Bill Belichick's Process of Building New-Look Roster for UNC

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — North Carolina lost 84 total players from the 2024 season. So for Bill Belichick and his staff, roster management for 2025 and beyond has been just as vital as installing plays.

As training camp gets underway, UNC has 108 players on its roster. Belichick spoke on Saturday about his strategy of putting the team together from scratch, particularly about building depth through the portal.

“I think the first portal, we’re just trying to find guys to fill the team,” Belichick said. “(In the) second portal, we looked for good football players. And we felt like any position, if the player wanted to come in and compete and we thought it was a good player, then this is the right spot for him. We’ll give everybody an opportunity to compete.”

Belichick enlisted Michael Lombardi to be the team’s general manager after UNC hired him in December. UNC added 38 players in the transfer portal and signed 31 freshmen.

Belichick makes his collegiate debut at the same time that the House vs. NCAA settlement provisions have entered the game. The player limit for football teams is now 105 players, though returning players can be grandfathered in.

There are no scholarship limits for the 105 players. The previous scholarship count was 85.

“Our scholarships will be under 105, we do have the grandfather clause or rule in which the players that were walk-ons last year get grandfathered in,” Belichick said. “So us, like most every other college team, will be actually over the 105 with those grandfathered players. We have some players who are not on scholarship, who would be under this call at the 105, and obviously most of them will be on scholarship. But there are some guys that are kind of in that gray area. Maybe they can earn a scholarship, depending on what their role is, and so forth.

“So from a numbers standpoint, we’re in good shape. We’re not going to have to release players to get to the 105, we already kind of did that in the spring, which was a difficult decision to make. I think most of those players ended up at other schools, and will be playing this fall. So I do think it kind of worked out for them, that they’re (not) in a situation without a chance to play. But we’re not really going to be restricted on the roster size this year. I think it’ll probably be something we’ll have to work on next year.”

North Carolina will kick the season off on Labor Day against TCU in front of a sold-out Kenan Stadium crowd. UNC’s first ACC game will come against Clemson at home on Oct. 4.

In the opening days of training camp, player roles and depth charts are far from fully defined. Most incoming players are working with a fresh start, and Belichick emphasized on Saturday that starting positions will come through training camp performance.

“Anybody who’s walking in here feeling like, ‘Well, I’m going to be just starting this,’ or that, ‘I’m entitled to this,’ that’s not really the way it’s going to work,” Belichick said. “They’re going to have to earn it. If they want to come in and earn playing time and earn a roster spot and play at Carolina and play in the ACC, then we’ll give it to them and we’ll see what they can do.”