this thread by now, I definitely acknowledge that Belichick was a co-architect of the New England Patriots Dynasty alongside Tom Brady. Neither one of them wins six Super Bowls without the other. I do sincerely believe that it is looking more and more like it was probably 60 to 70% Brady, 30 to 40% Belichick, but that’s certainly nothing to sneeze at. Heck, you could even make the argument that those first two or three Super Bowls that they won were predominantly because of the defense Belichick ran- I’m specifically remembering what he did to the “Greatest Show on Turf” for that first one. Absolute clinic. After the second one is really when Brady went from good to great to generational, and that’s really when the New England Patriots truly became the Death Star.

Belichick was fortunate that a guy like Tom Brady came along and was willing to tolerate not only how much of an asshole Bill is, but was also willing to forgo major salaries for the good of the team in terms of being able to sign better personnel. Without Brady, Belichick is probably remembered as a defensive genius, winner of a couple of Super Bowls, a damn good ball coach, but nothing out of this world extraordinary. And without Belichick, Brady probably doesn’t have nearly as many opportunities to play with elite defenses.

But I do think it is becoming more and more clear that Belichick is not some other worldly Football Savant, but rather a very good X and O ball coach who became one of the most accomplished coaches in NFL history because he was fortuitously paired with the greatest quarterback in NFL history.

Brady carried the majority of the load in the 2014 and 2016 Super Bowls; those are what really made him the GOAT. Plenty of people were calling him a system QB up until he came back from 28-3. the 2001 and 2018 rings were all BB's, and the wins against the Panthers and Eagles you could probably call 50/50. All in all, both might be the NFL GOATs for their jobs, but yeah, neither was so much better than their peers (PManning, Brees, Rodgers; Reid, Tomlin, Harbaugh) that they were Death Star-level on their own.

more importantly, it's just become clear that belichick has lost what made him great. not even just the distractions that he once would never have tolerated, but his talent evaluation was awful at the end of his tenure in NE and has sunk us in Chapel Hill. His coaching tree was below average at his peak, but his later assistants who got promotions were downright awful. he used to find every possible hidden yard on special teams, now he's content trotting out the guy who was the worst punter in CFB last year on a team that already can't win the field position battle.

 

[akillesheel]

You bring up a great point. I wonder how many coaches who've won a lot and a lot of hardware did it without having several of the current best players on their teams?

most of the GOAT coaches have losing records if you remove games with their best QB - the big exception being Andy Reid, who has a winning record but no rings if you subtract the Mahomes years. TBF, Donovan McNabb is probably the best second-best QB any of those other guys had, but I think that bolsters my thought that Reid has a pretty underrated argument to be a top-3 coach in league history and could very well surpass BB by the time he's done even if he doesn't match him in rings.

 

[heelinhell]

Hire Kris McCollough. He is a 30 year old DII head coach having great success .
He is currently making around 170k/year and is a rising star.

Give him a 5 year contract for 700k and another 1.3 million/year for his assistant coaches.

Dean Smith was hired when he was 30 years old as an unknown and look how that turned out

 

[OGtruthhurts]

i have zero hope unc and our fanbase are smart enough to do that. plenty of young and smart coaches out there that can be had for 250k a yr plus results incentives. open checkbook for players since we are saving many millions a year by not blowing it on a staff

 

[Peppers49]

Believe it or not there is a middle ground between paying $10 million for a coach and going in the complete opposite direction by giving a D2 coach the lowest salary in all of FBS. Good lord guys.

 

[rodoheel]

Hire Kris McCollough. He is a 30 year old DII head coach having great success .
He is currently making around 170k/year and is a rising star.

Give him a 5 year contract for 700k and another 1.3 million/year for his assistant coaches.

Dean Smith was hired when he was 30 years old as an unknown and look how that turned out

I personally am on board with hiring someone young, innovative, and less proven, but a $1.3 million assistant pool would be closer to some Texas high school football programs than the rest of the ACC, lol.

