Andy & Ari On3 - Can Bill Belichick bring RINGS to North Carolina? | Tar Heels hire six-time Super Bowl champion

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

Bill Belichick is headed back to the sidelines to coach the North Carolina Tar Heels. In what seemed like a fairytale at the start has now come true: Bill Belichick is going to coach college football. Can the Tar Heels succeed with Belichick at the helm, or will things not go so well in Chapel Hill? We are excited to announce our new sponsor – Axia Time.  Axia Time is the offical timepiece for both the College Football Playoff and the Heisman trophy and probably the best kept secret in college football.   Their timepieces are heirloom quality and among the coolest designs in the college space. Axia Time has created a series of limited-edition timepieces for all 12 teams in the college football playoff.  each design is limited to only 100 pieces. Check out your team’s cfp designs at axiatime.com, but you better act fast because they will sell out. Watch us on YouTube here: https://youtube.com/live/VWYEKXypBuI Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey

Welcome to a special emergency edition of Andy and Ari on three. Ari's still waiting for the gas guy at his old house, but we got to go on the air because Bill freaking Belichick is going to be a college football head coach. He and North Carolina have come to terms and Ari. We talked about this when it when it was floated last week and both of us were very skeptical but it's happening. I cannot believe it. You know and I think that it's like most interesting Andy is that like North Carolina just sent the message say that they like want to win right? Like that

was is that what you heard because that's what I heard I think so because if if the reports of his 400 page Bible are true And a lot of what was in there was here's how the program has to be staffed here are the financial requirements in terms of support staff in terms of probably in terms of player compensation and If he's to say yes, it probably means they met quite a few of those demands. Yeah, and also to our paying him quite a bit of money, I think reportedly, right? So like you have that that on top of it too. So I mean, I think in order to be attractive enough

for somebody like Bill Belichick in his position, sixth Super Bowl winning coach to even waste his time with this at 72 years old. You know, he has to feel like he has the tools necessary to compete because he's not going there. Like, I think there's like notion of like, well, you don't have to go win the national title. You don't have to make the playoff. You just have to win 10 games.

Like, I don't think he's going to North Carolina to turn them into a nine and three team. Like he's going there to turn them into a team that is competing at the highest level. Why would he waste his time doing anything other than that? So for him to come up with that 400 page Bible, for him to have the time and the energy to even assemble it to begin with and to know exactly what it takes to win at this level means that he's put a tremendous amount of research into what it takes to be this good or to be good at that level. In my opinion, he's put a tremendous amount of research into what it takes to be this good or to be good at that level. Like in my opinion, he's going there with the determination of not just being pretty good. Like he's going there to win something. And I think that that should be

an exciting proposition because he doesn't have to do this. We've talked about retread hires in the past, Andy, the last few weeks of like, you know, comparing it to Herm Edwards and you know, some of the other guys like Charlie Weiss and Les Miles. it's like if there's anybody who's not in a position where they need to to go save their careers Bill Belichick so it's pretty remarkable I can't believe we're here Andy I never thought in a million years that this could happen but like hey in a world where we lost Jim Harbaugh Nick Saban last year and you know we had a kind of a coaching personality crisis I'm excited to have Bill Belichick in our sport and I'm also very curious to see if he turns into a heel or a hero here in the next year or so. I'm laughing at the comments in the chat. Waves on

swim kids don't care about that old ass man. Laugh out loud. Elias virtually all the NFL guys that have succeeded in college were college guys first we shall see and you know Like Bill Walsh was successful at Stanford and obviously one of the greatest coaches in NFL history and then came back and was kind Of middling at Stanford, but this is a different era different time one thing. I do want to talk about is what this is not It's not revolutionary And I think that's one one thing that a lot of the reporting on what Belichick wants to do People seem to not there's a lot of folks who just car, you know who and I understand They are more familiar with bill Belichick because they cover the NFL and and maybe are not as familiar With how college football has worked in the last few years because they are presenting this

Bill Belichick wants to bring an NFL style front office, wants to set it up like an NFL organization, like it is something revolutionary. And the fact of the matter is every good college program since five years ago has been retrofitting their personnel department to look like an NFL personnel department. They have been staffing in a similar way. They've been compensating in a similar way. We've talked all the time about how NIL deals essentially mirror the market in the NFL in terms of positional value and everything else. So that's not new. What he's doing there isn't new. Now, I don't know about you, Ari. My thinking is though the X's and O's piece of this will be easy for him.

