What Bill Belichick said on the ACC Kickoff podium
· Yahoo Sports
On Friday afternoon, North Carolina took the stage at the conference’s annual preview event, ACC Kickoff, on the final day, along with several other teams.
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Head coach Bill Belichick, along with players Melkart Abou-Jaoude, Christo Kelly and Jordan Shipp, represented the Tar Heels as they answered questions about the 2026 season.
UNC hopes to rebound after a disastrous 4-8 finish in Belichick’s debut season in college football. Three of those four wins came against teams with losing records: Charlotte (1-11), Stanford (4-8) and Syracuse (3-9). The other came against Richmond, an FCS opponent.
Here is the full transcript from Belichick’s main-stage news conference:
Opening Remarks
Thanks, appreciate it. Great to be here. Appreciate everyone being here as well. It’s really exciting to be here for the start of the season. This kind of gets things kicked off, even though we’ve been in summer workouts and getting ready to head into training camp next week.
First, I want to thank all the people that have been so supportive at North Carolina. Certainly Chancellor Roberts, Steve Newmark, our new athletic director, they’ve been fantastic. You know, our alumni have been awesome. Guys like Jim Coleman and Josh Clark, Vaughn Moore, guys like that that have really been supportive of the program. And most of all our players.
These guys have really worked hard. We have three outstanding players here that have done a great job for us. They’ve given us a lot of leadership. Jordan Shipp has been here. Played a little bit his freshman year, but last year really was his first year of playing. Melkart and Christo both transferred in last year, and they’ve given us great leadership and done a great job with our program developing the culture that we need.
We have a lot of new players here. We have about 60 new players, so over half our team from last year. Excited to see how that comes along. It was a big freshman class because we kind of didn’t have much of a freshman class in ’25 group. So we kind of combined those two and brought in a lot of young players that are going to be good, but it’s going to take a little bit of time. They’re certainly working hard. If they can follow the lead of the guys we have up here, they’ll do well.
Looking forward to opening the season in Ireland. That will be a great trip. Some of our players went over there to kind of preview, promote the game. It will be exciting to go over there. I’ve been involved in some of those international games myself from my time in the NFL. Those are experiences that you remember.
You remember a lot of games. Certainly I remember a lot of the championships and Super Bowls that I’ve been involved in, but certainly the international games have kind of a special flavor to them. I’m glad our team will have the opportunity to experience that as well as going up against a good TCU team.
This conference is extremely competitive. I’ve spent quite a bit of time getting to know the coaches in this conference as well as the administration, Jim Phillips, Mike Strickland, those guys. Al Riveron has passed the torch on the officiating side. I think that he did a great job there, and I’m glad to see him helping the transition in that area.
Overall excited to get the season started, get back on the field and build off a good spring that we had, a good summer offseason conditioning program that we’re wrapping up now and start to block, tackle, run plays, and so forth and look to make some significant strides with bringing the team together, which, again, we’re so far ahead of where we were last year when we kind of started all over in training camp. This year we’ve got a much better base to build off of.
Again, a lot of that’s a result of the leadership that these guys have given us here to my left.
Q. After the new regulations with the transfer portal only being down to one window, and you’ve talked about already that this team is already way farther ahead than where they were last year, what’s your confidence level with this team and with this recruiting class coming in, now having a whole year up under your belt? You have some established guys up here. What’s your confidence level in this team, and what are some things that you are excited about moving forward?
Yeah, well, we’re just going to keep grinding away every day. That’s what we try to do is string good days together and keep stacking them up and see where that takes us.
The expectations are to be prepared, to come in and have a good day today and rest, recover, refuel, rehydrate, and put another one together tomorrow. We’ll see where that takes us.
I expect everybody to come in and perform at their best. I want to do the same thing I can to help the team in any way I possibly can, whether that’s training or Xs and Os, strategy, fundamental, whatever it is and just continuing to keep improving.
We have a lot of good competition on the team, as I said, a number of young players. We’ll see how quickly they come along or don’t. We’ll see how that goes. Expectations are to have good days and stack them together.
Q. Bringing in Bobby Petrino, who obviously has a history in the ACC, a history of being a head football coach, what does it mean to you to have him on staff running your offense and just his expertise?
Yeah, it’s been great having Bobby. I’ve known him for a long time from the pro to college side but also when he was in Atlanta. A lot of things he does offensively are similar to what we did in New England. We’ve kind of been able to merge those together — protections, routes, play actions, balanced attack, things like that. Yeah, it’s been great.
A lot of our spring has been foundational, teaching fundamentals, terminology, installation of basic plays, things like that. We’ll get into more situational football and I’d say more game plan-type adjustments as we move forward here through the month of August.
You know, defensively it’s been very competitive, a good challenge for our defense to see, you know, the schemes and things that we’re doing offensively and vice versa. I think our offense has benefitted from seeing the multiples we have on defense, and competition has been good.
But Bobby has been great to work with. Love having him on our staff.
Q. Going into this second year, we saw great strides from Carolina towards the end. What have you taken from the previous year and brought it on into the second year, Coach?
Yeah, again, I think the biggest thing has been to see the improvement that we made. Our players that carried over from last year saw the improvement that they made. We’re stronger. We’re faster. We’re better football players fundamentally and with technique and so forth and just to continue to do that.
