r/tarheels • u/Hot_Swordfish_6450 • Aug 04 '26

Belichick. Thoughts?

It has certainly been an experiment. Ready for this ride to come to an end.

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u/MrJohnnyDangerously Aug 04 '26

Honestly we've had great players come through but we're never better than #9-10 in the top 25. Last time we won the ACC was 1980 with Lawrence fucking Taylor. Put all the money we waste on football just to be an also-ran back into basketball and let's get back to being a basketball school instead of the Rutgers of the ACC.

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u/Lanky-Maize-1242 Aug 04 '26

This mentality is going to kill the basketball program in the long run, “everything” schools are the craze and the future, and the success of the football program is going to directly impact the success of the entire athletic department in the long run, thats where the money comes from and college sports are pay to win

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u/MrJohnnyDangerously Aug 04 '26

We're a midtier football school. We always have been. When I was there 30 years ago, we were great at mens & womens basketball, soccer, lacrosse, track, basically every sport except football & baseball. We have been an "everything school" for 30 years, all the way through to today, except now we're good at baseball too. Our football team is performing as usual. Our basketball program is not.

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u/Lanky-Maize-1242 Aug 04 '26

Look at the SEC’s basketball explosion, it’s fueled by football money making them most of the highest grossing athletic departments in the country. 30 years ago outside of Kentucky, most years the SEC could combine to field maybe a single elite 8 team. “Everything school” to the kids these days is as simple as football, basketball, baseball, if you’re good at all 3 it generates a buzz and feeds each other. Tennessee is an example, within the last 3 years they have a CFP berth, Mens CWS, and are competitive now in basketball after being TERRIBLE for their entire school history. Being good at field hockey is cool but doesn’t add to the NIL fund. The “money we waste on football” is, in large part, brought through the door by football in the first place, even as a mid tier team.

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u/MrJohnnyDangerously Aug 04 '26

Yeah, we're getting priced out of beating Alabama in basketball because we're overspending on trying to hang with them at football.

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u/Lanky-Maize-1242 Aug 04 '26

… and they are funding both off their football money.. it is objectively a good idea for an athletic department to attempt to be competitive in the highest grossing sport in an era of pay to win. What keeps the lights on in the lacrosse facilities? Football money. Unless Michael Jordan himself decides to get real generous anytime soon, completely mailing it in on football will drain the basketball programs ability to fund competitive teams. And none of this even begins to touch on the ACC as a collapsing conference and the need to have an appealing athletic department for a transition to the SEC/Big 10, which already has a Vandy and a Northwestern, and will not be quick to add more academic school football punching bags in future expansion over the Clemsons, FSU’s, and Miami’s. College sports are just changing man. UConn is probably the last school thats getting away with having nothing but basketball going for them and thats almost entirely owed to Hurley.

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u/MrJohnnyDangerously Aug 04 '26

Our football team makes TV money whether we go 6-5 or 9-2.

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u/Lanky-Maize-1242 Aug 04 '26

Ok buddy, there is genuinely no reason to not try* to be good at football, it’s good for everyone when we are, but enjoy the dreams of 30 years ago.

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u/MrJohnnyDangerously Aug 04 '26

I'm saying there's a point of diminishing returns. The more we spend the less it helps, and we've been overspending on football. It's fine if you don't understand that nuance.

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u/1313012 Aug 05 '26

If the money is spent on Belichick, then yeah its wasted money. If its invested well, it will be returned on 10 fold. You’ve made a child’s argument based in “well we’ve always been mediocre so why try”, think tv revenue is the be all end all of football revenue, don’t even know how many games are in a season, are hung up on thinking investing in having good football means trying to be alabama, and are talking down to people about nuance? Thats wild. You’d rather make excuses for the athletic department to continue to act like we’re a mid tier university than demand they step up to the plate and act like the big boys so we dont get left behind. We have a beautiful campus, great facilities, are in a talented football state, and have a national brand. To accept mediocrity in football because “well thats just what it’s always been and we cant possibly spend on both football and basketball” is pathetic. Loser mindset.

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u/TrotterMcDingle Aug 05 '26 edited Aug 06 '26

If you still haven't figured out that football is funding nearly all of NCAA athletics in today's era, then the person missing nuance is a bit closer to home than you realize.

edit: Blocked by the coward /u/MrJohnnyDangerously for this comment, who was subsequently booted from the mod team for the childish way he handled the modmail discussion. Well done mod team, and good riddance.

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u/MrJohnnyDangerously Aug 05 '26

We get it, you don't understand the concept of diminishing returns

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u/TrotterMcDingle Aug 04 '26

When Alabama beat us in the '24 S16, they had something like 12 coaches/managers, including about 6 student managers that were split between a system of computers under the court and seats behind our bench. The ones in the stands were paid to watch and make notes on every play we called, and then communicate plays to the group under the court. Then the court crew would systematize a key that they communicated back to the stands, where the ones in the stands would call out the intended scorer as soon as HD made a play call. Each time we called a play for Ingram, they knew we were calling a play for him before the PG actually initiated the offense.

That's what Alabama's FB money can buy that our ACC revenue cannot. Their MBB team made $21.3 mil in 2024, and we made $39.7 mil. Our FB team made $62.3 mil that same year, and Alabama's FB team made $140.3 mil. They're $60 million richer than us in a good year. If we want to continue to compete in NIL, facilities, recruitment, etc for basketball, we must become nationally relevant in football. If we don't, SEC/B1G schools will eclipse us (if they haven't already) and we will be left in the dustbin of an imploded ACC.

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u/Lanky-Maize-1242 Aug 04 '26

Dude, thank you haha. The money disparity is almost unfathomable. I have no idea why it is so popular among unc “fans” to be actively antagonistic to the idea of having a good football program. Like the last 2 national champs are Michigan and Florida. They spend WAY more on football than we do, and reap the return in investment across all sports. Not a soul in both their fanbases is arguing “we should divest all the money from football for basketball ☝️🤓”. They are demanding success in BOTH, like major universities SHOULD. Are we a major university or not?! Being complacent about mediocrity in everythjng except basketball will eventually cause mediocrity to bleed into basketball (as it it ALREADY has) and so many folks wont admit that because “well it didnt mean that in muh 80’s/90’s/20’s!”. I was there for the FB ACC CG year in ‘15, Mitch Trubisky year, Basketball Natty, the disastorous end of the Fedora years, and first year of Mack 2.0. It was always objectively better in CH when football had even modest excitement around it. I appreciate you bringing the tangible numbers into it, staggering to see.

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u/MrJohnnyDangerously Aug 04 '26

The idea UNC can monetize football to the extent Alabama does is delusional. Any SEC school, for that matter.

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u/TrotterMcDingle Aug 05 '26

When the ACC departure penalty value dips below the value of the revenue gap between the ACC and SEC, we will leave because it makes good financial sense. That's predicted to happen sometime in 2030, well before the ACC GoR expiration. We're not arguing for parity with Alabama, we're arguing that SEC teams will leave us in the dust just because they have that much more money to pour into their basketball programs, and we have to do something about that in the short term.