Mack Brown 2.0? Hardly.
The Bill Belichick Experiment - North Carolina hiring the six-time Super Bowl winner - is an entirely different animal than when the Tar Heels ran it back in 2019 to hire Brown a second time. And, boy, are we going to learn so much.
Not just about Belichick as a head coach, either, but a sport that's in the midst of an ever-going makeover. We'll also see how far a school that fancies itself as a bastion of higher learning is willing to go in order to be a player in football.
Brown, who coached UNC from 1988-97, ended a five-year retirement to provide stability and gravitas to a program struggling to remain relevant. He achieved that to some degree.
The affable Brown again charmed a fickle fanbase just as he did during his first run with UNC -- flashier, with a national championship title from Texas in 2005 -- and recruited players with first-round NFL futures. Who doesn't love Mack Brown?
Indeed, the Tar Heels didn't have a losing record over the last six seasons under Brown; going 44-33 and winning the ACC Coastal Division in 2022 and making bowl games annually.
Yet, all that proved was UNC's ceiling is only within an arm's reach from its floor. And the only thing worse than being bad, is being mediocre. At least losing elicits an emotion.
UNC cut ties with Brown, 73, a few weeks ago, just days after Brown publicly declared he'd back next season. The school's brass fired him while they were away with the men's basketball team in Hawaii. What a class move.
Now enter the polarizing Belichick, 72.
Settling scores
This isn't another case of an all-time great coach coming in to save the day, reimagining a program and taking it to previously unobtainable heights. This isn't Lou Holtz or Steve Spurrier swooping into Columbia.
There were tribes of critics when South Carolina hired those hall of fame coaches, too. Some detractors remain today for various reasons ranging from on-the-field issues to personal tiffs.
What's unassailable, however, is the impact Holtz and Spurrier had on the USC program even if the end of their respective runs fizzled. The standards, hopes and expectations of the Gamecocks changed, otherwise the Will Muschamp era might've been more palatable. Well, to some degree, anyhow.
UNC is looking for a similar jolt. And nothing is more dynamic than hiring the greatest coach in NFL history who also happens to be Nick Saban's BFF.
But why even take on this challenge and risk his legacy?
"Well, it beats working," he said. "I love what I do, I love coaching."
Only buy half of that statement.
No doubt Belichick loves coaching - it's almost like he's a coaching cyborg created in a lab buried beneath the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. But, knowing the competitive and prideful nature of coaches, he has to be insulted NFL teams aren't brawling for his services.
He's had only minimal interest since the Patriots cut ties with him in 2023. That could be driven by the narrative that he can't win without Tom Brady. Belichick went a not-great 29-38 after Brady left following the 2019 season.
So, a big part of this move must be fueled by him wanting to settle scores with those who've shunned him. He's offended that his six Lombardi Trophies don't say all that needs to be said, and he wants to remind everyone of his greatness.
Indeed, he brings loads of credibility ... sort of.
Belichick's father might've been a college football lifer - that includes a three-year stint at UNC during the 1950s - but 100 percent of his son's bonafides come from the pros. How the blueprint the younger Belichick used to build an NFL dynasty translate to the college game is a mystery.
That remains true even if the lines between student/athletes and pros becomes increasingly blurry. Because the things that bind NFL players to a team (specifically contracts) don't yet exist in college. Roster building could prove to be maddening for Belichick.
And retaining.
Recruiting, at least for the best of the best, has always been a non-stop task. But now it also includes keeping your own team intact. How will the notoriously gruff Belichick come across? Not only with high school kids and portal refugees, but his own roster? That's assuming he has a heavy involvement, if at all.
Not that Saban was warm and fuzzy - he was all-business. But he was also engaging and willing to use the media as a tool to send specific messages. Belichick communicates like one of the King's Guards.
Yet, it's all still so captivating.
True to himself
If nothing else, the move is feeding the news machine between the revelation of the College Football Playoff field and when Indiana plays Notre Dame on Dec. 20. That's kind of fitting, considering the gap is similar to that dead period before the Super Bowl kicks off.
What better way to fill it than with news, big and small, regarding the greatest coach in NFL history?
Fun fact: Belichick was hired by the New England Patriots on Jan. 27, 2000 - less than six weeks before his girlfriend, Jordan Hudson, was born. It's not unlikely that her Gen-Z experience will be helpful in recruiting.
He'll need her help when a recruit says he's "ISO a joint that will let him be boujee; not somewhere mid, but lit." (Translation: "I'm in search of a program that will provide me financial stability; not a middle-of-the pack program, but instead somewhere top-tier."
At least we know that's who he is, though. There won't be antics like those of LSU's Brian Kelly, faking accents and gettin' jiggy wit it to endear himself to boosters and players.
If a 49-year career has proven anything, it's that Belichick doesn't get jiggy wit anything.
"I think the majority of the head coaching recruiting will be done on campus," Belichick said during his introductory press conference Thursday. "Whatever helps our team, that's what I wanna do."
We'll see if that's true.
It might work out. It might be a disaster.
It'll be fascinating, either way.