What is going on at North Carolina football program

Summary

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Payne & Pendergast – "What Is Going On at North Carolina Football Program"

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

Episode Overview

In this segment, Sean Pendergast and Seth Payne examine the turmoil surrounding the North Carolina (UNC) football program, now led by former NFL coach Bill Belichick. The episode zeroes in on two controversial figures at UNC: embattled GM Michael Lombardi (recently placed on administrative leave) and Belichick himself, whose transition from NFL glory to college football has been rocky at best. Through sharp banter, inside football knowledge, and a dose of humor, the hosts draw parallels with other infamous coaching flame-outs while questioning whether high NFL achievement can translate to the uniquely tricky world of college football.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Michael Lombardi Placed on Leave

• Background: Michael Lombardi, the GM of UNC football, is on administrative leave due to an HR-related issue and trouble with the NCAA’s NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) clearinghouse ([01:47]-[02:09]).

  • Pay: Noted as the highest paid GM in college football at $1.5 million/year ([01:59]-[02:03]).
  • School Statement: UNC issued a vague public statement, declining to comment on “confidential personnel issues.” ([03:01]-[03:40])

• Rumored Incident: There’s speculation Lombardi’s HR trouble may involve him “liking a thirst trap photo on Instagram”—though the hosts stress this is unconfirmed internet chatter ([02:34]-[02:49]).

  • Quote (Seth Payne, 02:53):

    “One thing I would advise for anybody who's working in academia, including just sports at a college department, is don't do that.”

• Bruce Feldman’s Assessment: FOX and The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman called Lombardi “the worst general manager not just in college football, but across collegiate sports” ([02:09]-[02:34]).

  • Quote (Mark Vandermeer, 03:40):

    “He is without question the worst general manager in college sports… He should be getting his paycheck with a ski mask on.”

  • The hosts discuss the perception that Lombardi’s ineptitude has been borderlining on criminal given his salary and power.

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The Belichick Experiment at UNC – NFL Ego, NCAA Realities

• Belichick’s “Blind Spot”: Discussion centers on how Bill Belichick, perhaps the most respected modern NFL coach, seems ill-suited for the distinct complexities of the college game ([06:06]-[07:37]).

  • NFL-to-NCAA Struggle: The hosts note arrogance in Belichick (and his staff) arriving at UNC, acting as if NFL methods would dominate the different landscape of college football—without understanding issues like recruiting, compliance, or working with teenagers.
  • Quote (Seth Payne, 06:51):

    “He might not actually be all that competent, but he knows… things. But Belichick going to UNC, you get this sense there was this level of arrogance—that like, wow, we're gonna show you guys how it's done with zero regard for all of the difficulties and intricacies of college recruiting…”

• Culture Fit and Staffing: Complaints about Belichick hiring family, a younger girlfriend in a leadership role, and bringing a “Patriots only” mentality ([07:21]-[07:37]).

  • Quote (Seth Payne, 07:31):

    “Meanwhile, Belichick's got his much younger girlfriend running around in charge of stuff. He's hiring every family member he can to his staff.”

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NFL-to-College: A Doomed Pattern?

• Flameout Face-Off: Belichick vs. Urban Meyer

  • Seth poses the question: Who was the bigger failure—Urban Meyer in the NFL or Belichick’s current college struggles? ([07:53]-[09:11]).
  • Sean points out Belichick “completed a season” and the players “kind of enjoy playing for him”—unlike the total locker-room collapse under Meyer in Jacksonville.

• Key Differences:

  • Urban Meyer had high-profile off-field incidents (e.g., postgame bar scandal), while Belichick’s issues are less “scandalous,” more about arrogance/mismanagement ([09:17]-[09:48]).
  • Quote (Seth Payne, 08:02):

    “It might as well be cricket and baseball… There’s a lot of similarities, but man, the differences in the college game are so much different.”

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The 33rd NFL Team? (False Confidence at UNC)

• Michael Lombardi allegedly referred to UNC as “the 33rd NFL team”—obviously an overstatement, as the program hasn’t produced NFL talent ([09:57]-[10:04]).
  • Quote (Sports Analyst, 10:00):

    "Michael Lombardi said, 'We're the 33rd NFL team.'"

