CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (WTVD) -- There's growing concern from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill community about whether bringing in Bill Belichick as football coach was the right move.
On Wednesday evening, UNC Athletics, in a post on X, reaffirmed its support for Belichick, but it comes amid a rocky start to the UNC football season.
"I do think that there is and has been almost from the outset a level of discord within the athletics department between the people who are very excited about the Bill Belichick era and the ones who are rubbed very much the wrong way by how Bill Belichick and his folks have come in and kind of run roughshod over the athletics department at Carolina," said ESPN ACC insider David Hale.
After a rocky 2-3 start to a season that began with heavy anticipation and lofty expectations, some Tar Heel fans are wondering whether the Belichick hype was overblown.
For now, however, most still want to give him time to build a program that added 70 new players this season, especially when changing coaches again could be even more risky.
"The fact that you're seeing a lot of reports out now is not surprising," Hale told ABC11. "I think there's a lot of people eager to see him please pay for his hubris here. But the other side of that is if they were to fire him without cause, right now it's $30 million out the door for Carolina, which is a big check to have to write."
It all comes amid growing concerns from university leaders about how the Board of Trustees operated in general. A lawsuit from former provost Chris Clemens claims that the board hid issues of public concern and took advantage of closed session rules.
Part of the lawsuit mentions the Belichick hire being shrouded in secrecy, all with a substantial cost to the university.
In the filing, the lawsuit says, "The Board did not present any comparable thirty-year 'net present cost' analysis, nor did it invoke long-horizon fiscal restraint to defer that decision for a single UNC employee."
And now, a new motion filed Wednesday in Orange County connected to the suit wants to recover text messages and accuses board members of using apps like Signal, which auto-deletes, to violate public access laws.
Student Body President Adolfo Alvarez wouldn't comment on the lawsuit directly. But he did say he wants to see more come to light about the hiring process.
"I think people kind of came out of the blue. You know, people didn't know that this was happening with some background leave. And then weeks later, it was just kind of, wow, Bill Belichick, Heisman hire, and no one saw it coming. So I think that, it is my hope, that an investigation will sort of tell us where that is at and how that process played out," Alvarez said.
In the meantime, Hale told ABC11 that some tough conversations could be on the horizon for Belichick.
"How much were you invested in actually coaching this football program vs. 'I just want to keep coaching and they'll hire me and pay me a bunch of money and I can hire my kids to work for me'? So I do think that there will be some conversations and ongoing conversations from now until whenever this comes to a head of this is best for all of us to stay in this relationship together," Hale said.