Urban Meyer doubts North Carolina will win a national championship under Bill Belichick

Bill Belichick enters college football at an interesting time in his career. As a proven, multi-time champion at the NFL level — the new North Carolina head coach will now chase national championships instead of Super Bowls.

While Belichick knows more about winning championships than any active head coach at any level, he’s never done it at the college level. Urban Meyer, who won national titles at Florida and Ohio State, knows Belichick very well and believes the longtime New England Patriots head coach will figure it out.

“I thought, first of all, he’s 72. I’m 60 and I — are you out of your mind? I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t do that. But he’s 72 and like, at some point, coach, go enjoy your life,” Meyer said with a smirk during this week’s episode of the Triple Option Podcast. “But he enjoys it. He’ll figure it out. He’ll surround himself with good people.”

As for winning a national championship, he’s not so sure.

“I don’t think they’ll do that,” Meyer said of their title chances. However, he provided a slightly different goal for UNC to accomplish. “[Can they] go compete for a playoff and win the ACC? Yeah, the conference is very average right now.

“You get a couple of really good players in there and you can go win that conference and be in the playoff. That and you’re paying a guy $10 million a year. You just want $20 million Ohio State-type level NIL money — you’re damn right you better be in the playoff.”

Whether Belichick can put together that type of cash in Chapel Hill remains to be seen, but it’s evident that he has the backing of those within the program and he’s already off to a strong start in the NCAA transfer portal.

The cost of his initial roster remains to be seen, but Meyer is likely correct in believing that a program like UNC, which has never been to the College Football Playoff, will have to raise some serious cash to rival some of the biggest programs in the country on the recruiting stage.

Belichick’s reputation may help in that regard, but college football fans across the board will be keeping tabs on what’s going on in Chapel Hill for the foreseeable future.