The UNC football program will not host recruits at Saturday’s home game against East Tennessee State after a self-reported NCAA violation last season, according to the university.
That means the Tar Heels will miss out on one of the biggest recruiting weekends of the season, even with five home games still ahead on the schedule, including Notre Dame, Miami, Louisville and NC State.
“Last season we self-reported a violation through our normal university compliance measures,” said Kevin Best, a university spokesman. “As a result, we are unable to host unofficial visits this weekend versus ETSU.
We are still permitted to host official visits this weekend but have decided as a program to concentrate our official visits on the remaining five home games. The situation has been properly resolved through the NCAA process, and we have worked with the NCAA and University compliance on appropriate and corrective action.”
Under NCAA rules, official visits are paid for by the school and can cover expenses for the athlete and family, including lodging, meals, entertainment and complimentary admission to home events. Unofficial visits are the athlete’s responsibility. Schools are allowed just one official visit, while unofficial visits can happen as often as a recruit wants - though coaches cannot speak with recruits during those unofficial trips.
The violation is not connected to cornerbacks coach Armond Hawkins, who was briefly suspended last season for an NCAA extra-benefits issue before being cleared by the university, WRAL has learned.
The program has also been dealing with other internal matters. General Manager Michael Lombardi resigned last week after being placed on paid administrative leave during an internal investigation into the football program. WRAL reported that investigators asked questions about alleged drug use by defensive coordinator Steve Belichick and sexual relationships involving recruiting staff members, assistant coaches and at least one player.
Bill Belichick said Monday that he is aware of the NCAA’s rules.
“I’m aware of all the NCAA rules,” Bill Belichick said Monday. “I can’t tell you that I know the rule book word-for-word, but yeah.”
Asked whether the program had a culture of compliance, he answered: “Yeah, totally.”
Belichick, who spent his entire NFL career before being hired by UNC in December 2024, also spoke last season about the amount of compliance work going on inside the program.
“We’ve all gone through the compliance courses, whether it be in recruiting, practices, time management, hourly requirements and so forth,” Belichick said last season. “I would say, if anything, I feel like maybe we’ve spent too much time on it, to be honest with you.
I mean we’ve gone over and over and over it to make sure that we have it right. And every time we check it, I just want to triple check and make sure we’re okay on this.
Right now, we’re still making sure that we’re trying to do every single thing right. I think that’s the right thing to do.
“Did something come up? Will something come up?
I’m sure it probably will. It does in every program, but we’re certainly not trying to, in any way, not take advantage of our compliance people and people that have more experience with some of the subtler rules or restrictions.”
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