UNC Football Catch-all | Bill Belichick Era underway

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stankeylegjones said:
Don't overlook/underestimate the purchasing power the $ is for schools. Just look at Duke in basketball, while UNC has been the highest bidder for several players that went elsewhere. It's not just the now money that players are looking for but also the latter, more, money.
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That is my point. I don't expect a Belichick discount. Let's say there is an elite QB in the portal who is down to Penn State and UNC. Both promise him the starting job, but UNC is offering $2.5 million plus incentives, and Penn St. is offering $3 million.

Do you think Belichick (particularly given his weak start in college) is going to get players out of the portal at a discount to their market rate? I think we are going to need to pay market rate (if not more) to secure top portal talent. Something akin to what Texas Tech did with oil money this past offseason.
 
Calheel said:
That is my point. I don't expect a Belichick discount. Let's say there is an elite QB in the portal who is down to Penn State and UNC. Both promise him the starting job, but UNC is offering $2.5 million plus incentives, and Penn St. is offering $3 million.

Do you think Belichick (particularly given his weak start in college) is going to get players out of the portal at a discount to their market rate? I think we are going to need to pay market rate (if not more) to secure top portal talent. Something akin to what Texas Tech did with oil money this past offseason.
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Recruiting at the HS level is doing really well, perhaps it will also transfer over to the portal. (I am assuming they are not overpaying everyone.) If the team can continue to improve and finish the year relatively strong then I can see how he could develop some kind of “discount.”
 
stankeylegjones said:
Recruiting at the HS level is doing really well, perhaps it will also transfer over to the portal. (I am assuming they are not overpaying everyone.) If the team can continue to improve and finish the year relatively strong then I can see how he could develop some kind of “discount.”
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It's not all about money. Even Cal, a few posts back, begins by saying it is ALL about money, but then ends saying some kids are looking for playing time. I see no reason why the staff's recruiting success with HS players would not transfer to the portal. I saw where our portal class last year was actually ranked 8th, which if I read right, stuns me, and perhaps raises questions about talent evaluation. But for now, I will assume Nick Saban and others who have said BB is one of the, if not the, best evaluators of talent at a minimum would be warm.
Kids are different, yea, they want to get paid, but some also want to play for coaches who can prepare them not only for the NFL but for life. There are other factors, location, school prestige, ability to win, hell, even uniforms. If I were recruiting to UNC I would have every player walk across the campus to enjoy the scenery, if you know what I mean, 2/3 women or close.
BB is selling the same thing to portal players that he sold to HS recruits, and it is not like those are hugely different animals.
Most important thing to do is to keep getting better on the field, put out fires quickly, and correct their own mistakes. If they get players and are given the chance to develop them, this can work.

I actually am enjoying seeing a team get better as the season progresses. Been a while on that.
 
I actually do sincerely admire the glass half-full optimism by folks like heel79, stankeylegjones, and some others. And I'm sincerely hoping that they end up being right. No matter what our differing perspectives, we all do want the same thing in the end: a winning UNC football program.

I will readily admit that a not-insignificant part of my skepticism about the whole Belichick thing is simply that I've opposed the hire from the very beginning last December and I reckon it's my stubborn human nature that isn't allowing me to come down off of that skepticism. Of course, it certainly didn't help that the first month of the season was an unimaginable disaster which only served to reinforce my skepticism. But even though I do remain skeptical, I can at least now see at least a possibility that this whole thing ends up not being a total trainwreck- in fact, the last three games have been much more of what I expected to see all along this year.

As far as portal recruiting, I think it's going to be a very different offseason than a lot of college football fans have been used to over the last few years. The new single transfer portal window, coupled with the new revenue sharing, will shakes things up significantly. I think we're going to see a lot less high-end/instant impact talent in the portal than we've seen in years past due to schools' ability to utilize rev sharing to retain their best talent. So I think it's going to be imperative for all player personnel evaluators on all teams to be able to identify guys from G5 and FCS rosters as opposed to P4 rosters. To me, that's where the bread and butter of transfer portal success will be moving forward: mostly getting G5 and a few higher-end FCS guys who flew under the radar of the P4 out of high school, but who have spent a couple of years in a collegiate program and blossomed and have a chip on their shoulder to prove themselves at a higher level. That's something that Virginia did spectacularly well this past offseason and I'd like for us to emulate- outside of a couple of guys from P4 schools, most of their impact transfers this year came from G5 or FCS.
 
so we have 2 average teams(duke47 and state56) 1 bad team(wake 70) and 1 pathetic team(stanford115) left on our schedule. win out and i will say we have improved bottomline. otherwise this season has been a mega failure.
 
