It doesn’t seem like former North Carolina Tar Heels head coach Mack Brown was trying to shade current coach Bill Belichick, but he certainly made a point with recent comments about how the school made changes to accommodate the NFL legend.
Brown’s second stint as UNC head coach ended last year, and he finished with a record of 44-33 before being fired. While Brown was a legend with the school, they wanted to make a splashy hire to remain competitive in the ACC, and they did just that by hiring Belichick.
Belichick has been in the news for reasons beyond his current job, but he’ll have to put his head down and focus on turning the Tar Heels around (they finished 6-6 last season). When his team takes the field in September, things will be slightly different for him than they were for Brown.
Mack Brown opens up on leaving UNC and shares with @DustyDvoracek & @dannykanell why UNC has a chance to be successful quickly with Bill Belichick. pic.twitter.com/Mj9yE3poOk
— College Sports on SiriusXM (@SXMCollege) May 20, 2025
“As far as North Carolina and Bill Belichick now, he’s arguably the best coach ever,” Brown told Dusty Dvoracek and Danny Kanell on SiriusXM College Sports Radio. “They’ve committed money to it, they’ve helped him with academics. They’ve lowered those standards some. So there’s absolutely no reason they shouldn’t be successful.
“And anymore, they’ve changed the roster. … So you’ve got a chance to succeed at the highest level, and I expect him to do that and I’m proud for him.”
According to USA Today, the school boosted its NIL package from $4 million to $20 million as part of the deal to hire Belichick.
It doesn’t seem like Brown was trying to shade Belichick but he was certainly making a point in noting the change in academic standards. Reading between the lines, it sounds more like a message to the school than its current coach.
Also, plenty of people remember the student-athlete academic scandal that rocked UNC a decade ago, leading to many jokes about how low their standards would get.
Brown also noted in the interview that he knew it was time to hang up his headset last year after UNC fired him.
“It was time for me,” Brown said. “North Carolina didn’t have NIL money and I said we were kind of a slow bleed. We weren’t able to recruit the top kids like we were when we first got there. So it was time for them and it was time for me. It’s kind of like a divorce. Everybody was ready, it’s just who and how and how you split at the end. So it was best for me to get out. We always built programs on fit, and our last couple years there, we were having to get parents with money. We were trying to get kids over a 3.0. That’s who we could get.”
The Bill Belichick Era official begins at North Carolina on Sept. 1 when they host TCU.