00:00Chris Mason is the sports enterprise reporter for MassLive.
00:05He's very smart because he's covering Belichick in North Carolina
00:09as fall practices have begun in Chapel Hill.
00:13Bill Belichick's there, and Chris Mason is there reporting.
00:16Hi, Chris. Thank you for joining us.
00:19Good morning, guys. Thank you for having me on.
00:20No, we appreciate it.
00:21So good on you going down there to North Carolina.
00:25First of all, what's the press situation like down there comparatively?
00:30Exactly the same is how I would describe it
00:33as like a regular practice type thing in New England.
00:38If anything, he shut it down a little more with the reporters down there
00:41where I believe he's going to be meeting with the press once a week.
00:44There's going to be one day of media access a week for camp down there.
00:47And it's the normal like 15-minute press conference
00:51and then 20-minute window at practice where you can watch them stretch,
00:54do some individual drills, which the local reporters down there did not love
00:58after they had Mack Brown before, who I guess kind of gave them free reign
01:03to just roam throughout practice.
01:05You know, they were asked just not to take video of 11-on-11 drills,
01:09but they could stay out there.
01:10They could walk the sidelines, do whatever.
01:12And now the reporters are just penned on a far sideline.
01:15Oh, yeah.
01:16Looking at practice two fields away.
01:18Okay.
01:18So it's kind of funny where after covering Belichick for a while,
01:21I knew to bring binoculars and nobody else down there had them.
01:23A bunch of those guys were coming up to me asking, like,
01:28do you see Bill?
01:29Do you know where he is?
01:30Have you seen Stephen Belichick?
01:32Yeah, he's at the 20.
01:33Like, is Brian out there?
01:34Yep, he's like on the sideline of the 40.
01:36Never been to a camp before.
01:38Well, no.
01:39So, Chris, that's what I wanted to ask you.
01:41Have the reporters in North Carolina, like, asked for your guidance?
01:46You just explained that they needed your binoculars.
01:48But, you know, how are they reacting to the way Belichick is?
01:54Him being a dick.
01:56Go ahead.
01:57So I don't think he's been bad with them in that regard at this point.
02:00And some of that, I think, is just the time of year where training camp,
02:04spring training, like across any sport,
02:05it's just like a lot of painful optimism all the time where, you know,
02:09everybody's going to win a national championship.
02:10Everybody's going to win a Super Bowl.
02:12Everybody, a lot of the storylines are really positive.
02:14So I don't think they've gotten a ton of pushback from him yet.
02:17But, and he can also be, there are times where he can be polite,
02:22he can be cordial, like all this stuff.
02:24And so they're pretty early on there,
02:26and they're definitely still in that kind of honeymoon phase with him.
02:29There was only one time in his press conference on Saturday morning
02:32that he even really pushed back,
02:33and that was when a reporter started to question basically being like,
02:36you're a defensive mastermind.
02:38You are, you know, one of the greatest defensive coaches of all time.
02:40But, like, Freddie Kitchens is running the offense,
02:43and then he asked, like, a Freddie Kitchens question,
02:44and Bill was like, I'm involved in everything as a head coach,
02:48so it's not going to be Freddie Kitchens' offense.
02:50Kind of like that.
02:51Well, you can't give the guy any credit.
02:53I mean, after all, look at what Patricia did when he took over the offense.
02:57Just wait until TCU blows them out on opening day.
03:00Let's see how good he is with them.
03:01And that's my question.
03:02What are the expectations?
03:04My next question.
03:05Thank you, Jonathan.
03:06That was going to be my next question.
03:07What are the expectations around there?
03:09Because that's funny.
03:10Because national people are saying they suck,
03:14but there seems to be a lot of optimism with the fan base.
03:17What is the vibe around there?
03:19Oh, yeah.
03:20Locally, they're definitely optimistic about him taking over.
03:23But, like you said, nationally,
03:25they got picked to finish eighth in the ACC preseason poll.
03:27Behind, I mean, the teams you'd expect, like Clemson and Miami,
03:30but also behind Duke and some other teams like that.
03:33So, I'd say locally, there's a lot of optimism,
03:36but nationally, there's a bit more skepticism.
03:37Do you think that that fan base and media will turn on him
03:42if he starts to lose?
03:43Because, like, all of a sudden,
03:45everything else that's gone along with this,
03:47now that's a problem because now you're not winning.
03:52How long do you think it will take for them to turn?
03:55Man, I think it would take at least a season, if not more,
03:57and it would have to look really bad, I think, for them to turn
03:59just because this football program's never really had a ton of success.
04:04They're not, like, a team that's winning the ACC every year
04:07or anything like that.
04:07So, I think it would take some time.
04:09And I think Bill is savvy enough that he could probably talk his way out
04:12of early struggles with, oh, we have 70 new players.
