Bill Belichick is a college football coach. That’s a sentence that’s factually accurate since Belichick was hired as North Carolina’s new boss in a surprise move that was officially announced Wednesday.

The 72-year-old, who worked in the NFL in some capacity from 1975 to 2023 and won six Super Bowls as head coach of the New England Patriots, has never coached in college football. While he spent some time this fall playing the sport with his son Stephen, who served as defensive coordinator at the University of Washington, he’ll soon learn a lot more about the differences between college and professional football.

And while there’s a narrative surrounding Belichick’s shocking move that implies it’s a step down from coaching in the NFL, that’s really not true. College football is not the junior college version of the sport. It’s actually more difficult.

College football is in some ways more complicated than its professional counterpart because coaches report to university presidents and boards of trustees in addition to those in charge of the athletic department. They are expected to host, feed and delight the donors. They travel across the country to recruit teenagers and spend the rest of the time building relationships with the 18- to 22-year-olds on their rosters, fearing they will eventually opt out of their program or receive greater financial compensation could demand. You’re simultaneously general manager, chief marketing officer and, oh yeah, football coach.

This is the world Belichick is wading into.

The most important thing for him is that he will train football again. It’s clear he’s wanted to return to the sidelines since his terrible split with the Patriots at the end of the 2023 season. But he didn’t make an appearance in the NFL last offseason and he apparently didn’t want to wait a few weeks to see if there was a market for his services in the pros. This move, as unusual as it is, brings back his favorite name: Coach.

The natural follow-up question is obvious: Is he ready for the rest? The Patriots Way will not work in Chapel Hill. Belichick needs to round out those rough edges to build relationships with recruits and college students. As a college player, he will face time constraints that he never faced as a pro player. He will also use his incredible football mind to assess talent, develop players and find ways to put them in the best possible position for success.

The man who will go down as the greatest coach in NFL history will look to mirror what made Nick Saban the greatest coach in college football history. And he will lean on his NFL experience as college football continues to evolve toward a professional model.

Starting next fall, schools will be able to share up to $20 million in revenue directly with their own athletes each year. And of course there will still be NIL deals (name, image, likeness). Belichick’s experience in roster management and NFL free agency should be helpful.

This also applies to the appeal that Belichick himself exerts. Just as Deion Sanders garnered an incredible amount of attention when he was hired by Colorado, the spotlight will be insanely bright in Chapel Hill now. Members of the media will flock to campus and cover every twist and turn of an unprecedented offseason. And great players will want to learn from Belichick, even if UNC hasn’t been very good at football in the past.

“Let me put this in all caps: If I were to go to a college program, that college program would be a nexus to the NFL for players who had the ability to play in the NFL,” Belichick said on The Pat this week McAfee Show before the UNC deal was finalized. “It would be a professional program: training, nutrition, programming, coaching, techniques that would translate to the NFL.” It will be a college-level NFL program.

“I am very confident that I have the contacts in the NFL to pave the way for players to have the opportunity to compete in the National Football League.”

If this experiment works as intended, that’s exactly what will happen. But it’s considered an amazing move for a reason – in addition to the potential reward, it also carries a lot of risk. And it will be much messier and significantly more difficult than even Belichick probably thinks.

Nicole Auerbach is the lead college football and basketball insider for NBC Sports. Subscribe to get the latest college football news and coverage of the 2024-25 College Football Playoff Storm the field with Auerbach and Joshua Perry Apple, Spotify And YouTube.