It will seem pretty rudimentary to him. Yeah, well to go back on something you just said, because I think it's interesting, like that is a column. Like somebody should write that. Maybe I'll do that tonight when I finally get out of gas man hell. But the thought here too of like looking back at previous hires and stuff of like what work and what didn't work. It's like we are entering a new world. Like this college football is not what college football was two years ago. College football is not what it was when Herm Edwards started coaching at Arizona State. Like you what I think happened here and is more important to North Carolina than the person who took the job is that North Carolina is willing to invest

the finite, the capital, the money, the want to be good at football. And like it's an interesting choice because as we said on the show earlier today or yesterday, like I bet you if we asked Mac Brown, hey, do you think you got what you needed in North Carolina to exceed your expectations or to reach your goals? He would say no. So I wonder what Matt Brown thinks of this, because I don't know that North Carolina was in a place from an NIL standpoint, from a financial standpoint, to win the ACC or to win a national championship. So if Bill Belichick thinks they can, then they must have had to do some soul searching

in the last two weeks to realize and say, hey, here's what we want, here's who we are, and here's the much money we need to put up to get to what we want. But I don't know how much we can draw back from, like, oh, well, this worked in 2005. That is all out the window. Yeah. It's also true because at the same time, it's not revolutionary.

So he's got to be better at it. He's not coming with the NFL thing. And I've got to turn those reactions off. He's not coming to the NFL thing with, like, oh, I'm going to just NFLize the college football and I'm gonna do everything that no one's ever seen before. Like everybody's seen it.

Guess what? Clemson and Georgia, Ohio State, Alabama, like these programs have all invested millions and millions and millions of dollars to already create the infrastructure that he's gonna have to try to beat now. He's not starting from the front, he's starting from the back. And that's gonna be the most interesting thing about this.

Well and the thing is he's gonna sell, hey I can prepare you for the NFL, I coached all these NFL players, I know exactly what it looks like. The issue there is Kirby Smart, Davos Sweeney, Ryan Day, they've already created a lot of first-rounders. Like they can sell that just as well or better because they've done it. Like that's the thing that's so funny to me, Andy. It's like when you're in college, the only thing you're concerned with is being drafted. So like is being prepared or being put in an NFL environment? Is that sales pitch at North Carolina different than just go to Georgia and be one of our 30

draft picks that we have every other year? Like, it's like there's like, what's the difference? So like, I don't know where I'm at. I'm sure we'll get to it in this video about like whether or not I like this or whether I think it's going to work. What I do think is that it's encouraging to North Carolina fans of all that the university and the administration stepped up from a financial standpoint in order to get him to accept it. Like that, I think is a huge step. Whether or not he's successful or not is going to be on him. But he's not like North Carolina football is not going

to be unsuccessful moving forward because they didn't care enough to invest in their program. Tyler in the chat says it's you and see what the hell do they have to lose, which is a great point. And then Jesse also makes a very interesting point, which is something we've said a couple of times in the past few days talking about the potential of Bill Belichick coming to college football. Jesse says this is basically just the Dion play, right? Clicks means money means NIL means talent means wins in theory. Yes, all the above. But what Dion showed you is you have to actually coach them well too. They didn't coach them that well in year one under Dion.

They coached them very well in year two under Dion. It got a lot better and he revamped the staff. He redid a lot of things that he'd done. And I think Bill Belichick will coach them well. That part I'm not worried about. One stat that I was listening to Joe obvious and Joe Gileo, who are, you know, they do a great podcast in the research triangle area and cover North Carolina and NC State a lot. They pointed out that in

the second iteration of Mac Brown's tenure at North Carolina, they lost eight games as a double digit favorite. Do you think that Bill Belichick will ever do that? That's a crazy stat, Andy. I didn't know that. I knew a few don't ask me why I knew a few. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so like that's the thing too,

and this might sound like the stupidest question you've ever heard. So just bear with me Andy. In college football. Is being a great X's and O's coach more important now than it's ever been before? Yes, probably as long.

