It goes without saying that Carolina football is in a bit of a predicament right now. Michael Lombardi is on administrative leave due to an HR investigation, and the tone surrounding that investigation has left many people suggesting that it’s not a matter of if he’ll be fired, it’s when. This has a number of people wondering if Bill Belichick will also find himself unemployed if Lombardi gets got, largely because the two are so close and the Belichick era has brought nothing but losses and drama.
But of course there’s a question that comes with any firing of one of the best coaches in NFL history: would such a firing set UNC back any amount of time? It was a question mentioned on the OG (Ovies/Giglio) Podcast, and Joe Ovies said that he didn’t believe it would set the school back at all. For more context, check out the link below:
Here’s the thing: whether it’s next month, next year, or in the next five years, the most expensive football coach UNC has ever had will be gone at some point. It’ll be hard to disinfect the program completely of all the ridiculousness this regime brought to campus regardless of when they leave, but most of the stench has to do with Jordon Hudson, Michael Lombardi, and Belichick being the peculiar individual that he is.
To that point, let’s piggyback off the question Ovies discussed: what does the post-Belichick future actually look like? I do agree with his assessment that the program would be fine, but what does “fine” look like? I do not think that, from a resource perspective, anybody has been incredibly harmed in this experiment, but for one reason or another UNC can’t help themselves but to make football weird. It’s fair to wonder if, after this is all over, the powers-that-be finally would have learned their lesson. Would they finally hire a normal coach? Would they promote Bobby Petrino (lol)? Would they bring back Larry Fedora for some strange reason? It’s fair to say that any and every scenario is fair game unless Steve Newmark is allowed to do his job without any outside intervention. I personally have a hard time believing that UNC is capable of making both a normal and really good hire, but I would love to be proven wrong whenever the day comes.
But I want to hear from you: what does you think UNC’s next move would be? More importantly, do you feel like the school has finally learned a lesson when it comes to their questionable football program decisions? Let us know in the comments below.
