North Carolina still needs a new football coach. Will its search end with a respected name from the college ranks, or a revered eight-time Super Bowl champion who has never coached college football?

Finding someone to replace the program’s all-time winningest coach Mack Brown, who was fired in late November, has proven tougher than the Tar Heels initially thought. Meanwhile, UNC’s ongoing contact with former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick has hung over the search as a wild card that would represent a dramatic reversal in the anticipated process of filling one of the most enticing job openings in the college coaching carousel.

In an appearance Monday on “The Pat McAfee Show,” Belichick confirmed that he had spoken with UNC chancellor Lee Roberts but declined to elaborate on specifics of their conversations.

“We’ve had a couple of good conversations, so we’ll see how it goes,” Belichick said.

Tulane coach Jon Sumrall, arguably the top candidate from the Group of 5 level, said Sunday that he isn’t leaving for any coaching vacancy this cycle. On Monday, Tulane’s athletic director announced the school and Sumrall have agreed to a contract extension.

There was growing optimism Monday night from the UNC side that a deal will get done, a person who has been involved in the search told The Athletic. The source also cautioned that nothing had been finalized and Belichick could still change course. No matter who eventually gets the job, what has transpired behind the scenes since Brown’s firing — and for most of the last six months in Chapel Hill — highlights the type of disagreement and dysfunction that can arise inside a major college athletic department. A UNC spokesperson said the school cannot comment on ongoing coaching searches.

From conversations with multiple people briefed on the search, granted anonymity in order to discuss the ongoing process, here’s what we know so far, and where the search may lead next.

The power struggle at the center of UNC’s search

Part of the explanation for why UNC’s coaching search has played out this publicly traces back to May, when North Carolina’s Board of Trustees — the 13-person group that serves as the school’s top governing body — approved an audit of the university’s athletic department. At the time, Board of Trustees chair John Preyer publicly scolded athletic director Bubba Cunningham over “the level of bad data that has been provided” to the committee regarding UNC athletics’ financials. Then-interim chancellor Roberts (who has since had the interim tag removed) responded by backing Cunningham in the face of that criticism, saying, “Our athletic director is one of the most senior, well-respected, admired athletic directors in the country.”

Days later, a local judge granted a temporary restraining order against Preyer and the board, preventing them from discussing athletics financials in a closed-door session. But that interaction was the first public sign of the long-simmering power struggle between Cunningham, who has been in his role since 2011, and the board. Preyer did not respond to a request for comment via email.

According to sources briefed on the situation, both camps have been frustrated with each other for months, if not longer. Brown did not feel like Cunningham was giving him the resources necessary to continue building UNC into an elite football program — despite the Tar Heels being third in the ACC in football spending in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available. UNC completed a $40.2 million indoor practice facility in 2019 and recently renovated both its locker and weight rooms, but with a revenue sharing structure arriving next year as a result of the House v. NCAA settlement, what constitutes the “necessary” level of investment is going to change in the immediate future.

Cunningham, meanwhile, was frustrated by Brown, who long maintained he would remain UNC’s coach until the program was in a suitable place to “pass off” to someone else, only to stay on after quarterback Drake Maye left for the NFL last winter. This year’s Week 1 starting quarterback, Max Johnson, was sidelined by a broken leg in the season-opening win at Minnesota. After an embarrassing 70-50 mid-September loss to James Madison, Brown reportedly told players he would “walk away and step down if he was the problem,” then expressed regret for the comments two days later while confirming he would stay with the team. The Tar Heels went 6-6, a clear step backward from 2023’s 8-4 squad.

Behind closed doors, Brown — with the backing of the Board of Trustees and other high-profile donors, all of whom were integral to his return as UNC’s coach in 2018 — was a walking challenge to the idea that anyone but the coach himself was in control of his exit timeline.

At his Monday media availability before the season finale against NC State, Brown was asked point-blank if he planned to return next season as UNC’s coach. He said yes.

Within 24 hours, Cunningham and Roberts had dismissed Brown remotely from Hawaii, where they were following the UNC men’s basketball program at the Maui Invitational. Preyer publicly criticized the administration’s handling of Brown’s exit days later.

“I have no doubt coach Brown would have done whatever the university would have wanted him to do at the end of the season,” Preyer said. “And for some reason that I do not understand, the athletic director would not allow that to happen and instead fired him from halfway around the world … I think that is shameful.”