  • Response (Seth, 10:00):

    “…And they would go on to have zero players drafted to the NFL.”

  • Contrasted with the perennial debate about whether top college teams could beat NFL bottom-feeders (hosts agree: not even close) ([10:11]-[10:29]).

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Lombardi’s Influence in Belichick’s Book

• Seth points out passages in Belichick’s book that veer into “business advice,” feeling that they were ghostwritten or heavily influenced by Lombardi ([10:36]-[11:18]).
  • Quote (Seth Payne, 11:10):

    “I could see the fingerprints of Michael Lombardi in the book, because… every now and then there'd be sprinkled in, like, ‘Hey, actually, this is a business advice book.’ …That's Lombardi, man!”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Lombardi’s Value:

  "He should be getting his paycheck with a ski mask on. ...This is such a staggering amount of ineptitude."
  — Mark Vandermeer ([03:48])

• On NFL to NCAA Translation:

  “They're two different sports. It might as well be cricket and baseball.”
  — Seth Payne ([08:02])

• On Lombardi and Social Media:

  “One thing I would advise for anybody who's working in academia ... is don't do that.”
  — Seth Payne ([02:53])

• On ‘33rd NFL Team’ Delusion:

  "Michael Lombardi said, 'We're the 33rd NFL team.' ...And they would go on to have zero players drafted."
  — Seth Payne ([09:57]-[10:04])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:47] — Start of UNC/Lombardi discussion
• [02:34] — Rumors about Lombardi’s HR issues
• [03:01] — UNC’s official (non-)statement
• [03:40] — Mark Vandermeer on Lombardi’s reputation
• [06:06] — Belichick’s “blind spot” at UNC
• [07:53] — Urban Meyer vs. Belichick comparison
• [09:57] — “33rd NFL Team” claim and reality check
• [10:36] — Seth on Lombardi’s influence in Belichick’s book

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Closing Topics

• The hosts end the segment pivoting back to Texans training camp (Jalen Pitre soundbite [11:24]) and some light banter about upcoming practices. ([12:02]-[13:00])
• Reminders for fans to come out to open practice, and playful joking about taking selfies with hosts ([12:06]-[12:22]).

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Summary Takeaway:
This episode frames UNC Football as a case study in the cultural and operational mismatches that can occur when successful NFL figures attempt to translate their expertise to college sports—especially in today’s more complex NIL-driven landscape. The segment is critical, direct, and laced with humor, with special scorn reserved for Lombardi’s performance and Belichick’s seeming hubris. It’s a must-listen for anyone interested in the differences between pro and college football management—and the pitfalls of ego in sports leadership.

Transcript

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[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

All right, final segment. We'll hand things over to John Harris and Mark Vandermeer, day three of training camp. We'll hear from Jalen Petrie in just a little bit as well. What's been going on on the defensive side of the ball through his eyes? We've not talked about this Michael Lombardi story yet this week.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

The GM of unc.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Well, the currently administrative leave GM of unc.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Still technically the GM of UNC football.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

He is. He was presumably still getting his highest

[Sports Analyst Seth]

paid GM in college. $1.5 million.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Yeah. Yeah. And according to Bruce Feldman, the worst general manager not just in college football.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

But across collegiate sports. This is Bruce Feldman of both Fox and the Athletic on his podcast, if you missed it, Michael Lombardi's been placed on administrative leave for a reported HR issue. There's also issues with that clearinghouse the NCAA's created for nil deals that he's in the crosshairs with as well. So he's got stuff going on with the nil and he's got stuff going on, it seems like inside the building at North Carolina. Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

So I don't know what the HR issue is. I don't know. I haven't, like, fact checked this at all. But at least one person who was doing some sleuthing said that Lombardi had. He had liked a thirst trap photo on Instagram. Oh, okay. So maybe this is a little bit of an indicator.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Okay.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

We don't know. We don't know.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

We don't know. The school has spoken on.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Thing I would advise for anybody who's working in academia, including just sports at a college department, is don't do that.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Here's the statement the school put out yesterday. This is courtesy of Bruce Feldman, who we're going to hear from in a second. As a result of concerns behind allegations that led to the personnel action regarding Michael Lombardi announced on July 27, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, through its Office of University Council, is in the process of investigating this matter. Because this involves confidential personnel issues, the university will not comment on the nature of the allegations or discuss personnel information. So they're basically saying, we ain't saying nothing. There's something going on. We ain't saying nothing. Bruce Feldman says they ain't gonna miss the guy that much. He's the worst at his job in all of collegiate sports.

