Bill Belichick spent 48 years coaching in the NFL, nearly half of which was spent turning the New England Patriots into one of the greatest dynasties the sport has ever seen.
Now, the NFL’s second-winningest coach (including playoffs) is reportedly taking on a new challenge: college football.
Belichick has agreed to become the new head coach at North Carolina, according to multiple reports. The agreement will land the 72-year-old his first college head coaching job on what The Athletic reports will be a three-year, $30 million contract.
Belichick will need to quickly acclimate to working with younger players and get used to the massive yearly roster turnover that has come with the transfer portal. Those will be just two of the factors that will make Belichick’s transition to college coaching fascinating to watch.
But the main one? No NFL coach with Belichick’s level of success has ever dropped from the professional to the college ranks. It will be on him to prove that his unparalleled NFL achievements can also be had at the NCAA level.
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Here’s more on just how unprecedented Belichick’s transition to college football will be.
College coaches with the most NFL wins
Belichick will be the winningest NFL coach to coach at the college level. He has racked up a whopping 302 regular-season wins during his NFL coaching career (333 wins if you count the playoffs); no other coach to go from the NFL to college has ever had more than 95 (Lou Saban).
Below is a look at the coaches who had 40-plus NFL regular-season wins when they took on college coaching jobs, according to data from Pro Football Reference:
Bill Belichick, UNC: 302
Lou Saban, Miami (Fla.): 95
Bill Walsh, Stanford: 92
Lovie Smith, Illinois: 89
Dave Wannstedt, Pitt: 82
Forrest Gregg, SMU: 75
John Robinson, USC: 75
Bobby Ross, Army: 74
Buck Shaw, Air Force: 71
Potsy Clark, Grand Rapids: 64
Jerry Glanville, Portland State: 60
Mike Sherman, Texas A&M: 57
Herm Edwards, Arizona State: 54
Jimmy Conzelman, Washington University (Mo.): 53
Joe Walton, Robert Morris: 53
Bill O’Brien, Boston College: 52
Sam Rutigliano, Liberty: 47
Chuck Fairbanks, Colorado: 46
Jim Harbaugh, Michigan: 44
Jack Pardee, Houston: 44
Ray Perkins, Jones County JC: 42
Dennis Erickson, Idaho: 40
Some of the coaches listed above ended up jumping back from the college ranks to the NFL, which might be what Belichick is hoping to accomplish. As such, some ended up with higher win totals than those listed above, but only after their college coaching careers were complete.
That’s why Pete Carroll didn’t make it onto the list above. He had 33 NFL wins before he began coaching at USC in 2001. Upon his split with the Seattle Seahawks following the 2023 NFL season, he had 170 NFL wins to his name.
Most wins in college football history
Below is a look at the winningest coaches in college football history, headlined by Penn State’s Joe Paterno.
Joe Paterno: 409
Bobby Bowden: 357
Bear Bryant: 323
Pop Warner: 314
Nick Saban: 297
Mack Brown: 282
Amos Alonzo Stagg: 282
LaVell Edwards: 257
Tom Osborne: 255
Lou Holtz: 249
Most wins in NFL history
Belichick ranks third all-time in NFL regular-season wins. Below are the 10 winningest coaches from the league’s history.
Don Shula: 328
George Halas: 318
Bill Belichick: 302
Andy Reid: 270
Tom Landry: 250
Curly Lambeau: 226
Paul Brown: 213
Marty Schottenheimer: 200
Chuck Noll: 193
Dan Reeves: 190
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