Mixed signals

After Brown was fired, Cunningham appeared on UNC’s “Carolina Insider” podcast and detailed what he was looking for in the Tar Heels’ next football coach.

“There’s a certain person that’s best suited at the right time, at the right place. Right now, that’s what we’re looking for,” Cunningham said. “We have to develop this program. As we’ve said, we’ve been right at the cusp of really great seasons: getting to eight, nine wins. How do we get to 10, 11? Who can get us to that level?”

The Tar Heels also had reason to replace the 73-year-old Brown with a younger coach more suited for the long haul of elevating the program, which has consistently run up against a ceiling below conference championship and College Football Playoff contention. With help from an advisory committee, Cunningham said on Dec. 3 that his intention was to cull the roughly 30 names he had on an initial list down to 10-12 for Zoom interviews and proceed from there. “But all the coaches we’re talking to right now are playing, and so they’re continuing to be in championship games or in the playoffs,” he added. “So it’ll probably take a week or so.”

The list included Belichick, per a senior school official briefed on the search process.

With a smaller-than-usual number of power-conference head coaching jobs changing hands this season, UNC was widely expected to be one of the most coveted openings.

But then last week, as the Tar Heels’ top college targets showed less interest than expected, the program started engaging more seriously with a seemingly “out of left field” candidate: Belichick.

Belichick spent this season out of coaching after parting ways with the Patriots in January. But The Athletic confirmed that North Carolina officials — including Cunningham — spoke to Belichick last Wednesday, before meeting with him in person on Thursday. Sources familiar with the board’s thinking believe that it, as well as UNC’s highest-profile boosters, would prefer that Belichick be the one to succeed Brown.

Belichick may have never coached in college, but he has spent ample time in the last year around the University of Washington’s program, where his son Steve serves as the Huskies’ defensive coordinator. Sources familiar with Bill Belichick’s thinking say the coach has been encouraged by seeing college players pick up his schemes. Belichick is only 15 wins away from breaking Don Shula’s all-time NFL wins record, but sources close to Belichick say he was turned off by the NFL’s hiring cycle last winter, when only the Atlanta Falcons opted to interview him out of eight total openings. Belichick was expected to have a stronger NFL market this offseason; three franchises have already fired their coaches — the New York Jets, the Chicago Bears and the New Orleans Saints — with another five to seven expected to open up.

“Any time as a coach you join with an organization, whatever level it’s at, you just want a shared vision with that person,” Belichick said on “The Pat McAfee Show”. “What are your goals, what are your expectations, what do you need to achieve those, how do we achieve them and so forth. Talking through a lot of things — I don’t think it really matters where the program is — there are a lot of things that go into that, team building, and the structure of the program and so forth, that take some time to just talk through.”

Bill Belichick emphasized “IF” he was coaching in a college program, it would be “a professional program.” 👀 @PatMcAfeeShow

“The college program would be a pipeline to the NFL for the players that have the ability to play in the NFL.” pic.twitter.com/p2raPzm2DN

— ESPN (@espn) December 9, 2024

Adding to the uncertainty, multiple people briefed on the school’s conversations with Belichick have described a disconnect between the coach’s and the school’s expectations for the terms of the job, should Belichick take the plunge into college coaching. Part of the disconnect comes from the impression that Preyer and at least one other member of UNC’s board presented Belichick with a preliminary offer to make him the Tar Heels’ next coach. Any board member going over top university officials’ heads to do so would violate the university’s bylaws, which would be grounds for dismissal from the board. A senior school official briefed on the search lamented Preyer and other outside voices’ meddling and said the process likely would have been completed by now if not for their involvement.

UNC’s finances are another potential complication. The school paid Brown, who entered this season as one of three active national championship-winning coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision, $5 million in total compensation. How much could the program realistically afford to pay Belichick — formerly the NFL’s highest-paid coach, believed to be earning at least $20 million per year from New England — plus an entirely new staff? And would there still be enough thereafter for North Carolina to field a competitive roster built to Belichick’s liking?

Who else, if not Belichick?

Amid the uncertainty around who is actually making this hire, Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell declined to meet with UNC on Sunday, according to sources familiar with his thinking and those briefed on UNC’s search.

