"We signed players who didn't have offer": Bill Belichick defends UNC's recruiting strategy amid recent struggles

Legendary coach Bill Belichick's first season at UNC has been a controversial one in terms of his off-field pursuits and recent developments in the ACC. After seven weeks down the line, UNC stands with a poor 2-3 record and a big question mark as to how far the team will go with a below-par performance. Reassuring the fans and experts, coach Belichick justified his recruiting tactics and roster development in a recent press conference.

Belichick mentioned when he arrived at the program, it was already very late and had limited opportunities to recruit elite talents. However, he managed to execute a major overhaul with available players in the transfer portal and high school recruiting.

He emphasized how UNC recruited more defensive linemen to train the existing players. Belichick also added that he is extremely confident about his team's capabilities.

“Look, when we got here, we had three defensive linemen. You can’t practice with three defensive linemen. We went out and signed a lot of players. We signed players who didn’t have offers or offers that they didn’t want,” Belichick said to the reporters on Tuesday.

NCAA Football: North Carolina at Central Florida - Source: Imagn

“Kind of slid through the cracks in terms of the recruiting process. We signed players in the transfer portal that were available. We were late in the running on a lot of them. We were late on relationships. We were late on it in contacts. We ran out of time. We did the best we could,” he added.

Bill Belichick has a challenging schedule waiting ahead in 2025

After two bye weeks in the first half, coach Belichick and team will enter Week 8 for a road game against California. Virginia, Syracuse and Stanford are other matchups in the consecutive weeks for the Tar Heels, where winning each one of them is extremely crucial to record an 8+ winning games season.

Similarly, Wake Forest, Duke and NC State are the other opponents for UNC in the final weeks of the 2025 season. Looking at the current scenario, UNC has a lot of gaps in offense and defense. They have been struggling to run the ball and make plays in the opponent's territory.

Similarly, the defense often failed to create turnovers and help the offense take possession of the ball. The coming weeks will prove a real test for Coach Belichick to demonstrate his strategies on the college turf.