UNC GM Michael Lombardi breaks down how Bill Belichick will handle NIL

One of the most fascinating things to watch in college football in the next year or two will be how Bill Belichick and his staff heavy with NFL experience handle things when it comes to NIL. It’s been a lot to navigate for even the most veteran of college football coaches.

Could Bill Belichick’s experience managing things at the NFL level pay dividends? Perhaps even make things a little easier? The question of how to divvy up money to recruits was posed to North Carolina general manager Michael Lombardi on Thursday on The Pat McAfee Show.

“I think that’s a great question. I think you have to do it just like the draft,” Lombardi said. “You know, the draft is money, OK? When you say that a guy is going to be an immediate starter and impact the team, that’s a top-10 pick, and that top-10 pick makes X amount of dollars. And if you say the guy’s going to be a potential backup player who could eventually start, that’s probably a fourth- or fifth-round pick. So that comes with a value.”

Nothing earth-shattering there. Different players will get paid different amounts.

It’s keeping everyone happy that gets a little tricky. But Lombardi thinks having a set structure when it comes to NIL payouts under Belichick can help avoid some of the pitfalls.

“Whenever you have a salary cap you have to have a value and so if you’re taking a young high school prospect who’s very good you’re going to have to give them some money to entice them to come to your school, but there has to be kind of a ceiling on what you can give them,” Lombardi said. “We’re not like Jerry Jones. We’re not in the oil-drilling business. We’re not hoping to hit a well or gusher. You’ve got to pay for performance as you go, right?”

He expanded further on how Bill Belichick plans to run things, with Lombardi at the helm.

“There’s going to be a scale. You know, you come in, you earn this,” Lombardi said. “If you start to play you’re going to earn more based on how you start. There has to be a rhyme and a reason to what you’re doing. But if you randomly just give out I’m paying this guy $750,000, I’ll pay this guy a million, I’ll pay… then all the sudden you don’t have any continuity within your program.”

That’s when things get dangerous. Can Bill Belichick manage the egos that come along with getting paid in college football? We shall see.

“That’s what we’re going to try to do. We’ll bring young players in that we recruit. We’ll pay them,” Lombardi said. “But it’s on speculation, right? And there’s going to be a number. And then as they earn more based on their performance here at North Carolina they will earn more. My door’s going to always be open for conversations because that’s the way it is.”