OGtruthhurts said:
so we have 2 average teams(duke47 and state56) 1 bad team(wake 70) and 1 pathetic team(stanford115) left on our schedule. win out and i will say we have improved bottomline. otherwise this season has been a mega failure.
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Oh, trust me, I don't disagree with you on that. I do believe that to date the season has been a sizable failure. Simply improving from horrific to bad or below average isn't earning any brownie points from me. A team improving over the course of a 12 game season should be the absolute bare minimum expectation, and you don't get any cookies for having lowered the bar through the floor like we did. It's not *that* we are 3-5 that makes this season a failure to date- it's *how* we are 3-5: horrific offense, poor play calling/scheming, sloppy play, and lack of attention to details (ball security anyone?). You don't hire a the most accomplished NFL coach in history, give him a blank check for his staff and program infrastructure, and then be totally satisfied when we spit the bit so hard in each of those areas I listed above.

All of that said, it is at least semi-positive that the whole thing hasn't completely imploded the way it appeared it was going inhe first quarter of the Clemson game. That was rock bottom humiliation for this program which is no stranger to such, having the stands almost completely empty before midway through the second quarter. We still have a long way to go for me to believe that this Belichick thing is going to work out in the long run. I'm still of the belief that it's not really going to work- I don't see us magically going from abysmal this year to contending next year against a much harder schedule. And if we aren't contending in year 2 of a 74-year-old head coach that was hired for the sole purpose of making us instant contenders, what are we doing?
 
heelinhell said:
Is it because they are still in the ACC ?

They have had a pretty good run since 2015 until this year. 5 trips to the CFP with 2 national championships and nine 10+wins....

If Dabo doesn't finish strong this year his ass will be on the hot seat :p
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This will be the fifth straight year they’ve finished outside of the top 10.
 
CFordUNC said:
I actually do sincerely admire the glass half-full optimism by folks like heel79, stankeylegjones, and some others. And I'm sincerely hoping that they end up being right. No matter what our differing perspectives, we all do want the same thing in the end: a winning UNC football program.

I will readily admit that a not-insignificant part of my skepticism about the whole Belichick thing is simply that I've opposed the hire from the very beginning last December and I reckon it's my stubborn human nature that isn't allowing me to come down off of that skepticism. Of course, it certainly didn't help that the first month of the season was an unimaginable disaster which only served to reinforce my skepticism. But even though I do remain skeptical, I can at least now see at least a possibility that this whole thing ends up not being a total trainwreck- in fact, the last three games have been much more of what I expected to see all along this year.

As far as portal recruiting, I think it's going to be a very different offseason than a lot of college football fans have been used to over the last few years. The new single transfer portal window, coupled with the new revenue sharing, will shakes things up significantly. I think we're going to see a lot less high-end/instant impact talent in the portal than we've seen in years past due to schools' ability to utilize rev sharing to retain their best talent. So I think it's going to be imperative for all player personnel evaluators on all teams to be able to identify guys from G5 and FCS rosters as opposed to P4 rosters. To me, that's where the bread and butter of transfer portal success will be moving forward: mostly getting G5 and a few higher-end FCS guys who flew under the radar of the P4 out of high school, but who have spent a couple of years in a collegiate program and blossomed and have a chip on their shoulder to prove themselves at a higher level. That's something that Virginia did spectacularly well this past offseason and I'd like for us to emulate- outside of a couple of guys from P4 schools, most of their impact transfers this year came from G5 or FCS.
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I can appreciate your willingness to reach across the aisle so to speak. To be honest though I feel like that type of “optimism” from those posters crosses into being contrarian pretty quickly. I get it to an extent: the program has had a black cloud almost constantly hanging over it for ages now, and for some people it gets old hearing and seeing all the constant negativity from our own fans. They’re looking for any sliver of hope to use to shout down the criticism, even when it’s completely justified. My stance on that is don’t piss on my head and tell me it’s raining.

