UNC: Belichick’s NFL-Style Branding May Begin With Minimal Pro Talent

UNC: Belichick’s NFL-Style Branding
May Begin With Minimal Pro Talent

By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
(last updated Aug. 25, 2025)

North Carolina football coach Bill Belichick and his general manager, Mike Lombardi, have attracted national headlines for many reasons, including their creative branding of the Tar Heels’ program as the “33rd NFL franchise.”

Back in December, when the six-time Super Bowl champion head coach was introduced at a press conference in Chapel Hill, many on the academic side of the university were uncomfortable with the National Football League-centric terminology. Given UNC’s long-standing status as a top-five public university, it seemed inappropriate that the academic element would be minimized … or even verbally brushed aside as a gridiron afterthought.

Over the past nine months, Belichick occasionally has included references to academics — and even preparing his players for life after football — in his broad-view description of his assignment in Chapel Hill, but far more often he has emphasized many of the same things that helped make him a Hall of Fame-caliber coach during his 49 NFL seasons.

“In terms of when I say a pro program, I would say through my experience, what we did in terms of training, developing players, running pro systems, pro techniques, so when players leave here, this isn’t going from the wishbone to a pro offense,” Belichick said. “There will be similar terminology, similar techniques and fundamentals, similar training, similar preparation techniques that have been very successful for me through the years and that I know that other NFL teams are using, whether other college teams are using them or not.”

Another layer of UNC’s new NFL-centric theme has come in the program’s video rooms, where players and coaches are reviewing a lot of NFL plays together, in addition to the usual emphases on the Tar Heels’ own practice tape and scouting the team’s 2025 opponents.

“We’ve shown a lot of (New England) Patriots film — and other great NFL players — to demonstrate what we want and how to do it,” Belichick said. “Watch (Donta) Hightower, (Tom) Brady, (Rob) Gronkowski, (Danny) Edelman, Lawrence Taylor, Stephon Gilmore, Ty Law, (Aquib) Talib — all great examples. It’s been fun to go back and show how good they were and why, based on their technique and understanding of the game. Sometimes it’s at the expense of other teams’ lowlights, but that’s not the intent.”

UNC quarterback Gio Lopez, a transfer from South Alabama, said he’d never seen so much NFL video, and he was surprised at the degree to which Belichick would both praise and critique some of his former players in the professional ranks during video sessions.

“Most of the time, he’s pointing out a lot of the little things that helped make Tom Brady or someone else so great, but sometimes he’s showing what Tom Brady did wrong,” Lopez said. “I remember one play where (Brady) made a short completion to a wide receiver, but Coach’s main point was that if the ball had been thrown more accurately, to a different spot, instead of a short gain, the play would have been a long gain, maybe even a touchdown.

“I was like, ‘Wow.’ If that’s how he evaluates one of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time, we have to be ready to meet a very high standard around here.”

Thanks mainly to Belichick’s UNC predecessor, Mack Brown, the Tar Heels already have some NFL-related aspects to their existing brand.

When NFL teams announce their 53-man lineups for the 2025 season on Tuesday, Carolina is expected to have more than two dozen of its former players (see below) on active rosters, plus a handful more on practice squads. That projected opening-day, active-roster number — perhaps 26 or 27 for UNC this year — would rank the Heels among the top 20 college programs nationally, although a few schools would have roughly twice as many pros.

Unfortunately for Belichick, only one player on his entire 2025 UNC roster is currently projected as a 2026 NFL draft pick: cornerback Thaddeus Dixon, a Washington transfer who earned honorable mention All-Big Ten honors last season. Dixon and two other Carolina seniors, cornerback Marcus Allen and offensive lineman Daniel King, recently were named to the Senior Bowl Top 300 list, which identifies top candidates for that postseason college all-star game.

Especially in the longer run, Belichick and his staff may be able to produce much more NFL-caliber talent, perhaps by both developing their current players in unexpected ways and by signing higher-caliber transfers and high school prospects in future years.

Whereas UNC’s 2025 recruiting class (consisting of new incoming transfers and true freshmen) ranked only 29th nationally, its 2026 recruiting class — consisting of 36 current high school seniors — is ranked 17th nationally. The 2026 group includes highly rated prospects from Georgia (quarterback Travis Burgess), Michigan (athlete CJ Sadler), Alabama (wide receiver Keeyun Chapman), Ohio (athlete Jakob Weatherspoon), South Carolina (wide receiver Carnell Warren) and North Carolina (defensive linemen Zavion Griffin-Haynes and Trashawn Ruffin), among others.

Those players won’t arrive until next year, of course, so in the meantime Belichick will have to attempt to win without much obvious NFL-caliber talent on hand.

UNC Products On Projected 2025 NFL Rosters
(Additional Players Will Make Practice Squads)
Name, Position, Team (NFL Seasons)

British Brooks, RB, Houston Texans (1)
Dyami Brown, WR, Jacksonville Jaguars (4)
Michael Carter, RB, Arizona Cardinals (4)
Ty Chandler, RB, Minnesota Vikings (3)
Josh Downs, WR, Indianapolis Colts (2)
Storm Duck^, CB, Miami Dolphins (1)
Joshua Ezeudu, OL, New York Giants (3)
Tomon Fox, OLB, New York Giants (3)
Cedric Gray, LB, Tennessee Titans (1)
Omarion Hampton, RB, Los Angeles Chargers (R)
Charlie Heck, OL, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (5)
Cole Holcomb, LB, Pittsburgh Steelers (5)
Mack Hollins, WR, New England Patriots (7)
Sam Howell, QB, Philadelphia Eagles (3)
Mike Hughes^, CB, Atlanta Falcons (7)
Alijah Huzzie, CB, Houston Texans (R)
Willie Lampkin, OC/OG, Los Angeles Rams (R)
Drake Maye, QB, New England Patriots (1)
Asim Richards, OL, Dallas Cowboys (2)
Jordon Riley^, DE, New York Giants (2)
MJ Stewart, CB, Houston Texans (7)
Chazz Surratt, LB, San Francisco 49ers (4)
Mitchell Trubisky, QB, Buffalo Bills (8)
Devontez Walker, WR, Baltimore Ravens (1)
Javonte Williams, RB, Dallas Cowboys (4)