[Sports Analyst Mark Vandermeer]

You were being very kind. He is without question the worst general manager in college sports.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Also the highest.

[Sports Analyst Mark Vandermeer]

Not even close. He should be getting his paycheck with a ski mask on. I'm sorry. He like, this is such a staggering amount of ineptitude in the job he's had for Bill Belichick. Right. And I go back to the big story we did last year, and he was a focal point of it. It's the arrogance. It's the abrasiveness. I mean, there's a lot of qualities that have rubbed people the wrong way for a long time. But Bill Belichick has been one of the people who has been in his corner and always. And the fact that Bill Belichick trusted him to have the most important job of anybody he could hire, and it has blown up in his face and North Carolina's face spectacularly.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

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[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

One of the strangest blind spots of any highly competent person that I can think of in sports. I think with Belichick, Bill Belichick's Michael Lombardi fetish.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

He's had him just in various plays ill with the Browns and with the Patriots. And when Lombardi, you know, was didn't get any more chances at GM anymore, he was like always in some weird position with the Patriots where he was almost like a football. I think he was like a football historian because he knows a lot of stuff. He's like one of those old school football sports nerds that can just pull up all kinds of random data and everything in his brain. I think, I think Belichick liked having him around just to tell him stories or he was like the little fella in Game of Thrones there.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Oh, Tyrion.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Tyrion, yeah, he was like Tyrion. He might not actually be all that competent, but he knows he knows things. But Belichick going to unc, you get this sense that there was this level of arrogance that like Belichick had a well earned arrogance in the NFL. Like, all right, yeah, yeah, what are we going to do? Argue with you? But all these stories, it sounds like they got to unc and acted like, wow, we're going to show you guys how it's done with Zero regard for all of the difficulties and intricacies of college recruiting, working with young people, not to mention the rules and regulations and all of that. They just looked wholly unprepared for it. And meanwhile, Belichick's got his much younger girlfriend running around in charge of stuff. He's hiring every family member he can to his staff.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

I don't want it to end. I don't want it to end. It's such a train wreck.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

They gotta, they gotta beat somebody other than an FCS team this year if you want that happen. 10 million a year. 10 million a year. They're paying for this.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

A million. Michael, who's.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Who's been more of an extreme flame out so far? Urban Meyer going to the NFL or Bill Belichick going to college?

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Oh, boy, that's a good one. That's a good one.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I like both of those guys because what I've long maintained is that look, and this is one of the reasons it's so hard to evaluate college quarterbacks. They're two different sports. They are different sports. It might as well be cricket and baseball. They've got a lot of similarities, but man, the differences in college game are so much different. And then when you factor in all of the transfer portal and nil and everything else that goes into it, it's not just so simple that it's like an IndyCar driver. If all of a sudden he jumps into a stock car, he's not going to be the best stock car driver in the world all of a sudden. There's a lot of differences.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

This is your question. You asked me about who's the bigger flame out, Urban Meyer with Jacksonville or Bill Belichick with North? I am going to dig into that this weekend because it's a great question. My gut tells me that it's Urban Meyer and it might not even be that close. Yeah, Urban Meyer didn't make it through the full season. Urban Meyer tried to bring in Tim Tebow. Urban Meyer. From all accounts, it seems like the kids at North Carolina actually kind of enjoy playing for Belichick there. It didn't seem like the Jaguars enjoyed all that much playing for, for Urban Meyer.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Well, and Belichick has made it through a full year. Urban Meyer, Yeah. That's the biggest difference.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Urban Meyer had off the field stuff too. He didn't fly home with the team right after a Thursday night game so he could stay in Ohio, go to Columbus and start and get a lap