Completely agree with you about the transfer portal and I’ve been saying the same thing about how it’s much more difficult for teams to get proven talent that way compared to a few years ago because of the new rev share model that makes it easier for teams to retain their best players, and now the shortened portal window. You need Texas Tech levels of NIL money on hand if you want to plug a bunch of roster holes with proven power conference talent. Otherwise, you need to have a strong personnel department that can identify players from lower levels that could be a fit for the system and then convince them to come here.

I think UNC has a two-fold problem on that front. Offensively, we essentially have no system lol. Whether we keep Kitchens or not it’s probably going to be difficult to pitch potential portal targets on that side of the ball to take a chance and come here. Beyond that, I have zero faith in Lombardi to suddenly figure out how to be a competent college GM. Before this season the guy had no experience at the college level, he’d been out of the sport entirely for almost a decade, and his resume before that is extremely suspect. Just criminal that he is making 2x as much as the next highest paid college GMs lol.
 
Peppers49 said:
I can appreciate your willingness to reach across the aisle so to speak. To be honest though I feel like that type of “optimism” from those posters crosses into being contrarian pretty quickly. I get it to an extent: the program has had a black cloud almost constantly hanging over it for ages now, and for some people it gets old hearing and seeing all the constant negativity from our own fans. They’re looking for any sliver of hope to use to shout down the criticism, even when it’s completely justified. My stance on that is don’t piss on my head and tell me it’s raining.

Completely agree with you about the transfer portal and I’ve been saying the same thing about how it’s much more difficult for teams to get proven talent that way compared to a few years ago because of the new rev share model that makes it easier for teams to retain their best players, and now the shortened portal window. You need Texas Tech levels of NIL money on hand if you want to plug a bunch of roster holes with proven power conference talent. Otherwise, you need to have a strong personnel department that can identify players from lower levels that could be a fit for the system and then convince them to come here.

I think UNC has a two-fold problem on that front. Offensively, we essentially have no system lol. Whether we keep Kitchens or not it’s probably going to be difficult to pitch potential portal targets on that side of the ball to take a chance and come here. Beyond that, I have zero faith in Lombardi to suddenly figure out how to be a competent college GM. Before this season the guy had no experience at the college level, he’d been out of the sport entirely for almost a decade, and his resume before that is extremely suspect. Just criminal that he is making 2x as much as the next highest paid college GMs lol.
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Yeah, you and I are almost 100% in alignment on everything you said. I just don't see how there is going to be some magical transformation from the disaster we've seen for the majority of Belichick's stint to date, to some bonafide contender for an ACC title and CFP berth. I don't have confidence that Lombardi is going to magically become some competent talent evaluator and roster assembler- that would require both humility and expertise, neither of which he seems to possess. I also don't have confidence that Bill is able or willing to make the kind of offensive changes that we need- we need not only a complete offensive roster overhaul but we *also* need a complete overhaul of our offensive philosophy. Even if we somehow get the former (highly doubtful, for reasons you and I have mentioned about the new portal landscape moving forward), if we don't get the latter- and why would we, this is exactly what Bill wants in terms of scheme offensively- then it's all moot anyway.
 
CFordUNC said:
Oh, trust me, I don't disagree with you on that. I do believe that to date the season has been a sizable failure. Simply improving from horrific to bad or below average isn't earning any brownie points from me. A team improving over the course of a 12 game season should be the absolute bare minimum expectation, and you don't get any cookies for having lowered the bar through the floor like we did. It's not *that* we are 3-5 that makes this season a failure to date- it's *how* we are 3-5: horrific offense, poor play calling/scheming, sloppy play, and lack of attention to details (ball security anyone?). You don't hire a the most accomplished NFL coach in history, give him a blank check for his staff and program infrastructure, and then be totally satisfied when we spit the bit so hard in each of those areas I listed above.

