North Carolina HC Bill Belichick makes 2 key additions to staff

After the stunning decision to make the leap down the college ranks, Bill Belichick is filling out his coaching staff for his first season with Football in North Carolina 2025. As expected, the staff includes plenty of NFL experience and his son, Steve Belichick, calls the shots on defense.

Belichick made two more staff additions for next season on Wednesday. Belichick brought in former NFL special teams coach Mike Prieffer as North Carolina’s coach new special teams coach and then hired Will Friend as the new offensive line coachaccording to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.

Priefer has plenty of experience in the NFL as a special teams coach, so it’s understandable why Belichick would want to bring him in to coach the same unit for the Tar Heels this season. After stints at colleges around the country in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Priefer moved up the NFL ranks in 2002 as the assistant special teams coordinator for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Over the next 20 years, Priefer spent time as an assistant special teams coordinator or head special teams coordinator for the New York Giants, Kansas City Chiefs, Denver Broncos, Minnesota Vikings and Cleveland Browns.

Friend doesn’t have the same NFL experience as Priefer, but he still has the high-level experience that Belichick is obviously looking for as he builds his staff. Friend has served as an offensive line coach at various SEC schools, including Georgia, Auburn, Tennessee and Mississippi. During those spans, he coached nine NFL Draft picks on the offensive line. He spent last season as the offensive coordinator at Western Kentucky.

Belichick has a lot of work to do to rebuild North Carolina football back to the top of the ACC after a disappointing season, and that process will likely take multiple years as the staff looks to rebuild the roster to challenge the likes of Clemson and SMU. However, Belichick seems to be pushing all the right buttons with his personnel choices, and that alone should make the Tar Heels competitive in 2025.

Troy Finnegan is an Associate Editor at ClutchPoints. He graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and minors in communications and sports media, as well as a certificate in critical sports studies. He has a lifelong passion for sports and enjoys covering and writing about all sports.