Ad Disclosure
“Who’s the greatest football coach of all-time?”
It depends on who you ask.
If you ask people with an NFL background, there’s a good chance they’ll say “Bill Belichick” and not think twice. If you ask people with a college background, there’s a good chance they’ll say “Nick Saban” and not think twice.
On the surface, college football adding one of the answers to the G.O.A.T. question should make everyone raise an eyebrow. The guy won 8 Super Bowls (6 as a head coach) and he’ll forget more about football than all of us combined will ever know. Belichick’s stunning move to become UNC’s next head coach after spending half a century in the NFL read more like a satirical headline in “The Onion” than an actual development. But it’s real.
The question now is whether this is anything more than an eyebrow-raiser to the SEC. Depending on who you ask, “yes” is the answer. ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky certainly echoed that sentiment on “Get Up.”
I’ll agree to disagree with Orlovsky and his assertion that SEC teams are cursing the Belichick news, though I thought twice about that after learning that Belichick’s father, Steve, was an assistant on the North Carolina staff during the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration. Clearly, the family will understand the area that it called home 7 decades ago.
Speaking of UNC in the 20th century, the SEC fearing Belichick would’ve been like the NBA fearing Michael Jordan … after he returned to play for the Washington Wizards. Sure, Jordan could bring it on a given night, but fearing the G.O.A.T. during the twilight of his career wasn’t some constant thought that changed the dynamic of the league.
To suggest that the most dominant league should fear Belichick is to project that he’ll flip the sport on its head. Mind you, that’s after the NFL didn’t even fear Belichick in his late 60s and early-70s. He’s 11 months removed from getting fired at a place where he was once un-fireable. But 0 playoff victories and a 29-38 record in 4 seasons without Tom Brady sent him to the unemployment line, where he wasn’t able to get another coaching job. Until now.
You know all of this. It’s been extremely well-documented during Belichick’s idle season on a variety of media platforms. It was on “The Pat McAfee Show” where Belichick first shared his admiration of the college game. Belichick sought a new chapter in his coaching career after feeling spurned by the NFL, which felt aligned with the notion that he was past his prime.
Alignment is a key phrase in this era of college football. Based on how roundabout the UNC coaching search was, I wouldn’t be so sure that Belichick will have that upon arrival, despite the reported promises of an increase in NIL spending from $4 million to $20 million.
That’s great for Belichick because we’re a long time removed from being convinced that he can find diamonds in the rough in the scouting process. Serving in the general manager role, Belichick’s NFL Draft whiffs during the 2010s led to the post-Brady collapse. At the time of his firing in January, the Patriots hadn’t re-signed a player it drafted in the first 3 rounds since 2013 (H/T The Athletic).
Call me crazy, but that doesn’t sound like someone ready to evaluate and develop talent.
RELATED: SDS columnist Brett Friedlander explains why hiring Bill Belichick is a mistake
While the college football landscape is changing with talent acquisition because of revenue sharing — an element that appealed to Belichick — it’s still going to be developmental. Even with a beefed-up support staff, those duties will fall on a soon-to-be 73-year-old head coach, as will the hiring of assistants. Given Belichick’s recent track record, I wouldn’t hold my breath on him instantly nailing that part of the job, either. Time will tell if he learned from decisions like making Matt Patricia his offensive play-caller and Joe Judge his quarterbacks coach even though neither had experience on offense (unless you count when Patricia served as an assistant offensive line coach in 2005).
But that’s a lot of negativity. After all, UNC just made the splashiest, most unthinkable hire imaginable. There’s no denying that’ll play on the recruiting trail. The first time we see a picture of Belichick and Jordan sandwiching some 5-star recruit, we’ll collectively gasp.
Just for the sake of argument, let’s say UNC is a 9-3 or even a 10-2 team. The path to doing that in the ACC is favorable, as we just saw by newcomer SMU, which benefitted from a softer slate and ran the table in conference play during the regular season.
In what world is that something that the SEC fears? Arizona State and Indiana are having remarkable seasons. Having said that, if any SEC team drew them in a Playoff scenario, “fear” wouldn’t be the vibe. Respect? Absolutely.
But for the SEC to truly fear a new force in college football, you’ve gotta think much bigger than 9-3 or 10-2. You have to think 2015-19 Clemson. And honestly, some SEC fans even pushed back on that as Clemson reached 5 consecutive Playoffs with 4 national title berths and 2 rings. But since the calendar turned to the 2020s, Clemson is 3-6 vs. the SEC (that includes the 2019 season’s title game vs. LSU). In Clemson’s first Playoff appearance in 4 years, it’s a double-digit underdog at SEC newcomer Texas.
Shoot, Belichick’s version of UNC could stockpile talent like Ohio State and “fear” still wouldn’t be an appropriate word. Also of note, Ohio State is 1-13 vs. SEC teams in bowl games after it lost 14-3 to Mizzou in the Cotton Bowl last year.
It would take a prolonged period of dominance and success against the SEC for Belichick to be feared. While one’s ability to flip a roster in 1 or 2 years has never been more possible with the transfer portal, the idea of a 70-something coach doing anything that’s “prolonged” seems ambitious at best and closer to an Onion headline.
For now, let’s not assume Belichick is instilling fear and let’s instead just treat this for what it is — a bizarre development in the wild college football world we live in.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
