Bill Belichick won’t be chasing Don Shula’s NFL victories record after all.

After 29 seasons, 333 victories and six Super Bowl titles as an NFL head coach, Belichick, who turns 73 in April, is headed back to campus. According to multiple reports, North Carolina is hiring the former New England Patriots coach. Inside Carolina’s Adam Smith was the first to report the news Wednesday.

ESPN reported on Wednesday night that the two sides were finalizing the deal. The details of Belichick’s contract are unknown.

When North Carolina fired 73-year-old Mack Brown last month, the assumption was it would look for a younger head coach. And it did … but only by eight months.

Belichick has never coached in college, but the role of the head coach in recruiting has changed with the advent of athletes being paid for their name, image and likeness (NIL). He’ll be expected to add a staff of more experienced college coaches. That likely will include his son, Steve, who is the defensive coordinator at the University of Washington.

Although speaking hypothetically at the time on ESPN’s Pat McAfee show Monday, Bill Belichick offered a window into how he’d run a college program.

“The college program would be a pipeline to the NFL for the players who had the ability to play in the NFL. It would be a professional program – training, scheme, nutrition, coaching, techniques that would transfer to the NFL,” Belichick said. “It would be an NFL program at the college level and an education that would get the players ready for their career after football, whether that was at the end of the college career or their professional career,” Belichick said. “It would be geared toward developing the player – discipline, time management, life skills that would be valuable whether they’re in the NFL or somewhere in business.

“I feel very confident that I have the contacts in the National Football League to pave the way for those players that would have the opportunity to compete in the National Football League,” he added. “They would be ready for it.”

Belichick parted ways with the Patriots following the 2023 season, a break that was initially called a mutual parting of the ways. Robert Kraft, the team owner, has since referred to it as a firing.

Belichick, who was a candidate for the Atlanta Falcons’ job last year before they chose to go with Raheem Morris, spent this season working in several media roles to improve his marketability.

With 333 career regular-season and playoff victories, Belichick needed 15 wins to pass Don Shula’s record for combined wins by an NFL head coach, but heading to college effectively ends that pursuit. Belichick had been rumored to be a target for openings in Jacksonville and Chicago, and the possible openings with Dallas and the New York Giants.