As the search continues, other college options could emerge in the wake of Sumrall’s and Campbell’s withdrawals. Army coach Jeff Monken could be a logical target. He has been wildly successful in 11 years at the service academy (81-56) and has made it known that he is not married to running a triple-option offense at other programs.

But Monken also has one more very important game to play, against Navy this weekend, and no coach wants to seriously engage with another school while preparing for his current team’s most important game. So if Monken is indeed a desirable candidate for UNC, it will take at least a few more days for the search to conclude.

Former Arizona Cardinals head coach Steve Wilks — who is from nearby Charlotte and spent last season as an advisor with the Charlotte 49ers — also spoke with UNC officials the same day school representatives first made contact with Belichick, according to a source briefed on Wilks’ thinking. Wilks coached UNC and Pro Football Hall of Famer Julius Peppers for several seasons while both were with the Carolina Panthers. Should Wilks earn the UNC job, it would be expected that Peppers — who has spent time in an advisory role with the Carolina Panthers since retiring in 2019 — would also return to his alma mater in a more pronounced role, likely related to the program’s name, image and likeness efforts.

Meanwhile, college football’s winter transfer portal window opened Monday. Most schools with head coach vacancies, many of which made changes after UNC fired Brown, have filled their jobs with the portal period in mind. That UNC remains open suggests a process that has been unusual. The school certainly can’t wait until Belichick goes through the NFL hiring cycle in January and February to fill its head coaching job.

If the Tar Heels really want to hire Belichick, and Belichick really wants the job, the time for it to happen would be … pretty much now.

— The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman, Dianna Russini and Jeff Howe contributed reporting.

(Photo: Grant Halverson / Getty Images)

In 2000’s “The Return of the Light: Twelve Tales From Around the World for the Winter Solstice,” Carolyn McVickar Edwards collects traditional stories from China, India, Africa, Europe, Polynesia and the Indigenous Americas. In the Northern Hemisphere, which day does the winter solstice usually fall on or near?

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — You just knew they were going to win. The Chiefs knew they were going to win. The fans inside Arrowhead Stadium knew it. Perhaps most of the millions of people watching “Sunday Night Football” on NBC did, too.

Whether you love them or hate them — or are just tired of them — the Chiefs won, yet again, in another close game that left their opponent, this time the Los Angeles Chargers, shaking their heads.

The Chiefs are a high-wire circus act. They don’t just execute the trick of winning one-score game after one-score game. No. They must increase the danger, decrease their odds of a successful landing and find a new way to escape embarrassment.

“As long as we have a chance to go out there and have the ball and make a play happen, I feel like we’re going to make it happen,” quarterback Patrick Mahomes said.

Instead of a comfortable, dominant win over a divisional rival, the Chiefs blew a 13-point lead in the second half before Mahomes became a magician in the game’s most critical moments to once again lead his teammates to a dramatic comeback win, 19-17 over the Chargers.

Mahomes, though, didn’t score the game-winning points. Coach Andy Reid decided to have Mahomes, once he drove the offense into the red zone, kneel twice before calling a timeout with one second left on the clock to set up a game-winning field goal for Matthew Wright, the Chiefs’ third-string kicker. Then Reid decided not to watch Wright attempt his 31-yard kick. Reid kept his face forward as if staring into a void. The joke was on Reid, who had to be told that the ball hit the inside of the left upright before going through. The moment led starting kicker Harrison Butker — out with a left knee injury — to smile and laugh.

“I wanted it to go right down the middle, obviously,” Wright said. “I’m just happy it went in. … I don’t like to think about hitting the upright.”

Unreal 🤯 pic.twitter.com/Wx4a3YhaR1

— NFL (@NFL) December 9, 2024

Within minutes of his game-winning doink, Wright was on the field for NBC’s postgame interview next to Mahomes and pass rusher Chris Jones. Wright, who joined the Chiefs two weeks ago, was one of the first players to don a crisp new black ballcap, the commemorative item in honor of the team being crowned as champion of the AFC West for the ninth consecutive season.

The Chiefs entered Sunday with 14 consecutive victories in games decided by one score, the longest streak in NFL history.

