North Carolina football GM Michael Lombardi has resigned just over a month after the university placed him on paid administrative leave on July 27.
UNC had also launched an investigation into a personnel complaint against Lombardi, who was the highest-paid GM in college football with a salary of $1.5 million. The school’s announcement of Lombardi’s resignation late Thursday afternoon said it “will continue its ongoing investigation and will consider all appropriate corrective actions responsive to the information it learns.”
Lombardi, a longtime confidant of UNC coach Bill Belichick in their NFL days, said in his own statement Thursday that he “decided it’s best for me to resign my position as GM to allow the team to focus on the ’26 season,” while thanking Belichick and UNC chancellor Lee Roberts.
In addition to Lombardi’s situation, UNC investigators are “questioning people about whether [Bill Belichick’s son and] defensive coordinator Steve Belichick used drugs on the job or provided drugs to at least one player—and, separately, about whether a member of UNC’s recruiting staff had a sexual relationship with a player,” sources told WRAL News. They also “asked about possible sexual relationships between assistant coaches and recruiting staff,” according to the report.
Lombardi’s contract was for three years, running through the 2027 college football season. Before the 2025 season began, Lombardi drew scrutiny for a trip to Saudi Arabia, which UNC said was “at the request of a Saudi national who is a college football fan, interested in supporting Coach Belichick.”
The Tar Heels upset TCU on Saturday in the marquee matchup of Week 0, beating the Horned Frogs 15–10 in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic—an annual game in Dublin, Ireland. UNC-TCU averaged 4.9 million viewers on ESPN, which was up 10% from last year’s Ireland game between Kansas State and Iowa State. Last year’s TCU-UNC season opener in Chapel Hill, Belichick’s debut as a college football head coach, drew 6.6 million viewers on ESPN on Labor Day in primetime.
Belichick is in the second season of a five-year, $50 million contract at UNC, which put together a top-15 recruiting class for the 2026–27 season. The Tar Heels host FCS school East Tennessee State on Sept. 12 in their home opener.
