For over two decades, NFL coaches tried to emulate Bill Belichick, the mastermind behind six Super Bowl titles with the New England Patriots. Now, as he begins his first season in college football with North Carolina, Belichick appears to be following in the footsteps of another NFL icon-turned-college-coach: Deion Sanders.

FOX Sports’ Colin Cowherd sees a lot of similarities between the team that Belichick has entering Year 1 in Chapel Hill and the team that Coach Prime built in his first year at Colorado. In fact, Cowherd believes that the Tar Heels will go through similar ups and downs to the ones Sanders’ Buffs experienced in 2023. 

“They’re gonna sell out games,” Cowherd said on “The Joel Klatt Show.” “It’s gonna be fascinating. It’ll be great for TV ratings. At the end of the year, you’re like, ‘I don’t know how good they are, but it’s a good story.’ 

“[The Buffaloes and Tar Heels] are better now than they were before Deion or Bill got there, because I think the boosters [at both schools] stepped up and allowed them to buy some very, very special players.”

To Cowherd’s point, there isn’t much continuity on the Tar Heels’ roster. Belichick brought in 41 players through the transfer portal to go along with 30 recruits. Even though North Carolina’s transfer portal class was ranked as the ninth-best in the nation by 247Sports, Cowherd believes all the moving pieces will be too much for Belichick in Year 1.

“Forty transfers? C’mon,” Cowherd said. “I mean, Bill was hard on his first- and second-round draft picks to start. He liked to draft guys, sit them, [have them] learn the system and then play them in Year 2. Those were like 24-year-old guys, and Bill rarely went and spent big money in free agency until one of those final years. 

“Forty new players? Limited practice time? I don’t know, it’s got a Colorado feel to it. That’s why it’s so ironic they’re opening with TCU, because that’s who Deion opened with at Colorado.”

Joel Klatt agreed with that sentiment, adding that Sanders brought in superior talent in his first year at Colorado between quarterback Shedeur Sanders and two-way star Travis Hunter. 

While Klatt recognized that North Carolina is in a better position (6-7 in 2024) now than Colorado was when Sanders took over (1-11 in 2022), he cited a point that Tom Brady made in a recent episode of “The Joel Klatt Show: Big Noon Conversations” for why he thinks Belichick will experience a bit of a learning curve in the college game. 

“Tom was fascinated by how Bill is going to handle young players because of his expectations when it comes to game situation preparedness,” Klatt said. “He doesn’t have the time to prepare with those guys like you would at the right level. I thought it was a really smart point that Tom made.”

Between NCAA rules and academic obligations, college players can only spend so much time with their coaches each week during the season. That’s obviously different from the NFL, where players and coaches can meet for hours on end every week, with Brady telling Klatt he wonders how much information Belichick’s players will be able to retain. 

Still, Klatt believes that Belichick will be able to coach and scheme North Carolina to enough wins in 2025 for it to be considered a successful season.

“I can’t keep my eyes off of this situation at UNC because I actually think he’s going to succeed,” Klatt said. “This is not a league that’s overwhelmingly difficult. The ACC — if you can be better in those situations than your opponent, then you can win close games. Am I crazy to think that Bill Belichick will work at North Carolina?”

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