Soon after earning his first win as a collegiate coach on Saturday night, UNC coach Bill Belichick addressed his widely-reported decision to ban New England Patriots scouts from Tar Heels’ practices.
“It’s clear that I’m not welcome there, around their facilities,” Belichick said, “and they aren’t welcome at ours. Pretty simple.”
Following an embarrassing 48-14 loss to TCU in his college coaching debut Monday night, the news broke that Belichick had banned Patriots scouts. 3 and Out’s John Middlekauff, a former NFL scout, first reported the news. Reports from various outlets corroborated Middlekauff to various degrees and, on Friday, Patriots coach Mike Vrabel seemed to confirm the news.
When asked about Belichick banning his scouts in a press conference at Gillette Stadium, Vrabel said “that’s an individual choice.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we start looking at players,” Vrabel continued. “I’m going to focus on our football team. That’s their prerogative, to make the decisions they feel are best for them. And we’ll have to find other ways to get the information for any players that we want to look at North Carolina.”
Other than Belichick’s comment on Saturday night, UNC has not responded to The News and Observer’s repeated requests for further comment.