But as the Chiefs aim to capture an unprecedented third straight Super Bowl victory, this season has been about the team’s last-second victories, each one seemingly weirder than the last. Including Sunday, half of the Chiefs’ 12 victories this season have been decided on the final play — Ravens tight end Isaiah Likely’s right big toe being out of bounds instead of a touchdown as time expired, Butker’s game-winning kick over the Bengals, running back Kareem Hunt’s touchdown in overtime over the Buccaneers, linebacker Leo Chenal’s diving block in the win over the Broncos and kicker Spencer Shrader’s field goal over the Panthers.

“I’d much rather it be like this — and win games and find new ways to win — than to be losing them,” tight end Travis Kelce said. “Looking at it from last year, one of the biggest things was being able to calm the storm that’s around us and focus on us and keep getting better. This is just another version of that, trying to find ways to win and keep finding ways to get better, so at the end of the season we’re playing our best ball.”

This “How ‘bout those Chiefs!” means even more 🏆 pic.twitter.com/huqt8s9QKh

— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) December 9, 2024

The Chiefs offense still isn’t humming. For the second consecutive week, the Chiefs scored only one touchdown. Inserting veteran D.J. Humphries at left tackle didn’t fix the offensive issues. Humphries did his best to help stabilize the offensive line, but Mahomes was hit a season-high 13 times by the Chargers. Given the circumstances, Mahomes was still brilliant when necessary, especially when he was hit or about to get hit.

“We’ve played a lot of good defenses,” Mahomes said. “That’s the one bad thing when you win the Super Bowl: You play the best schedule. We’ve played a lot of good defensive ends, defensive linemen. For myself, it’s just finding the soft spot in the pocket. On some of the early third downs, I was kind of running into (pressure). I thought I did better as the game went on.”

GO DEEPER

NFL playoff picture, Week 14: Bucs reclaim NFC South lead; Eagles clinch playoff berth

The Chiefs’ final drive began with less than five minutes left. Mahomes was put at a disadvantage: He would be forced to pass the ball over and over again and the Chargers knew they would have plenty of opportunities to rush him in hopes of generating a negative player or a game-winning turnover.

Then Mahomes was at his slippery best. On third-and-10 from the Chiefs’ 4o-yard line, Mahomes evaded three defenders in the pocket, moved to his left and jumped to complete a 14-yard pass to rookie Xavier Worthy.

Mahomes things 🤷‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/fFF1YhaamM

— NFL (@NFL) December 9, 2024

On third- and fourth-down plays this season, Mahomes has generated 50 total expected points added, according to TruMedia. No other quarterback has more than 33 total expected points added (Buffalo’s Josh Allen).

But after the next snap, the difficulty increased for Mahomes: Humphries left the game with a hamstring injury. He was replaced by Wanya Morris, a second-year player who allowed 11 pressures on 48 pass-blocking snaps the previous week in the Chiefs’ win over the Las Vegas Raiders.

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“I wanted to show why I was there in the first place and why this team trusted me,” Morris said. “It’s definitely good to put last week behind me, but not to forget that embarrassment that I felt. I feel that’s very essential to me growing.”

Mahomes’ final third-down snap began at the Chargers’ 20-yard line after the two-minute warning. With the Chargers having exhausted their timeouts, some teams would’ve elected to run the ball to keep the clock running. Before the Chiefs’ third-and-7 snap, Mahomes said one sentence to Reid to help convince him to call a pass play.

“I’ll make something happen,” Mahomes told Reid.

When the play needs to be made, 1️⃣5️⃣ makes the play. pic.twitter.com/TIEKFwmPgk

— NFL (@NFL) December 9, 2024

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Mahomes made sure the Chargers never got the ball again. He rolled to his right and waited long enough — and avoiding linebacker Daiyan Henley — to find Kelce for a 9-yard completion.

“I thought the Chargers did a nice job,” Reid said. “They zoned us off. That’s more of a (play against man-to-man coverage). They had been playing man up to that point. If they would’ve done that, it would’ve been a great call.”

Not surprisingly, Mahomes was assisted by his wild card of a teammate in Kelce, who improvised his route.

“He’s supposed to run a corner route,” Mahomes said of Kelce with a blank expression. “It is what it is. I went through my reads. As I went to get ready to run, I just saw (No.) 87 just sitting right there in the middle of the field.”

Kelce didn’t reveal what led him to change his route or how he did it to surprise the Chargers. Kelce did share that, unlike Reid, he watched Wright make the winning kick.

“Oh, yeah, I saw it hit the upright,” Kelce said. “The bank is open on Sundays, man.”

(Photo of Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)