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UNC football GM Michael Lombardi talks up North Carolina brand ahead of 2025 season
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- UNC football GM Michael Lombardi talks up North Carolina brand ahead of 2025 season
The North Carolina Tar Heels finally received a long-overdue revamping of their football program in December 2024 – one that has the entire sports world on notice.
On December 11, UNC made its biggest offseason splash by hiring Bill Belichick to be its next head football coach . Belichick, who won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots and coached Tom Brady , the greatest football player to walk this Earth, will coach in college for the first time.
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One of the first things Belichick said, upon his initial hiring, was wanting to turn North Carolina into an NFL-style program. That included hiring a general manager: for the Tar Heels, their GM is Michael Lombardi , the Cleveland Browns ' 2013 GM and former New England coaching assistant.
Belichick can't wait to get to work on the field, but Lombardi is equally excited for the current and future growth of UNC's program. Watch and read what he said in a recent interview at the Kenan Football Center in Chapel Hill:
"We have a great brand," Lombardi said of North Carolina . "This UNC logo is worldwide, so we shouldn't limit ourselves. I think that we can walk into any school and say, "We're North Carolina, we have the greatest coach in the history of football and we have a great university. Come play for us. I think it's a powerful message."
Transitioning to recruiting, the Tar Heels' coaching staff is spending seemingly every waking hour visiting recruits. Belichick made a trip to New Jersey powerhouse Bergen Catholic and offered several players, got 4-star Class of 2025 quarterback Bryce Baker to re-affirm his UNC commitment and has Jared Curtis, the Class of 2026's top-ranked quarterback, giving Chapel Hill additional looks.
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"That's been the most rewarding thing – to get players to come in and buy into the system," Lombardi said. "We talk about who we've signed, but we are one team. It's not like this signing class and some others, we're all one team. I think we really have to do a good job of showing our players what to expect – and how the program is going to be different than it was in the past. The players have been really receptive. I think that they've been great at taking the information in. And when coach is able to get in front of them in our team meetings, talk about football and what it takes and what we expect from them, I think they're really good and I think they responded. Your job as a coach, whether you're 18 years old as a coach or whether you're 85 like Tom Moore is, if you can make the player better, the players'll listen."
Fans will get to see all North Carolina's offseason work firsthand on Monday, September 1, when the Tar Heels host TCU for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff.
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This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: UNC football GM Michael Lombardi highlights new direction of program
