By ROB MAADDI and AARON BEARD

Six-time Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick has agreed to become North Carolina’s next football coach, a person with knowledge of the decision said Wednesday.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the deal has not yet been finalized. UNC trustees must approve any agreement, although the board had not announced a new meeting as of Wednesday evening.

The Tar Heels had been looking for a replacement for Mack Brown. The school announced Nov. 26 that the program’s all-time winningest coach and a College Football Hall of Famer in his second stint in Chapel Hill would not return for a seventh season. That firing took effect after Brown coached his finals in November. 30 loss to rival NC State.

The move from the 73-year-old Brown to the 72-year-old Belichick means UNC is turning to a coach who has never worked at the college level but has enjoyed incredible success in the NFL alongside quarterback Tom Brady for most of his life had a 24-year tenure with the Patriots that ended last season.

Since then, Belichick has been linked to NFL jobs, most notably with the Atlanta Falcons in January. That’s why news of Belichick’s talks with UNC — first reported by Inside Carolina and confirmed by the AP last week — caused such surprise that both sides took an unexpected and unconventional path.

But the two sides had negotiated the terms for several days before finally agreeing to limit the seemingly unlikely outcome just a week earlier.

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Originally published: December 11, 2024 at 5:04 pm PST