All of that said, it is at least semi-positive that the whole thing hasn't completely imploded the way it appeared it was going inhe first quarter of the Clemson game. That was rock bottom humiliation for this program which is no stranger to such, having the stands almost completely empty before midway through the second quarter. We still have a long way to go for me to believe that this Belichick thing is going to work out in the long run. I'm still of the belief that it's not really going to work- I don't see us magically going from abysmal this year to contending next year against a much harder schedule. And if we aren't contending in year 2 of a 74-year-old head coach that was hired for the sole purpose of making us instant contenders, what are we doing?
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At this point, it’s all based on perception. If we can win 3 of 4 here by beating terrible teams, make a bowl and then use that for positive recruiting momentum, get a new QB and OC, we could be all the way up to mediocre next year
 
uncjhodges said:
At this point, it’s all based on perception. If we can win 3 of 4 here by beating terrible teams, make a bowl and then use that for positive recruiting momentum, get a new QB and OC, we could be all the way up to mediocre next year
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Definitely possible. If that comes to pass, it would be very interesting to see how folks react after next year if we are, say, 4-8 this year and somewhere between our usual 5-7 to 7-5 next year. To me, that is not acceptable for the level of investment we've made into this staff. Heck, Mack Brown could have easily done both. In my mind, by hiring Belichick the expectation should have been 7-5/8-4 in year 1 against a very weak schedule, and 9-3+ in year 2 en route to establishing ourselves as an ACC title and CFP berth contender. We currently feel so far away from being a contender and I see no clear vision on how we are going to get there, because "we're going to bring in 40+ HS recruits next year when literally nobody else in the country would even contemplate doing so" ain't cutting it.
 
CFordUNC said:
Definitely possible. If that comes to pass, it would be very interesting to see how folks react after next year if we are, say, 4-8 this year and somewhere between our usual 5-7 to 7-5 next year. To me, that is not acceptable for the level of investment we've made into this staff. Heck, Mack Brown could have easily done both. In my mind, by hiring Belichick the expectation should have been 7-5/8-4 in year 1 against a very weak schedule, and 9-3+ in year 2 en route to establishing ourselves as an ACC title and CFP berth contender. We currently feel so far away from being a contender and I see no clear vision on how we are going to get there, because "we're going to bring in 40+ HS recruits next year when literally nobody else in the country would even contemplate doing so" ain't cutting it.
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The attempts to move the goal posts for Belichick are so flimsy. You can’t hire a coach at his age, pay him what we’re paying him, and then give him a pass for a protracted 3-5 year rebuild. There’s just no way that type of outcome would have been considered acceptable by the power brokers back in December when they started to zero in on him and envision what his tenure should look like.
 
My expectations of the BB era have always been a bit different but not what we saw against TCU, CF and Clemson. I expected better than that. I have enjoyed seeing a team grow defensively and we are better despite the competition. When we hired BB I told people I expected him to fall in love with chapel hill and make it his post retirement home, coach 3 to 5 years and build a solid football foundation, and to hand the program off perhaps to SB or someone else he annointed and to basically be the godfather/senior advisor of UNC football. I can still see that happening and believe that is our shortest route to relevance. I definitely don't think bunching is.
 
Peppers49 said:
The attempts to move the goal posts for Belichick are so flimsy. You can’t hire a coach at his age, pay him what we’re paying him, and then give him a pass for a protracted 3-5 year rebuild. There’s just no way that type of outcome would have been considered acceptable by the power brokers back in December when they started to zero in on him and envision what his tenure should look like.
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A-freaking-men. Best post on this whole entire thread, IMO. Couldn't have articulated my view any better if I'd tried.
 
heel79 said:
My expectations of the BB era have always been a bit different but not what we saw against TCU, CF and Clemson. I expected better than that. I have enjoyed seeing a team grow defensively and we are better despite the competition. When we hired BB I told people I expected him to fall in love with chapel hill and make it his post retirement home, coach 3 to 5 years and build a solid football foundation, and to hand the program off perhaps to SB or someone else he annointed and to basically be the godfather/senior advisor of UNC football. I can still see that happening and believe that is our shortest route to relevance. I definitely don't think bunching is.
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Bill Belichick's coaching tree is.....not at all who we want running the UNC football program in perpetuity.
 
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