Well, as long as you have the infrastructure around you, which we think they will because we think that was demanded before he accepted the job. Because how many coaches in my era? I guess we'll say the recruiting era, the two stars matter. Yeah, the 2000 to 2020 era.

Like the greatest coaches during those times usually just had the best players and like I don't know. But Nick Saban is is one of the best X's and O's coaches ever. He also had the best players. Well, and that's probably right. The reason why they created a environment where they won as much as they did. I think that it's fascinating because if the teams are actually more on a level playing field from a talent perspective than the onus to draw up plays and

to put your players in the best position and to come up with plans and find those rules to inflate footballs, whatever you want to do in order to give yourself an advantage. What was it? It was deflate footballs. Then you, you know, you have a coach that you would deflate eight on him. Well, I mean, like you said that, you know, in your Bible, that one of the ones was to find every statistical rule that you can and statistically find an edge in everything that

he does. And that's what he does right so like in college football Oh, that wasn't that wasn't within the rules according to you Well, then he'll be he'll fit right into the sport because who follows the rules in college football Exactly and like the other thing too When you think about how thick the actual rule book is whether it's nonsense or not like the rule book in college is so much more extensive and there's so many other things that you can exploit. Like if he was trying to figure out a way to exploit the football inflation rules, like think about what kind of rules he can exploit in recruiting.

Like, like when he like, well, there are no rules anymore. Those rules are all gone. That's not just those recruiting, but just like. Talent accumulation, all the things that you can do. There's a whole other sliver of like red tape that exists in college football that does not exist in the NFL that you can exploit. So it could be interesting. Bill Belichick has eight Super Bowl rings total. He had two as a defensive coordinator, six as a head coach.

Uh, the hope is to bring championship rings to North Carolina. Also, if he does well, he may be able to get the tarheels. One of these. What is this? This is an axial watch. These are a. These are just absolutely beautiful,

automatic Swiss made time pieces, and they are the official watch of the college football playoff. And if your team gets in the college football playoff, then you probably can buy a, an Axia watch with your team's logo colors. They're gorgeous. You're looking at the Boise State went on the screen right now. I have a Michigan commemorative national title watch in a box signed by Jim Harbaugh that is available at axiatime.com.

So just gorgeous timepieces. They're so cool. When you see them, you'll say, wait, you can get this for this price. Yes, you can. And if you're an Arizona State fan, a Boise State fan, Indiana fan, Georgia fan, Texas fan, want to commemorate your team's trip to the college football Texas fan want to commemorate your team's trip to the college football playoff. Get yourself an Axia watch axiatime.com. That's axiatime.com. These are these are absolutely gorgeous. Mine is so cool. But we'll see if Bill Belichick.

Can have that UNC logo. I think you gotta you gotta have a little bit of art. You want the Argyle stripe on your Axia watch right if you if you get him in the playoff, do we do it that way, Ari? I mean, the the Argyle is just classic, you know, and the thing that you might not be able to show because you're wearing your watch right now, Andy, is how cool the exposed cases on the back.

Oh, yeah, it shows the inner inner workings of the automatic movement and like they have your name engraved in the back of it for the playoff committee selection this year, which I thought was really cool. It's a nice touch. I'm not upset that I didn't get one like at all. Just mildly disappointed. I think yours is in the mail. I think it's coming. Here's the thing. Can Bill Belichick get North Carolina there? I've heard a lot of people say this is a one year thing. He just wants to hand off to his son Steve.

