The North Carolina Tar Heels are set to embark on a new era under head coach Bill Belichick. That’s made for a completely new experience in Chapel Hill with Fall Camp underway, and new leaders looking to emerge for the Tar Heels. Recently, Belichick shared some insight into how leaders are developing for North Carolina. […]
The North Carolina Tar Heels are set to embark on a new era under head coach Bill Belichick. That’s made for a completely new experience in Chapel Hill with Fall Camp underway, and new leaders looking to emerge for the Tar Heels.
Recently, Belichick shared some insight into how leaders are developing for North Carolina. While he didn’t signal any players out individually, he did dive deep into the process of seeing those leaders develop for the program.
“I’d say it’s a process,” Bill Belichick said. “But, yeah. Absolutely. Certainly, some of the players who have more experience have more confidence, whether it be from their time here at Carolina or, in some cases, with other programs that have played a lot of college football. So, they’re confident in what they can do and what things are going to be like.”
This is a coaching staff that’s new to college. With that, players and the coaches are adjusting to one another, regardless of whether they are transfers or experienced North Carolina players. Still, Belichick expects more from those players than incoming freshmen.
“Sure, there’s some newness to it,” Belichick said. “But compared to a freshman who’s coming in here who’s never played in a college game, has only been now in a couple of college practices, has never gone up against this type of competition, compared to in high school when they were probably better than everybody else. Well, that’s not necessarily the case now. In most cases, I would say it definitely isn’t the case. So, you go from being the best guy to not the best guy anymore. The emergence usually comes from the more experienced players and the players who have the most confidence, but a lot of these guys are gaining confidence as they start to have success on the field. So, it’s a little bit of a fluid situation. We’ll see how it all comes out.”
There are also certain positions that Bill Belichick is expecting more of than others. Typically, those are the positions on the inside, which communicate formations and play calls.
“There’s certain positions,” Belichick said. “The defensive signal callers, quarterbacks, centers — guys in the middle of the field, safeties, that control the communication to the extremities. So, a lot of times, they emerge as leaders because they have to. They have to communicate to get the message to people outside of the formation. So, there’s a natural leadership that comes with some of those positions. Some guys have different skills in that area.”
Belichick also wanted to make a distinction between different kinds of leadership. There are leaders on the field. However, North Carolina is also hoping to find leaders off the field, doing things that will ultimately help the team long-term.
“Then there’s, I’d say, on-field leadership and there’s off-field leadership. Some players are particularly good leaders on the field in terms of being aggressive and decisive. In a football context, some players are good leaders off the field,” Belichick said. “In terms of preparation, training, and things like that. Some are good at both. So, it’s also a little bit of what are you talking about? Are you talking about a leader in the weight room? Leader on the field? Leader in the classroom? Film study? Leader in personal life, whether that be Bible study or things like that? So, there’s different forms of leadership and they’re all starting to unfold. We’ve only been doing it a few days here. So, we’ll see how it all comes together.”
North Carolina still has a few more weeks before the regular season starts on September 1st against TCU. Before then, Belichick and the Tar Heels are going to look to make sure everything has finally been pieced together.
“But, yeah, we have a lot of players who are very capable in those areas,” Belichick said. “And I think, in a way, we’re all trying to find out how that’s gonna go. How I’m gonna fit and how you’re gonna fit, and how it’s all gonna work together. It’s coming together in a positive way, but I’d say it has not yet been defined yet.”
Category: General Sports
