Hiring Bill Belichick a Hail Mary for underachieving North Carolina football - ESPN

Bill Belichick as the head Tar Heel. Something's gotta give.

The Chapel Hill hiring that no one saw coming is the football equivalent to one of those old black-and-white films of two locomotives crashing head on. Or some reality stretching experiment set up by scientists, the immovable object and irresistible force pitted against one another to peek into the total unknown. When Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves asks Robert Oppenheimer, «Are we saying there's a chance that when we push that button, we destroy the world?»

The NFL GOAT and Rameses the Ram. When they clack their horns in the middle of an open tobacco field, which of their very weighty, very opposite football pasts will prevail by pushing over the other?

Can the greatness of the gridiron genius in the hoodie finally unlock the long-puzzling, long-elusive potential of Franklin Street football? Or will the bottomless tar pits of the Tar Heels' football history consume Belichick like it has everyone who has preceded him, going back to the school's first game, a 6-4 loss to Wake Forest in 1888.

Belichick, 72, is, by any measure, one of the greatest coaches in the history of football, believed by many to be the best to ever wet an NFL whistle. He owns eight Super Bowl rings, six as head coach, along with the NFL head coaching records for Super Bowl appearances (nine), playoff appearances (19, tied), playoff wins (31) and division titles (17). His 333 wins (including playoffs) trail only Don Shula. He is so revered that he has served as a confidant and mentor to the man considered the modern measuring stick for college football coaching greatness, Nick Saban.

But Belichick's closest brush with college coaching was as a kid, when he attended practices and watched film