What I would personally like to see a school like UNC try with a young, up-and-coming coach is a contract with a fairly small base salary but significant incentive payouts. Say, a $1.5 million base, with $300k per win, an additional $300k for each win over a ranked team, $1 million for a conference title game appearance, $1.5 million for a playoff appearance, $750k for each round of the playoff advanced, and an additional $2 million for a national title. (Just spitballing; this is not a formal plan.) A "pay for what you get" approach. I'd like to think there are some young, hungry coaches who would love the chance to bet on themselves and win.

 

[Peppers49]

I personally am on board with hiring someone young, innovative, and less proven, but a $1.3 million assistant pool would be closer to some Texas high school football programs than the rest of the ACC, lol.

What I would personally like to see a school like UNC try with a young, up-and-coming coach is a contract with a fairly small base salary but significant incentive payouts. Say, a $1.5 million base, with $300k per win, an additional $300k for each win over a ranked team, $1 million for a conference title game appearance, $1.5 million for a playoff appearance, $750k for each round of the playoff advanced, and an additional $2 million for a national title. (Just spitballing; this is not a formal plan.) A "pay for what you get" approach. I'd like to think there are some young, hungry coaches who would love the chance to bet on themselves and win.

Here is the ranked list of FBS head coach salaries. I know you’re just spitballing but those numbers would still put us very much on the low end. Frankly I don’t think it’s realistic to put together a salary structure that’s so heavily contingent on wins like that anyway.

We probably don’t need to spend $10M on the next guy, but a good coach is worth the investment. Something in the $5-7M range (depending on who it is) and not vastly overpaying unqualified assistants would be fine by me. That should be enough to attract solid candidates and also leave enough money for good players, provided we hire a coach that knows what he’s doing as far as talent acquisition goes.

Highest Paid College Football Coaches & Salaries - USA TODAY

Ever wondered who the highest paid coach in college football is? Find out today with USA TODAY's complete salary data.

sportsdata.usatoday.com

 

[rodoheel]

Here is the ranked list of FBS head coach salaries. I know you’re just spitballing but those numbers would still put us very much on the low end. Frankly I don’t think it’s realistic to put together a salary structure that’s so heavily contingent on wins like that anyway.

We probably don’t need to spend $10M on the next guy, but a good coach is worth the investment. Something in the $5-7M range (depending on who it is) and not vastly overpaying unqualified assistants would be fine by me. That should be enough to attract solid candidates and also leave enough money for good players, provided we hire a coach that knows what he’s doing as far as talent acquisition goes.

Highest Paid College Football Coaches & Salaries - USA TODAY

Ever wondered who the highest paid coach in college football is? Find out today with USA TODAY's complete salary data.

sportsdata.usatoday.com

Yeah, I mean, adjust the dials however you want to make the numbers reasonable. I think that structure I proposed would have us paying around $5 million for a fairly ordinary 7-5 or 8-4 season and something like $8-9 million for a season where we went 10-2 and made the playoffs. More like $12-13 million if we won the playoffs.

I'm not necessarily convinced it will ever happen, but I'm curious to know why you think it isn't realistic? Just because agents would never let coaches go for it? I can understand not wanting to take an offer like that if you had offers in the $5-6 mil guaranteed range elsewhere. But if you were making $1-1.5 mil at a lower tier school, you don't think you'd consider it?

FWIW if we're talking a more "conventional" hire I think somewhere in the $6-8 million range for a good, up-and-coming coach makes a lot of sense. So basically the same general range as you suggested.

 

[wmheel1287]

In the calculations for next year, I see very few people factoring in the holes we are going to have due to portal losses of players who we do want to keep and are positive contributors. Based on some conversations, I would say pretty much all of the folks we would want to count on are likely not here next year.

 

[Peppers49]

Yeah, I mean, adjust the dials however you want to make the numbers reasonable. I think that structure I proposed would have us paying around $5 million for a fairly ordinary 7-5 or 8-4 season and something like $8-9 million for a season where we went 10-2 and made the playoffs. More like $12-13 million if we won the playoffs.