Those guys, you know, we had a lot of PRs, personal records, after practice with speeds, lifts, and so forth. I think it’s an indication of our work ethic and the culture that we’re establishing, and the guys who are leading the pack are doing a great job of setting the pace with their work ethic and establishing that culture.
Q. Last year was a bit of a struggle, to say the least there. When you look at what happened in its totality, what are things you took away, you learned as a college coach that, you know, you might not have been aware of or you might not have been expecting coming into this thing that you go into year two with and say: We’ll be better in this way because I’ve experienced this and I know these pitfalls?
I think the biggest thing is just the relationships and building with all the people that are involved in the school, whether it’s academics, compliance, you know, different training — the training things that we have to go through, you know, the hourly schedule and so forth that we have to be in compliance with, things like that, and the different people that we’re working with.
We brought in some people that I was familiar with, but, you know, also, again, multiple other people in the university. Great people, people who have really done a great job of supporting us, but you just need to build that working relationship with.
So that’s been good. It’s been fun, and I appreciate the work that they’ve done. We’ll work a lot more efficiently as we spend more time together and get to know each other better and understand the needs and what’s most helpful, but they’ve been great.
Q. The famous Patriot Way has become something talked about a lot in the media. Would you say there is developing a Carolina way, and how would you describe that mindset and those pillars?
Yeah, I’m not really sure what the Patriot way is. That was kind of, I guess, a catchy marketing term that somebody came up with. Yeah, honestly that’s not something we ever talked about at New England.
But, again, look, the main thing, as I said, that we’re trying to do at Carolina is build a culture with good team, good teammates that’s tough and smart and works hard every day and continues to get better and improve. That’s really what it’s about, both individually in individual units like the offensive line or the quarterbacks and the receivers or the linebackers, and then collectively as offensive and defensive units, and the team in terms of functioning and situational football, things like no-huddle field goals or things like that that involve multiple team unit executions.
Q. How are you cancelling out the comparisons of the NFL and last season, and what are you telling your leaders that you brought with you as they go into this new season to have success?
Yeah, I mean, look, we learn every day. I learn every day. I learn from last year, the year before that, and all the years from before that. But right now we’re focusing on going forward, what we can accomplish today, this week, and in this training period. Then we’ll move on to our next set of goals.
You take what you have learned from the past and try to improve on it, but, you know, it’s really about what you accomplish today and our coming opportunities.
Q. When people watch this North Carolina team next season, what is the first thing you hope they take away when they step on the field?
What’s the first thing — I don’t know. They probably take away new uniforms (smiling).
Q. Players in the NFL can create longevity through their careers through niche special team roles. Famously, you coached Matthew Slater, who was a great gunner. Can you just talk about the importance of those specialized positions, and does that go into your recruiting aspects at all?
Yes, special teams, absolutely, goes into everything. It goes into being a good teammate and doing what’s best for the team and helping the team in any way possible, whether that’s the players got a starting role on offense or defense or not. It’s about being able to help the team.
You know, certainly any college football player who doesn’t go into the NFL as a starter, which is probably over 90% of them, would be expected to contribute in the kicking game unless they’re an offensive or defensive lineman. Any player that wants to play in the NFL, being a good special team player is an absolute, you know, bonus to them being able to punch a ticket as an NFL player.
Our players understand that. We’ve talked about it. Honestly, they all want to be in the kicking game and be on special teams because that will help them achieve their goals at the next level. It’s not an issue at all. It’s a very important part of the game, and our players realize that.
But I’ve coached a lot of players in the NFL that never played on special teams in college because they were a starter or covered kickoffs as a freshman and never done it since then, and then they come to the NFL and they’re no good in special teams. And then somebody beats them out, and then they don’t have an opportunity in the league.
Then there have been plenty of other guys like Jonathan Jones and Brandon Bolden and guys like that that have had good special teams play that have gotten them onto the field, and then ended up being strong players on offense or defense because they initially started those roles in the kicking game. Or Matthew Slater who made a career and was a ten-time Pro Bowler in the kicking game because of his development on special teams.
Yeah, appreciate the question. Even we have players like Christo who came into college football as one of the top long snappers in high school, you know, who also snaps for us, which honestly, as I’ve told him, to be able to long snap and play a position in the NFL is unique. It’s unheard of. It creates a very unique value where you can possibly save a roster spot.
Those situations are real.
Q. Last year there was a bit of a quarterback transition in spring and some of the guys left. How important has it been this year with continuity in the room going in from spring to fall camp and those guys being able to work together and having the same guys in the building in spring?
Yeah, I mean, it’s been great. Last year the quarterbacks that played didn’t take any snaps for us in the spring. Gio wasn’t here. Max wasn’t able to participate. So that was it.
This year our quarterbacks after spring ball are still here, are out in player-run practices, which our players were never really able to do the last year because we didn’t have enough experience on either side of the ball to line up offensively or defensively and be able to run our plays.
Now our team can go out there and we can run PRPs with each other. They can continue to work on their plays, their fundamentals, their techniques, their communication, gain trust in each other. That’s a huge advantage we didn’t have last year, and the players have done a great job of that.
From what I understand. I haven’t been out there, but they’ve all spoken highly about how productive those have been. Certainly starts on offense at the quarterback position by having an experienced quarterback who can get in the huddle, call the play, and know what everybody is supposed to do, and we just didn’t have that last year. That’s the type of thing when I say we’re way ahead of where we were last year, that would be a good example of it, so thanks for that question.
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This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: What Bill Belichick said on the ACC Kickoff podium