Mack Brown says Bill Belichick has 'no reason' he shouldn't be successful at UNC

Mack Brown didn't leave North Carolina in the best shape when the program dismissed him as its head coach in November, going 6-6 in his final regular season with the team. However, he has high expectations for his successor, Bill Belichick.

In fact, the former UNC head coach seems to think that Belichick might have an easier job at succeeding in Chapel Hill than he did over the last couple of years. In an interview with SiriusXM College Sports Radio's "Dusty and Danny In the Morning," Brown shared that the school has loosened up the academic requirements and has made more investments into the football program ever since Belichick's hiring in December.

"As far as North Carolina and Bill Belichick now, he’s arguably the best coach ever," Brown said. "They’ve committed money to it. They’ve helped him with academics. They’ve lowered those standards some. So, there’s absolutely no reason they shouldn’t be successful … and they’ve changed the roster. I think they’ve signed maybe 60-something new transfers.

"So, you’ve got a chance to succeed at the highest level, and I expect him to do that and I’m proud for him."

There were rumors and reports at the time of Belichick's hiring that UNC had promised to raise the name, image and likeness (NIL) budget for its football program in order to secure the six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach. There was an expectation that the NIL for UNC would be upwards of $20 million, CBS Sports reported in December.

While NIL collectives aren't publicly available, Belichick signed a five-year, $50 million contract to become UNC's head coach. That's twice as much as what Brown made by the time his tenure at UNC ended, as he had three years and $15 million remaining on his contract following the 2024 season, according to ESPN.

So, UNC is making a richer investment with Belichick than it did with Brown, at least in terms of salary. But Brown continued to insist that UNC was behind other programs in terms of NIL money by the time his tenure ended, adding that the high academic standards made it difficult to recruit and retain players.

"North Carolina didn’t have NIL money and I said we were kind of a slow bleed," Brown said Tuesday afternoon on the program. "We weren’t able to recruit the top kids like we were when we first got there. It was time for them and it was time for me, kind of like a divorce. Everybody was ready. It’s just who and how and how you split at the end. It was best for me to get out."

"We always built programs on fit, and our last couple years there we were having to get parents with money, we were trying to get kids over a 3.0 because that’s who we could get. We signed 26 players at North Carolina our next-to-last year — high school players — and didn’t pay them a penny. So those kids, we even had Omarion Hampton, he got offered $1 million-plus to leave and he stayed for $300,000. I told him he should leave, because it was just crazy as you were looking at those things."

Brown's claim that UNC has loosened its academic standards for the football program also isn't easily verifiable. However, Belichick had a lot more success landing talent in the transfer portal this offseason than Brown ever did. Belichick's transfer portal class for the 2025 offseason ranked ninth on 247 Sports. Brown, meanwhile, never had a transfer class ranked higher than 30th, including a 58th-place ranking in 2024.

In terms of high school recruiting, Belichick helped UNC land the 36th-best recruiting class in 2025 while its 2026 recruiting class currently ranks 17th on 247 Sports. After landing three straight top-15 recruiting classes from 2020-22, Brown's recruiting classes at UNC took a bit of a dip in the years of his tenure. It brought in the No. 31 recruiting class in 2023 and the No. 26 recruiting class in 2024, via 247 Sports.

Brown's claim that UNC has loosened academic restrictions and made more investments in the football program for Belichick came as his successor has been dealing with some off-field drama. Belichick's relationship with his girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, has become a national storyline in recent weeks, with some questioning her involvement in his life and UNC's football program. After a report emerged earlier in May that Hudson was banned from UNC's football facilities, the school denied that was the case.

Belichick's arrival to Chapel Hill has certainly brought more buzz to the football program than it has received in recent years. UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham recently told Axios that the team sold out its season tickets for the 2025 season despite a 25% increase, something it failed to accomplish last year.

The expectations for UNC don't seem to be as high for the 2025 season, though. Its projected win total is 7.5 at DraftKings Sportsbook as of Wednesday. That's just a slight increase from the number of games it won in 2024 and is lower than the number of games UNC won under Brown three times between 2020-23.

Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily.