The Bill Belichick College Football Coaching experiment begins

Reality of Bill Belichick as a college football coach is roughly so similar that an elephant goes along a street in her neighborhood – until it is there in front of her own eyes. And there was Belichick on Wednesday in Chapel Hill, who was behind a microphone while he wore the colors of the North Carolina Tar Heels and talked about the beginning of spring training. The absurd rumor checked out.

A few minutes later it became a little more real when about 40 media members had granted about 15 minutes of access to training. This was the most curious that North Carolina Spring Football has ever produced without question.

What we saw was mainly everyday stuff -some stretch and some basic exercises -but in some species it was clear that Carolina Football is now a Belichick operation.

Start with the credited, nameless players. There were no identifying features for one of the Tar Heels as a defensive player in white jerseys, offensive players in light blue and quarterback in red. This is something that Belichick did when he won super bowls with the New England Patriots until the NFL at least appeared on all of his players. Nobody will say Belichick here how to do something.

Belichick was asked how he “explained the no-number approach for his players”. His answer: “It wasn't much explanation.”

Translation: We put these jerseys into their lockers and they wear that. We don't have to explain it. We don't play emotional ball here.

“That is exactly what we do,” continued Belichick. “We go out there and earn it. The numbers and the names and everything is not as important as your job and is responsible for your teammates and to be a good teammate. And at the moment it is not just about individual awareness. I don't think this is important at this time of year. I think it is more important to just go out and practice well and improve every day. “

The second thing that emerged in this short window of exercise access: it was calm. The trend in college athletics is to make every practice to a highly volume echo chamber with enthusiasm-assistants and strength coaches who run around and scream in every exercise, admonishes and cheered as if the next representative of the separation sign between a playoff offer and a loss season. This does not mean that enthusiasm is by no means unimportant, but it can be forced a little.

Belichick, 72 years and 48 years in the NFL, is not there for the wrong juice. He is here for work. So his employee, who has a deep NFL experience. There may be times when the North Carolina employees scream for two hours to create an aura of urgency, but after what we saw on Wednesday, it was certainly not one of these days. There were only a few people who did work.

With regard to organization and behavior, North Carolina Football is what general manager Michael Lombardi invoices: the 33rd NFL team. It is genius marketing.

Hopefully no one will cling pearls about this labeling of a college team. It's all professional football now, even if it is played on the College Campus and the players should go to class. Carolina sells what it has, and nobody else can get together in College: a coach with 333 NFL victories and a record of six Super Bowl rings.

The execution of an NFL Lite program will be Belichick's greatest recruitment advantage. Zero -Backing is important and there are signs of the Kenan Stadium of UNC, which underlines the need to give, give, give. But the best players want to earn the really big money in the NFL and North Carolina as the best place to prepare to prepare to sell, should resonate. That was Nick Saban's approach in Alabama, and it seemed pretty good to work.

Belichick literally saw everything, trained everything and gained a big man. It is a walking NFL coaching clinic on the field.

“It's the great thing about being that [head] Trainer – I train everyone I want, ”he said. “I train the line, the tight ends, the DBS, the kickers, go to every group I want and train them. And frankly, that's the funny part. You see something about which you want to address a player and speak to a player. You can go in there and talk to them. So I was very lucky to train every position in the field in the offensive, defense and special teams. And if I can help a player, I am here to help him. This is my job. “

The NFL lite approach is a bit like taking the preschool concept at a level. In football and basketball, these are the elite college feeder programs that differ from conventional high schools as places that recruit and produce finished colleges. (For this purpose, Belichick added his employees to his employee as head coach of the IMG Academy as an assistant for special teams and built a line amount to the place, which probably has the most talents in the country every year.)

This sales job will take, and the numbers are more effective with class 2026, in which the heels currently have seven high school obligations and, according to 247sports, take up the 21st place. But it also helped reach a 25-star quarters back of 25 stars Bryce Baker, who registered early and was on the practice field on Wednesday. With the veteran Max Johnson, who suffered a broken leg at the 2004 season – he was in uniform and threw the sidelines with a sleeve on the right leg – the position is an open question.

Belichick answered a question about Johnson (“Max worked hard to make progress, he is still limited, but he definitely gets better.”) That was the only time that he mentioned a certain player. At the moment it is only a nameless, ingenious heap of sound that can be shaped and shaped into something. But a real spring practice – with full contact, in contrast to the limited OTAs in the NFL – sees the hoodie as the main building block.

“The players reacted well,” said Belichick. “They seem to be generally excited and enthusiastic about playing football what everyone would be after they have trained for several weeks to get out of there and finally play. But we'll see how it works.

“I would say that the biggest difference is simply the opportunity to attract pads in spring. As I said when I was in Washington last year [where his son Steve was an assistant with the Huskies]The improvement that these players made in spring was remarkable. We just couldn't do that in the National Football League because we never got the pads. “

There are a thousand unknown about how the Belichick experiment will work in North Carolina. Will its employees offer schematic and development advantages, or is it too difficult with family and old NFL connections? (Both sons of Belichick are assistant coaches, just like the son of Lombardi.) Is the talent good enough to be able to contact a 6-7 program in an ACC and playoff?

The legendary trainer offered no insight into a big picture and no guarantees on Wednesday. He was never like that.

“I really have no expectations,” he said, and did not sound like the last breathtaking use in college football, Deion Sanders with the Colorado Buffaloes.

Belichick, not a player, is the Louis Vuitton in this unprecedented change from the status of professional legend to a first college appearance. What he did with the “33. NFL team “can start in the first year, the most fascinating act in sport will be.