Steve Belichick exits North Carolina as culture investigation deepens

Steve Belichick is out as North Carolina's defensive coordinator, according to Yahoo Sports, following an internal investigation into what the university described as "allegations related to the culture and climate" within the football programme run by his father, head coach Bill Belichick.

The departure follows that of general manager Mike Lombardi, who resigned on 3 September.

Details of the investigation's full findings have not been made public. Raleigh TV station WRAL, cited by Yahoo Sports, reported that the law firm conducting the probe examined whether Steve Belichick "used drugs on the job or provided drugs to at least one player." Lawyers also questioned people within the programme about possible sexual relationships between staffers and players, per the same report.

The upheaval has prompted fresh scrutiny of how the Belichick regime is being run in Chapel Hill, given the elder Belichick's reputation for discipline built over more than two decades in the NFL.

Yahoo Sports' Dan Wolken argues the very traits that made Bill Belichick's New England sides so tightly run may explain why his college programme has unravelled. Wolken points to a 2017 Players' Tribune piece by former Patriots running back Kevin Faulk, who wrote that Belichick was famously demanding about punctuality and preparation: "If there's one thing I know after having played for the Patriots for 13 years, it's that you don't want to be late to a Bill Belichick meeting."

Faulk also recounted a 2006 escalation of pranks among Patriots players — Tom Brady reportedly paying someone to remove the tyres from backup quarterback Matt Cassel's car, before offensive linemen retaliated by filling Brady's own car with styrofoam peanuts through the sunroof. Belichick, Faulk wrote, only became aware of the prank war once it had spiralled, because he paid little attention to anything beyond meeting rooms and the practice field.

"Coach Belichick is the kind of guy who doesn't care what you do on your own time," Faulk wrote. "He wants you to know football … Anything else, he doesn't really care."

Wolken suggests that approach, effective inside the controlled environment of an NFL facility, does not translate to a college campus, where a football programme operates as part of a sprawling athletic department and a wider student community rather than a self-contained workplace. Without daily oversight of the culture around the team, he writes, it can develop in ways a hands-off head coach may not notice until problems have already taken root.

North Carolina has not detailed what comes next for the football staff beyond Steve Belichick's exit and Lombardi's earlier resignation. The programme continues under Bill Belichick as head coach as the investigation's findings, and any further consequences, remain to be addressed by the university.