Nick Saban on Friday discussed how Bill Belichick will do as the head coach job at North Carolina.
Belichick surprised many people this week when he accepted the job with the Tar Heels. Saban, who is a longtime friend of Belichick, joined “The Pat McAfee Show” for a regular visit and talked about the new North Carolina coach.
Saban thinks Belichick went to UNC because it’s a new challenge for him.
“I’m happy for Bill. I think he probably wanted a new challenge, and this is certainly going to be a great challenge for him,” Saban said. “And I think Bill’s a great coach.”
Saban then went on to say that the biggest challenge for Belichick will be recruiting.
“I think the biggest challenge … the difference in college is, how do you bring guys to the team? It’s different than drafting some guys than it is having to recruit them. Because recruiting is like a full-time, relationship-building, 365 days a year in terms of not only evaluating players that you want, but creating the relationships with ’em to get them,” Saban said.
Saban emphasized how much time goes into recruiting players.
“But I think the biggest thing that will be a challenge for him is the time that you have to spend recruiting, making phone calls, talking to parents, and all those types of things to get the kind of players that you need,” Saban said. “The biggest adjustment for him will be the time spent recruiting.”
Belichick has not coached in college before and has not had to deal with recruiting players. Will he be up for the challenge or possibly surprised by just how much work it takes? We will find out.
The Tar Heels went 6-6 this season, which wasn’t enough for Mack Brown to keep his job. Belichick will need to do better than that.