I'm not necessarily convinced it will ever happen, but I'm curious to know why you think it isn't realistic? Just because agents would never let coaches go for it? I can understand not wanting to take an offer like that if you had offers in the $5-6 mil guaranteed range elsewhere. But if you were making $1-1.5 mil at a lower tier school, you don't think you'd consider it?

FWIW if we're talking a more "conventional" hire I think somewhere in the $6-8 million range for a good, up-and-coming coach makes a lot of sense. So basically the same general range as you suggested.

Yeah exactly what you said; I just can’t see an agent negotiating a deal that’s so heavily dependent on incentives. I know some coaches get decent bonuses based on certain benchmarks like number of wins, bowl appearances, playoff appearances, playoff wins, etc. (Mark Stoops at Kentucky comes to mind as a unique contract in that regard) but I think those guys still have a much higher starting baseline than the $1.5M ballpark.

To be clear I’m not opposed to the idea of hiring a coach slightly on the cheaper side and trying to allocate more money towards the roster. Gaming it out in my head though I still feel like UNC would have to take the more conventional route that you’re describing even if they wanted to get an up and comer at a smaller school.

 

[uncjhodges]

In the calculations for next year, I see very few people factoring in the holes we are going to have due to portal losses of players who we do want to keep and are positive contributors. Based on some conversations, I would say pretty much all of the folks we would want to count on are likely not here next year.

Yea people penciling in Jordan Shipp like he’s got any chance of staying and playing for Belichick

 

[heelinhell]

I personally am on board with hiring someone young, innovative, and less proven, but a $1.3 million assistant pool would be closer to some Texas high school football programs than the rest of the ACC, lol.

What I would personally like to see a school like UNC try with a young, up-and-coming coach is a contract with a fairly small base salary but significant incentive payouts. Say, a $1.5 million base, with $300k per win, an additional $300k for each win over a ranked team, $1 million for a conference title game appearance, $1.5 million for a playoff appearance, $750k for each round of the playoff advanced, and an additional $2 million for a national title. (Just spitballing; this is not a formal plan.) A "pay for what you get" approach. I'd like to think there are some young, hungry coaches who would love the chance to bet on themselves and win.

Kris is coaching in Texas. His assistant coaches are probably making around 50k/year, but I'm guessing the cost of living in west Texas is much less than Chapel Hill so I thought doubling their salary would be enough to uproot their family and follow Kris to UNC.

If I were the AD my pitch to Kris would be that we see your potential is to be a coach here for 30 years. This 5 year contract is for you to settle into our community, assess our football program needs, and establish relationships to bring in top recruits. Wins are important but rebuilding our program so we can be a consistent top 25 football team is paramount.

 

[rodoheel]

Kris is coaching in Texas. His assistant coaches are probably making around 50k/year, but I'm guessing the cost of living in west Texas is much less than Chapel Hill so I thought doubling their salary would be enough to uproot their family and follow Kris to UNC.

If I were the AD my pitch to Kris would be that we see your potential is to be a coach here for 30 years. This 5 year contract is for you to settle into our community, assess our football program needs, and establish relationships to bring in top recruits. Wins are important but rebuilding our program so we can be a consistent top 25 football team is paramount.

Even in the hypothetical where we hire a promising young coach from a lower level for cheap, I absolutely do not want to surround him with entirely his inexperienced DII staff who are making $50k a year. That's the same mistake we made with Belichick (hiring a bunch of people who don't know the current major college football landscape) but in the other direction. Terrible idea, IMO.

 

[wmheel1287]

Yea people penciling in Jordan Shipp like he’s got any chance of staying and playing for Belichick

That one in particular is gone...long gone. What is terribly sad about that is the kid and his family love Carolina and Chapel Hill like very few who play for us. But love of the place ain't enough when the day to day is miserable.