Let's talk about his son Steve real quick. I don't know that yet. We have not seen the details of this deal and how that's gonna work. But I will say for the last year, Steve Belichick has been the defensive coordinator at Washington with our guy Jed Fish. And I think Bill has been around that program quite a bit from from what we've been

told him being able to see college players adapting to his schemes, running them effectively, kind of gave him the confidence to do this. But I also imagine watching Jed and his program, and we've seen Jed kind of rise from, you know, he was in the NFL for a while. He's obviously been a college coordinator before too, but he got the Arizona head coaching job. You saw him come in like gangbusters, grab a great recruiting class off the bat, build a winner in Arizona. Now he's at Washington trying to rebuild that program after the roster flooded out following making the national title game. But I do wonder how much of being in close proximity to that program and seeing how all of this works, you know, coached by a guy in in Jed Fish, who's been at the NFL level, I wonder how much Bill Belichick was taking

notes. So I mean that like if you're a football guy, you're probably fascinated by by how it all works, right? And being close and kind of, you know, being in a position where you can kind of see how the sausage is made from behind the scenes. You know, I think would be appealing. The thing that I do wonder is, is if this were 2019 and it was just the same way that it worked before, like if if he would have an appetite to recruit. And I wonder how different it's going to be. Because like, listen, can we just call it like it is? Sure. Belichick is not Mr. Personality.

He's not a very, at least outwardly, an engaged person. I'm glad you mentioned that, Ari. Do you remember the Nick Saban, Bill Belichick documentary where the two were chatting together and they filmed their conversations? Nick Saban is a lot, everybody thinks Nick Saban is like this crusty old curmudgeon. I think him being on college game day has disabused people of that notion.

Like they understand now he does have a really good personality, really great dry sense of humor. Bill, Nick Saban was a really good recruiter. And it's funny because Nick Saban was never a car salesman. Like all those leaked Zooms we saw of Nick Saban actually recruiting, like he would never promise anybody anything. But in that era, most of the great recruiters were car salesmen. Bill Belichick is not a car salesman. Like he's not equipped to do that. But the thing is, I don't think you have to be that anymore in the era of revenue sharing, supplemented by NIL, where there's gonna be money for the players. And that's going to be a piece of the player's decision. Yeah, yeah. The financial aspect of this and the salary cap aspect of this and the allocation of funds and finding uncoveted resources to help flourish is all very exciting. And I think as it pertains to like what

he'll be qualified to do as a coach, that what he was good at in the NFL actually parallels what North Carolina is going to need him to do from the jump. I guess the question I'd have for you, Andy, is that even if he comes in and does a really, really good job, the time arc for success for that program, have you given him three years to get it where back Brown wanted to get it, or is this quickly to you? I would think it would need to go quickly. The cynical people are already saying he's gonna do this for a year. If they win or remotely successful, he'll use the springboard back into the NFL. And let's be real here. He may be doing this because he checked

around and found out he wasn't going to get an NFL job this year. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, like we talked about the personnel aspect of this too, like Bill Belichick has been the personnel person for the Patriots when he was there. And he might be able to get a coaching job in the league, but I don't know how much of an appetite there is to allow him to be in complete control of the of the personnel on the roster, whereas in college, he gets to mold that himself. So like, that's exciting. But yeah, I don't

know. I do think it's kind of bizarre. The last two years watching the coaching carousel in the NFL is a just a fan of the sport. Not really understanding how the coach who had the greatest dynasty in NFL history can't find a job while you know, random people get hired and fired every day and then in that league. But like I'm pretty fired up to have him as somebody we're talking about on the show, about who we're writing about. Like I think that like, you know, as it pertains to the entertainment factor of college football and how much personality and storylines can kind of move it. Like you've seen how much fun it's been to debate and discuss Dion over the years.

I'm super excited that he's going to be here in allowing us to kind of follow this journey because, you know, the one thing I will say is I was wrong about Deon Andy, but I thought his basement at Colorado was like rock bottom. Like I thought it could have been an absolute disaster when he got hired. I think you heard a lot of people say it's either going to be an epic success or an absolute disaster like I don't know that if they follow the guidelines that Bill Belichick put into place to even accept the job if I think the basement is that phone. It just I think you're right about that. I think it'll be fine either way. Yeah. So the schedule for North Carolina also is not a bear.

