Paul Finebaum predicts Bill Belichick will see quick Transfer Portal success at North Carolina

Bill Belichick has done everything there is to do in the NFL. Now, he’s taking on a new challenge, though, preparing to coach the North Carolina Tar Heels in the college ranks.

That move comes with several unique challenges that Belichick was not dealing with in the NFL, or at least not in the same manner. One of those things is recruiting and the Transfer Portal. Despite it being new to Belichick, ESPN’s Paul Finebaum shared on Get Up that he believes that Belichick will find early portal success.

“Another problem that college coaches have is recruiting,” Finebaum said. “Recruiting is not as important as it used to be. It used to be the pipeline. Can Belichick recruit? Yes. The most important thing he’ll have to do is what Deion [Sanders] has done, and that’s go into the portal and paper his team that way and he’ll easily do that. They’ll come to him, at least initially…you can win there. I mean, the fine line is just a couple of games a year and if he can do that, and I’m pretty sure he can, North Carolina is a power within two years.”

The combination of NIL, the House Settlement, and the Transfer Portal has been compared to free agency in the NFL. That’s because it allows for player movement annually, often based on financial decisions. In that respect, Belichick has experience dealing with a similar process.

At the same time, the system in the NFL has a salary cap as opposed to varying budget constraints at different schools. On top of that, NFL players are employees while college athletes still aren’t considered employees and don’t collectively bargain.

As it stands now, the transfer portal is already in full swing. That means that Belichick already needs to be reaching out to recruits and transfer players to put together his roster for next season.

Paul Finebaum believes North Carolina can ‘easily’ reach College Football Playoff with Bill Belichick

Despite needing to rebuild the roster at North Carolina, Paul Finebaum does expect Bill Belichick to succeed at North Carolina, even becoming a College Football Playoff contender.

“North Carolina was already a good program, not a great program,” Paul Finebaum said.

“But a program that could get to a championship game as they did a couple of years ago. Now they can easily, and I mean easily, get to the CFP because this year — we just got through talking about the ACC getting two teams in the Playoff. All you have to do is have a good season and maybe get to the championship game and in that league, he can do that.”