Sources -- Bill Belichick speaks with UNC about head coach job - ESPN

Bill Belichick, who won six Super Bowl championships with the New England Patriots, has had discussions with North Carolina about the Tar Heels' head-coaching job, sources told ESPN on Thursday.

Belichick, 72, has been out of football this year after leaving the Patriots following the 2023 season.

Sources told ESPN that Belichick, who has spent his career in the NFL, wants to coach again and is open to listening to people at the college and NFL level.

UNC fired Mack Brown on Nov. 26 after six seasons with the Tar Heels. The 73-year-old Brown, a College Football Hall of Famer, was in his second stint at the school. Belichick is only a year younger than Brown, who was the oldest coach in the FBS this season.

The Tar Heels went 44-33 under Brown from 2019 to 2024 and finished 6-6 this season. Brown will not coach in UNC's bowl game, and Freddie Kitchens, a former Cleveland Browns coach who has served as UNC's run game coordinator and tight ends coach the past two seasons, is serving as interim head coach while the school seeks a replacement.

Belichick is far and away the biggest name to surface in the North Carolina search, and sources said there was genuine interest on both sides. But Tulane's Jon Sumrall was also at or near the top of North Carolina's list and was expected to speak formally with school officials after the Green Wave's AAC championship game against Army on Friday. Other candidates for the job include Iowa State's Matt Campbell, Georgia defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann, and Steve Wilks, who was the Arizona Cardinals' head coach in 2018 and the Carolina Panthers' interim head coach in 2022. Wilks was a volunteer assistant this season at Charlotte.

North Carolina had initially targeted Pittsburgh Steelers