04:14We have, you know, we're overhauling the roster.
04:18This is going to take time.
04:19It was never going to happen immediately.
04:21But then on the flip side of a, you know, win the season opener there,
04:23I think that feels totally different.
04:25And suddenly it's, yeah, look, like, Bill Belichick,
04:2733rd NFL team down here.
04:30We're already, you know, winning on national TV.
04:31So, I don't think they're going to turn on him terribly quickly if it doesn't go well.
04:36But it remains to be seen.
04:38Yeah, because remember with Deion Sanders and people were like, you know,
04:43and Deion's done a great job in Colorado.
04:45But remember when they had that early success, they, like, won the first game
04:50that they weren't supposed to win, and then it all fell apart
04:52and, like, kind of, like, the glow came off of it.
04:55I'm wondering if that's what the situation there is going to be.
04:58Because if you sell out those season tickets, as they have,
05:02under the promise of winning, you know, I don't know if I still won season tickets
05:08if I realize this is the same old thing, you know?
05:11Like, how did he recruit?
05:13Is the team, like, does it have better talent than they had had before?
05:17Well, it's interesting that you brought Deion's team up where, like,
05:21watching those first games in the shootouts, it was like, oh, wow,
05:23they can really score.
05:24And then you realize, oh, but they didn't build an offensive or a defensive line,
05:28and then they just crumbled.
05:29I don't think Bill would be that negligent with the roster construction.
05:34So I do think they'll be competitive.
05:37I don't think it'll be, like, as top-heavy as the Deion thing turned out to be
05:41right off the bat.
05:42And there won't be celebrities on the sidelines.
05:45But there's that, and I think the other thing is, you know,
05:49Bill always got attention here because, A, it's the NFL,
05:53and, B, after winning early on, he remained compelling no matter how he acted
06:01because, you know, the team was good and Brady was here for the majority of it.
06:05So people were still paying attention.
06:07I think the real danger is if they are lackluster or, you know,
06:11they don't get off to a hot start that people just don't pay that much attention
06:15because in a vacuum there's not that much to pay attention to with Bill.
06:20He doesn't give you much in the post-game press conferences,
06:23and if the team isn't that good and it's not a total dumpster fire either,
06:28maybe people just become disinterested and they become apathetic,
06:31which is the last thing the university wants out of this deal.
06:34I mean, they want people paying attention for better or worse,
06:37and if they're just okay and people soon realize that Bill is not a draw,
06:44during the games he's not, after the games he's not,
06:46if they just stop paying attention altogether, I think that's maybe the real danger for the school.
06:53Absolutely.
06:53I think that's the nightmare for UNC is that they're just kind of irrelevant and boring,
06:57and then suddenly basketball season starts, and down there everyone just cares about the basketball team,
07:02and then Bill is the highest paid employee in the state of North Carolina coaching a mediocre football team.
07:08So, yeah, I think that would be a worst-case scenario for them.
07:10It's just an irrelevance, and I think it would be a little easier to slip into
07:14just because they have the basketball program there that people care so much about.
07:17Yeah, and then where do you put the NIL money, and what are you going to invest in?
07:22Are you going to invest in the basketball program or the football program?
07:25That's the problem with having those, being that ACC school
07:29and having those two Rob Peter to pay Paul situations,
07:34especially with the new guidelines they're going to put up there.
07:36All right, well, are you still in North Carolina, or have you left?
07:40No, I'm back home in Boston now.
07:42Okay. Now, did you keep your binoculars?
07:45There's only one day of media access, so it didn't make a whole lot of sense to stay down there for four,
07:50even though that might have been the initial plan.
07:52That's Bill's dream.
07:53I mean, he keeps the media, not at arm's length, but tucked away in a corner,
07:56and they only see him one day a week?
07:58I have to ask, was Jordan anywhere to be seen?
08:01Oh, yeah.
08:02I didn't see her, no.
08:03I did not notice Jordan, and, you know, I was going with a binocular,
08:06so if anyone was going to find her, it probably would have been me,
08:08but no, I didn't see her down there.
08:10Did anyone comment from the local media about that whole relationship, or are they over it?
08:16No, they're pretty over it.
08:18I didn't hear a whole lot about that from them.
08:21All right.
08:21You know, we're saying, is he a pay pig and she a fin dom?
08:25Do you know what those two things are?
08:27I do not, no.
08:28Okay.
08:29Should I?
08:30A fin dom is a woman who dominates a man, and the pay pig is the man who's dominated,
08:35and he's being dominated financially.
08:38He likes to give the money away, and that's one theory on the relationship.
08:42You learn something new every day, I guess.
08:44Yes, you do if you come on this show enough, Chris.
08:46Chris Mason, Reed is reporting in MassLive.
08:49Thank you, Chris.
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