Bill Belichick reveals biggest adjustment from NFL rules to college football

In the NFL, Bill Belichick is a legend with 49 years of coaching experience. Now, with the North Carolina Tar Heels, he’s taking on a new challenge, coaching college football for the first time in his career.

From college to the NFL, football is still football but there are still major adjustments. In the case of Belichick, who is used to working with professionals, that could be difficult to navigate. As he explained on the College GameDay Podcast, that means he’s going to need to adjust by giving less information for his players to handle.

“I think it’ll probably be less volume,” Bill Belichick said. “Fewer plays, fewer calls, fewer adjustments, but you’re looking at fewer on the other side too. It’s just not as expansive, quite as much. A lot of that has to do with quarterbacks. You look at quarterbacks like [Tom] Brady and [Patrick] Mahomes and [Aaron] Rodgers and guys like that that have double-digit years of experience, can do a lot. In college, you get a four or five-year player. That guy’s really got a big leg up on a kid with a year or two of experience.”

Certainly, having a quarterback to build around has been a key to Belichick’s success as an NFL head coach. With the New England Patriots, he’d win six Super Bowls alongside Tom Brady. When the two parted ways, Brady won another Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers while the Patriots took a step back and struggled to find their next franchise quarterback. Now, at North Carolina, he’ll inherit experienced Max Johnson at quarterback while bringing in freshman Bryce Baker.

“So, it’s just a little bit different but in the end, it’s all relatively speaking about the same. I think it will be whichever team plays well fundamentally,” Belichick said. “Big plays and close games, which are a lot in this conference. This is what it’s gonna come down to.”

There are also several rule changes that Bill Belichick will need to navigate in college that are different from the NFL. That extends into the kicking game that Belichick has prided his NFL teams in throughout his career. Rugby punts are made possible by those rule changes too, which he also touched on.

“It’s an interesting concept. Certainly, some teams in college have done very well with it,” Belichick said. “And it’s just in general in the kicking game the, I would say, skill of the specialists has improved dramatically both in college and in professional football.”

Plenty of coaches have failed to make the jump either from college to the NFL or vice versa. The hope for Belichick is that he’s going to translate well and find a way to get North Carolina competitive in the ACC for the 2025 season.