Bill Belichick faces an escalating situation at UNC as outside investigators probe (Getty Images)
His son’s absence is a medical matter he won’t discuss.
His job, he said, is to coach football. Bill Belichick is coaching college football without his defensive coordinator son, without his longtime general manager, and now with outside investigators asking whether the people closest to him behaved appropriately inside his own program. When reporters asked him about it Monday, he gave them almost nothing. His conversations with Lombardi are private. That’s where it stayed.
Those are questions being explored, not confirmed facts. There is no confirmed date for his return. Beyond individual allegations, people interviewed told reporters that investigators asked about the broader culture inside the program and whether questionable behavior had been reported upward to the head coach.
The university said its investigation would continue regardless and that corrective action would follow depending on what the inquiry finds. “I believe that everybody’s responsible, including me, for doing things properly,” he said. “We want to run the program in the very best way,” he said. “And if there’s things we need to do to correct it, then we’ll obviously do them.”
The investigation surfacing around UNC’s football program covers more ground than a single allegation. Outside lawyers hired by the university have been asking witnesses whether Steve Belichick used drugs at university facilities or provided substances to at least one player. Steve, who serves as defensive coordinator under his father, has been away from the program since early August on what UNC describes as medical leave. Michael Lombardi’s exit added another layer. He had joined Belichick at Chapel Hill after years working alongside him in the NFL and in media. Placed on administrative leave in July, he resigned last week. Investigators reportedly asked witnesses about other matters too — including an alleged sexual relationship between a recruiting staff member and a player, and possible relationships involving assistant coaches and recruiting personnel. That last part matters. It shifts the question from what certain staff members may have done to what Belichick knew or didn’t know while leading the program. He addressed that indirectly. Whether that satisfies scrutiny depends on what the investigation ultimately surfaces. But the surrounding context is harder to brush aside. Belichick built his operation at Chapel Hill around a small group of trusted people. Two of the most significant are now gone or absent. The investigation has not concluded, and the university has reserved the right to take corrective action. When asked whether leadership had directed changes to how the program runs, Belichick was measured.