In a stunning development, legendary New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick will head to Chapel Hill to lead the North Carolina Tar Heels football program.

Belichick finalized a five-year deal to become UNC’s next head coach, the school announced Wednesday. The six-time Super Bowl champion has never previously coached a college team in his illustrious career.

Belichick joining the collegiate ranks drew plenty of stunned reactions across the football world, including from some of his former players. Patriots greats Tom Brady, Julian Edelman, and Rob Gronkowski said they couldn’t imagine the 72-year-old coaching college kids. Brady even imitated his longtime coach while he scoffed at the concept.

Nonetheless, Belichick will don Carolina blue the next time he paces the sideline. Another one of his former QBs, Brian Hoyer, shared his reaction to the news on Wednesday’s edition of The Gameplan.

“I think everybody who’s played for Bill, we all have the same reaction,” Hoyer said. “We’ve seen Tom (Brady) talk about it. We’ve seen (Jonathan) Jones has talked about it like, ‘Oh, you want more NIL money? Well, why don’t you worry about your history class?’ Because that’s the way he talked to us. I think he’s gonna have to have some adaptation here.

“Now, I do say, being in this NIL era, he will be able to run it like a pro team because you don’t really don’t have to recruit. You just go in and say, ‘Hey, I’m Bill Belichick. You can come play for me. We’re gonna give you X amount of money. Here’s the deal.’

“If this is pre-NIL era, I think this would be a little different. Him having to walk into someone’s home and recruit Johnny and say, ‘Hey, we really want you’ and all of those things. But this was not on my bingo card for this year, that’s for sure.”

Hoyer added that he was surprised Belichick didn’t at least try to land an NFL gig so he could chase Don Shula’s all-time coaching wins record. He needs 15 wins to surpass Shula.

“The biggest thing for me is, this doesn’t allow him to get close to that NFL win record,” Hoyer said. “I think that’s the biggest shock, especially not waiting for the NFL cycle to kind of come and go, see if there was an opportunity. But clearly he felt comfortable and wants to do this, and maybe that year in the media, that’s what changed his mind and that’s what he wants to do.

“So I think he’ll do a great job, and I think the one thing like we said, the NIL, you don’t even have to recruit high school kids. You can go pick them from other schools too. So how many kids in the transfer portal now sitting out there are gonna say, ‘Oh, I get a chance to go play for Bill Belichick. Let me see what they’re gonna offer me money-wise, but also the greatest head coach of all time, I can go play for him and that’ll really boost my stock when I had in the NFL’?”

Hoyer is far from the only ex-player shocked that Belichick’s next coaching job won’t be in the NFL. Former Patriots safety Rodney Harrison believes NFL teams are making a mistake by passing on arguably the greatest head coach in league history.

“I can’t believe that a guy with his reputation, and the things he can do coaching-wise, people (in the NFL) should be jumping at the opportunity to give him a job,” Harrison told MassLive’s Karen Guregian.

Legendary linebacker Lawrence Taylor, a UNC alum who played under Belichick with the New York Giants, shared a more positive reaction to the news:

I just texted Lawrence Taylor, the greatest player in North Carolina history, to get his thoughts on Bill Belichick taking the job at his alma mater.
"UNC stock has just gone up!!!" Taylor texted.
"You like it?" I asked.
"Absolutely," he said.
"Did you talk to him about it?" I…

— Gary Myers (@GaryMyersNY) December 11, 2024

Belichick and the New England Patriots mutually parted ways in January of 2023 after he spent 24 seasons as head coach in Foxboro. In addition to his six titles with the Patriots, he won two Super Bowl rings as the Giants’ defensive coordinator in the 1980s.