It's not the worst schedule in the world. So if he's remotely good at putting a roster together, we know he's great at the X's and O's. We know he'll hire a staff that understands the X's and O's. Then North Carolina should be fairly successful off the bat. So at a conference, TCU,, Richmond and the UCF in conference, Cal, NC State, Clemson, Duke, Stanford, Virginia, Syracuse Wake Forest. That's a schedule that if you put together an above average college football roster,

you are winning eight games at least. Do your job. That's right do your job. Oh it's gonna be it's gonna be spectacular. I mean this is Bill freaking Belichick is going to be on the sidelines against TCU next year like we're on the North Carolina sports information director. He's our guy, by the way. Jeremy's a listener of the show. Yeah, Jeremy Sharpe listens to the show. Putting you on notice, pal. Hey, hey, mind meld. That's right.

Book this show. It's going to be a great show. It's going to be a great show. It's going to be a great show. It's going to be a great show. It's going to be a great show. It's going guy by the way. Jeremy's a listener of the show. Yeah Jeremy Sharpe listens to the show. Putting you on notice pal. Hey hey mind meld.

That's right book this guy. We're number one on that. Yep. Do we have to figure out what to ask him because I think I'm gonna dip deep into my bag of long snapper questions. I have a particular question that has nothing to do with football that I would love to ask him one day. But, you know, we'll get to that later. What is it? I want to know.

Has he been a... No, I can't say it right now. I'll tell you off the air. Okay. Alright. Now I'm intrigued. Now I'm very intrigued. Now we have to get him on the show. Okay, I'm going to say it. How epic is this rain camera thing? Like, this guy's got to have him on the show. Okay, I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. Okay. Epic is this rain camera thing. Like, this guy's gotta have a rain camera sponsorship. Like, did he know the camera was there? Like, it was the most incredible thing I've ever seen. Okay?

And I don't know if that's inappropriate or if I'm not supposed to say it, but it's, like, let's talk about it. Like, he got the odds. It's probably not. This may be hurting our chances to get him on the show, but it's one of those things where, yes, on its face you but it's one of those things where yes on it on its face you think that's somewhat embarrassing where you're clearly getting hit by a ring camera while doing the walk of shame, but if you look like that at his age the man's an absolute unit and like that's one of those things where oh I didn't know the camera is there. Oh

did you did you did you get my did you get my biceps there? It's also funny to think that a coach that won a Super Bowl six different times with the greatest quarterback who's ever played got caught on a ring camera doing the walk of shame. Like, that's the thing too, like about the show, and like maybe I'm just fired up or I've just been sitting in a vacant house all day

waiting for them to turn the gas on. And maybe there's a little gas in here, but like that's what the show needs. We got to like lean into that stuff a little bit sometimes. And it's like, oh, yeah, funny. That is like funny and also harmless. Like he's a single man. He can go out and do whatever he wants. And like, I just I just hope his answer is like, you're damn right.

That's all me, baby. Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't be ashamed if I were him. That's the you know, go be yourself. Hey, and you know what? If they say he can't recruit, I've got a rain video to show you. That's right. That's right. I don't know if this went off the rails a little bit, but this is what you get when you

ask me to be your co-host. I, listen, I'm here for it. I'm here for it. I want you asking him that question. If he storms off in disgust, fine. Maybe they'll catch it on camera. Hope so, or we're fired. But again, like my response to that would be like, oh, I didn't know that camera was there, but clearly not missing chess days ever. But I think it's great and I'm happy he's on the sport.

I think we've a lot to talk about and like it's it's just cool. I think it's cool. Yeah, I I am excited if you have questions about Bill Belichick or anything else in college football tomorrow on Thursday in the morning 930 AM Eastern time is a dear Andy and dear Ari show. We open the mailbag, answer your college football questions. You can hit us up at andy underscore staples at Ari Wasserman on X and on Instagram, or you can email me andy staples on three at gmail.com. We'll be answering your questions Thursday morning, 930.

We're here every weekday, Monday through Thursday, 930 AM Eastern Time. Also Saturday nights after the games. We're gonna have so much fun talking about Bill Belichick. This is gonna be spectacular. And yes, now I think we've set the precedent, we've set the tone, we've probably made it hard to book him, but I've never backed down from a challenge.

We're gonna get him on the show and Ari's gonna to ask the ring camera question and I'm just going to duck. We'll talk to you tomorrow.