By ROB MAADDI and AARON BEARD
Six-time Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick has agreed to become North Carolina’s next football coach, a person with knowledge of the decision said Wednesday.
The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the deal hasn’t been finalized. UNC’s trustees must approve any agreement, though that board hasn’t announced a new meeting as of Wednesday night.
The Tar Heels had been seeking a replacement for Mack Brown. The school announced Nov. 26 that the program’s all-time winningest coach and College Football Hall of Famer wouldn’t return for a seventh season in his second stint in Chapel Hill, a firing that became effective after Brown coached his finale in the Nov. 30 loss to rival N.C. State.
Moving on from the 73-year-old Brown to hire the 72-year-old Belichick means UNC is turning to a coach who has never worked at the college level, yet had incredible success in the NFL alongside quarterback Tom Brady throughout most of his 24-year tenure with the Patriots, which ended last season.
Belichick had been linked to NFL jobs in the time since, notably the Atlanta Falcons in January. That’s why word of Belichick’s conversations with UNC — first reported by Inside Carolina and confirmed by the AP last week — stirred such surprise as an unexpected and unconventional route for both sides to take.
But the two sides had been in discussions for several days working on terms before finally reaching an agreement to cap what seemed an improbable outcome only a week earlier.
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