Michael Lombardi’s old North Carolina boast is aging about as badly as it possibly could.
Last year, Lombardi said the Tar Heels would become the NFL’s “33rd team,” a line that was supposed to signal confidence and ambition. Instead, it has become the kind of quote people drag back out when things go sideways. North Carolina was arguably the worst Power 4 team in college football last season, and the pain got sharper in the NFL Draft when not one Tar Heel was selected.
That alone would have made the comment look foolish. But The Athletic added another layer to the story, reporting that Lombardi’s arrival on campus came with a strong belief that he knew more than the people already working in college football.
According to the report, he “hadn’t worked in college football since the 1980s,” yet still “was convinced he knew better than everyone else working in college football about their sport and their jobs.” The same report said he ran off experienced personnel staff and missed on plenty of player evaluations.
The “33rd team” line also stands out even more when you look at what happened to the roster overhaul tied to Lombardi and Belichick. The Athletic noted that the 41-man rebuild produced no draft picks, the first time UNC had gone without a player drafted since 2016.
Bruce Feldman also wrote that the whole thing now looks a lot less like an NFL-style operation and more like something far more ordinary. “It now feels more as if they are making North Carolina merely the ACC’s 18th team, let alone the NFL’s 33rd.
Last season, UNC went 2-8 against Power 4 opponents and lost to the ACC’s other three in-state programs. The Tar Heels got blown out by a Wake Forest team that hired its coach, Jake Dickert, a week after Belichick took over,” Feldman wrote.
That’s the problem with bold comments in college football: they stick around. If the results match the talk, people celebrate it.
If they don’t, the quote becomes the story. And in this case, Lombardi’s words have come back looking rough.
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