Extra Points: Round Two

It was the kind of day Thomas Wolfe was thinking about when he wrote, "There's no place on Earth that can equal Carolina." Eighty degrees in late April. A sky perfectly matching a color swatch of Pantone PMS 542. The crack of bats hitting baseballs during batting practice in Boshamer Stadium. The coconut-laden scent of suntan oil on the grass outside Cobb Dorm.

Inside Kenan Stadium, Bill Belichick and his Tar Heel football team are in their last week of spring football practice. The sunny day reflects the coach's upbeat disposition now that he's one-year plus into learning the nuances of recruiting 18-year-olds; ciphering the transfer portal marketplace; grasping the calendar of college football and how practice and games mesh with the academic calendar; and molding and leading a staff of mostly newcomers like himself to Chapel Hill and the world of college football.

April 2025 to April 2026? The Grand Canyon could fit in the chasm.

"It's so different today," Belichick says, reflecting on the last 15 months on the job. "We came in so late. We missed that first recruiting class. We came in late on the portal, which means a lot of top guys were already committed. We had a pretty good portal in the summer, but then we missed the whole spring with them. We didn't get them until start of the preseason.

"This year, there's not a spring portal where we're going to lose guys. We're going to add a couple guys who couldn't come in January but could come in May. Ninety percent of our team is here. It's good we can go forward with this group. It's been a good spring. The guys have worked hard. We have a lot of new players, but they've come together pretty well."

The Tar Heels are coming off a 4-8 season in Belichick's introductory year to Carolina and college football after his legendary five-decade coaching run in the NFL. The bright lights of 2025, the media frenzy and the uber-hyped season opener versus TCU have long faded. Now it's just the grind of practice, class and training. Place a brick, add another—minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.

"I think the whole building feels a little rejuvenated, revitalized and a new energy after last year," says running back Ben Hall, one of those post-spring practice arrivals in 2025. "Putting the record aside, we were just a few plays away from winning some more games. It's just a new environment, and I think it's been a blessing to be a part of it."

"I feel like I've organized myself better, gotten into a better routine, I feel like the coaches are used to how the college schedule works and everything is flowing smoothly," adds defensive end Melkart Abou Jaoude. "I've seen a lot of young, hungry players who want to play and want to win. I've seen a lot of communication, a lot better football overall."

Belichick points to the regimen common across college football of PRPs—"Player Run Practices." They happen all summer and thrive on teams with veteran leaders. Last year, the Tar Heels didn't have a healthy quarterback who knew all the players' names to grasp the reins on offense in May through July, as Max Johnson was still recovering from a leg injury and Gio Lopez had just moved to town from South Alabama.

"We were short on quarterbacks and all our linebackers transferred," Belichick says. "We didn't really have anyone to run the practices. We did strength and conditioning, but beyond that you should have players who can run the practices themselves and call the defenses and call the plays. Little stuff like that adds up. Now, everyone understands how we do things. On established programs, new guys look to the older guys for direction. Last year, everyone was brand new."

Belichick's gaze roams the stadium, just one year shy of its centennial in 2027, and considers its location in the heart of a massive campus with a dozen athletic venues and more than 800 Tar Heels in sports from volleyball to cross country, golf to lacrosse. One perk of the job for Belichick is being part of a family with an entirely different energy than that of a professional franchise.

On any given day, coaches or players from Tar Heel lacrosse, field hockey or volleyball teams might drop by. Given his lifelong passion for the sport of lacrosse, Belichick has a particular interest in the programs of men's coach Joe Breshi and women's coach Jenny Levy.

"It's awesome, it's a great environment," Belichick says. "I love being here. I love the school. Everyone's invested in the school. Everyone chose to be here. That's the thing. In the NFL, you draft guys, they may want to be there, they may not. Here, everyone has made a decision to be here. We all did—players and coaches. If you don't want to be here, you don't have to be.

"It's fun meeting and talking to the other coaches, getting to know them. You talk with coaches about recruiting, where are the places around town and campus they take recruits on visits? You talk about training ideas, class schedules, little things. Everyone's here to help. In the NFL? No one helps you. There's no one to talk to."

He smiles noting that he's learned the campus pretty well and has been in most of the buildings and has met a number of professors. Center Christo Kelly spoke in a news conference earlier in April about being taken aback early one morning to see Belichick motoring around campus in a golf cart with a clipboard in hand, marking off players' class attendance.

"I'm sure if you told any of the guys that Coach Belichick would be class checking college freshmen going into an intro to anthropology class at 8 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, they'd think you're crazy," Kelly said. "I think that just speaks to the level of buy-in that Coach Belichick has."

That buy-in carries more ballast in 2026 with that valuable first year invested in the job and the fact you're going to have better players. Look at last weekend's NFL Draft—Ohio State had 11 players taken, Alabama and Texas A&M 10 each and Clemson, Miami and Texas Tech nine apiece. The Tar Heels didn't have a player taken in the draft for the first time since 2016.

"There is no question we're definitely better," Belichick says. "We're not there yet. We're still very young. We're going to have 40 freshmen and another 20 redshirt freshmen. But our players overall are a lot better. We need to develop them, but we have a lot more guys who can be good."

Chapel Hill-based writer Lee Pace has written under the "Extra Points" banner since 1990 and is the author of "Football in a Forest—the Life and Times of Kenan Stadium." Contact him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @LeePaceTweet.

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