Bill Belichick: 'Everybody wants to go to Carolina'

Bill Belichick was very adamant about the interest in North Carolina for student athletes across the nation: it’s from everyone.

Belichick hasn’t coached a down of college football yet, but already created a new buzz around the Tar Heels. In this new world of college football, that’s half of the battle.

So while Belichick made this claim, he’ll certainly do his best to make it a reality.

“We want to be a national school, and we are a national school. It is a national brand, and everybody wants to go to Carolina,” Belichick said. “We know it’s very difficult to get acceptance into the school as an out of state student, but … we’ve had tremendous interest from student athletes nationally that have great interest in the program. And so we’re, you know, we’re everywhere. We’re gonna recruit North Carolina hard, that’s the most important state, but we also want to have a national presence for student athletes that want to come here.”

So how does Belichick hit the recruiting trail? Well, he takes the NFL approach with a twist to make sure everyone’s interested in North Carolina.

“Well, it’s a little different than than what I did with draft prospects, because there is a drafting element, but we also recruited a lot of players who weren’t drafted, guys like David Andrews, who wasn’t drafted, who’s the starting center for the Patriots the last nine years that Mike and I recruited out of Georgia as an undrafted player,” Belichick said. “So there was an element of that in the NFL. But yeah, I’ve been very impressed with all the people that have come in contact with the high school coaches, both in and out of state, do a great job with their programs, with their players and accommodating us.” 

Anytime Belichick walks into a living room, it has to be an intriguing sight for high school prospects. Usually, they had to get through college before meeting the former Patriots head coach.

Now, Belichick can mold them into pros.

“I would say they’ve been very excited to see us in our presence in a lot of these schools that, evidently, as they have said, you know, hasn’t been that strong recently,” Belichick said. “So, you know, we’ve kind of pretty much been up and down the eastern seaboard and then in many places, from Chicago to Nashville to some of the Midwest, even though we’re recruiting nationally in Texas and California as well. 

“But we, I personally, have, you know, haven’t probably gotten past the Mississippi. We’ve hit as many spots as we could during the time frame that was allotted.”