[Sports Analyst Seth]

dance from a work associate feeling up a work association. She was more feeling him up, but he wasn't stopping it.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

I don't know. She was sitting on.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

His hands were to the side. He was following. He was acting like he was at a club, and he had to follow the rules.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Go back and look at the replay. I. I don't. Yeah, yeah. Either.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

You're grinding up against him, right? As he was sitting on that tall chair.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

He wasn't saying no. Yeah, he wasn't saying no.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

But. No, I think the. That whole dynamic of Belichick thinking that he was going to come in and just show everybody how it's done, that rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Michael Lombardi said, We're the 33rd NFL team.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Right. And they would go on to have zero players drafted to the NFL.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Exactly. Right.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Nobody was having a discussion about, like, hey, could Unc beat the Browns?

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Right.

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[Sports Analyst Seth]

You guys think Unc could beat the Browns?

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

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[Sports Analyst Seth]

We haven't had this discussion with UNC.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

No. No.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Despite them being the 33rd team, they're on the.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

They're on the other end. They're like, could molar High school in Cincinnati beat North Carolina.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

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[Sports Analyst Seth]

One of the things about Belichick's book that I didn't like and I enjoyed his book, I thought really liked a lot of the parts of Belichick's book, but I could. I could see the fingerprints of Michael Lombardi in the book, because there were times where it was kind of like, you know, Belichick telling some cool stories, talking about film, you know, you know, building a team and all of that and a culture. But then here and there, there'd be sprinkled in like, hey, actually, this is a business advice book. And. Or at the end of one chapter, it was like, so for young people looking for a job or whatever, I'm like, oh, that's Lombardi, man. Lombardi had a talk with him about, like, hey, if you want to make this marketable to the masses, you got to be able to. Yeah. Turn it into a keynote presentation to a Fortune 500 company.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Yeah. You're talking to sea level. Sweet.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

People out there. All right, so we got about a minute or so to go here.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

No.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

To get our game face back on before day three of practice. Here's Jalen Petrie yesterday talking about this defense is about precision and swarming from

[Jalen Petrie]

the first play we step out there in a preseason game. It's about pure execution energy. Like, are we swarming or not? It's really black and white with us. Black and white with Coach d'. Amico. And, yeah, it's one standard. So if we not living up to it, it's gonna be known, and we got to get it fixed.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

All right, see, that's the motivational speech I need before we get out here today, Seth. We are all about precision and swarming when we cover day three of practice and day four tomorrow. You know, there's practice tomorrow.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

There's practice tomorrow morning, 9am and then there's no practice. Isn't there one tomorrow is open to the public?

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Yes. First one. Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. Yeah. If you got tickets out, tickets for tomorrow's practice, and you see us out here, be sure to wave and say hello.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah. If you see Sean, grab him.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Yeah, grab me.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah, grab him and take a selfie.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Grab me and hug me and. Yeah, let's take a selfie together. That'll be fun.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

You guys are in for a good show because Vandermeer is either praying or he's deep in contemplation.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Yeah, he is, though. He's filming something.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Oh, he was filming something.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

He's filming something now. He just flexed.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I thought he was doing that thing of that coach that kneels and grabs the grass on the sideline and.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Yeah, I like his shirt that he's got on, too.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

You guys are in for a show with Vandermeer and John.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Indeed. Indeed. All right, so what are you going to be watching for today?

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Today I actually am going to start to try to zero in on the offensive and defensive line more, even though there are no pads. I've been just. I've been watching. I've been watching all the fantasy league players out there. I want to get back down into the trenches.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Nice. Nice.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I won't be distracted. Gonna have my blinders on.

[Sports Radio Host (Possibly Sean)]

Okay, good, good. Yeah. So we got you covered out here all day long. Hey, quick reminder, too, for those of you I know, there's still some of you coming back from vacation. We will be. Sports Radio 610, August 13th. Circle it, 8am 957. The Fan is born on August 13th. So we'll be out here all day long today. Mark Vandermeer and John Harris. Got you next. John Lopez, Reggie Adatula. After that, they'll have players coming off the field here as well later on so have a great weekend out there and enjoy the rest of the day.

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