BOSTON – There was an elephant in the room Friday as North Carolina interim football coach Freddie Kitchens and team captains took the podium at the 521 Overlook area on Lansdowne Street, viewed from the right-field bleachers Had a view of Fenway Park. the east end zone.

This was an elephant who favors cut-off hoodies and knows his way around New England.

The media was asked to remain focused on the Fenway Bowl and the players and coaches who earned the opportunity to play against UConn at the historic venue on Saturday. But the hiring of Bill Belichick, arguably the greatest NFL head coach of all time who won six Super Bowls with the team based 20 miles south, was impossible to miss. Belichick signed a five-year contract to take over the Tar Heels just three days after the bowl match was announced.

And while he won’t be on the sideline at Fenway, the 72-year-old coach’s impact in his first year of college is evident. Belichick was not at team practice but communicated daily with Kitchens, who was offered to remain on North Carolina’s staff while he worked on recruiting to formulate his first college roster.

Belichick questions were answered with Belichick answers on Friday.

“There’s going to be excitement, there’s going to be hype, but as a team I feel like as a unit behind Coach Kitchens, we’re all focused on this game and winning this game. “That’s kind of the outside noise,” Amare Campbell said , second-year starting linebacker who was at home in Virginia weighing his options in the portal before hearing Belichick’s pitch over the phone.

After the call, Campbell said his decision to stay was an easy one.

Similar things happened to a handful of his teammates, including two offensive linemen and a wide receiver, Kobe Paysour. Now North Carolina, a six-point underdog when the Fenway Bowl was announced, is the 2.5-point favorite and the players are looking to impress their new coach.

When UConn arrived at the podium about an hour late after finishing practice at Harvard, the Huskies didn’t want to talk about Belichick either.

“It’s irrelevant to us,” said UConn coach Jim Mora, also a former NFL head coach. “We can’t control the emotional component of our opponents, so we don’t try. We try to focus on what we can control and that’s our preparation, that’s the way we work, that’s our attention to detail, that’s our mindset, that’s the way we go out and perform. My understanding is that Coach Belichick will not be taking the field on Saturday, so that is irrelevant to our football team.”

Enjoy the Fenway experience

Both teams secured a spot at Fenway Park on Thursday. They got to tour the stadium, went into the Green Monster and threw a baseball on the field.

“These are just great memories,” Mora said, revealing that he has always been a Red Sox fan and attended many games at Fenway Park and even witnessed a Carl Yaztremski home run as a child. “I know these (players) will reflect on these moments throughout their lives and that it will mean more and more to them as they get older. And I’m sure now that if the Red Sox are on TV, they’ll probably watch a little longer and say to their kids, ‘Hey, I was on the field at Fenway.'”

Valentin Senn, a senior offensive lineman from Austria, said he attended his first baseball game at Fenway Park two summers ago – “At the Pahk,” he said in his best Boston accent.

“Honestly, I didn’t know what baseball was before I came to the United States. I would say skiing and football are Austria’s favorite pastimes,” he said. “But of course it was really special to come here for the first time and see all the fans and see how Boston loves this baseball team. You can clearly feel the whole tradition here.”

UConn will take over the visitors’ clubhouse as a locker room on Saturday, while North Carolina will take up residence in the Red Sox’s clubhouse.

Preparing for a different setup

Because Fenway Park is being converted into a football stadium, with one end zone where home plate would be and the other in right field, both teams will be on the same sideline during the game.

“We put in a lot of work practicing the special situations,” senior defensive lineman Jelani Stafford said. “We put all of our guys on one side of the field like we will on game day. And we’re going to go through our situations, starting with the rush with the offense, the field goal stuff, the defensive signals, the offensive signals, making sure everyone is in the right position… Because those things can result in a penalty and so on Nature, so we just try to do our best to replicate what we do on game day.”