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North Carolina football general manager Michael Lombardi has resigned, ending the tenure of an immediate hire in Bill Belichick’s NFL-to-college coaching transition who had been on on paid administrative leave as the subject of a school investigation.
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The school announced Lombardi’s resignation Thursday. It also stated it would continue its ongoing investigation and “consider all appropriate corrective actions” as needed.
The school has not released specifics of that probe, noting in its July 27 announcement that employees and athletes aren’t permitted to address the topic “as is standard procedure with personnel matters.” Three days later, UNC released another statement that said its Office of University Counsel was conducting an investigation, an announcement coming on the first day of preseason camp.
Two people with knowledge of the situation previously told The Associated Press that a human resources complaint from a former employee was involved. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the school wasn’t publicly discussing case details.
Attorney Tom Mars, who is working with Lombardi, released a statement from his client confirming the resignation Thursday.
“I want to thank Chancellor (Lee) Roberts and Bill Belichick for the opportunity to serve as the GM of UNC Football,” Lombardi said in the statement. “I have decided it’s best for me to resign my position as GM to allow the team to focus on the ’26 season.”
The resignation comes five days after the Tar Heels beat TCU 15-10 in Dublin, Ireland, to start Belichick’s second season in Chapel Hill. Belichick went 4-8 last year after leading the NFL’s New England Patriots to six Super Bowl titles.
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Lombardi attended for Belichick’s introductory news conference in December 2024, with Belichick announcing that day that the former GM of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns would serve as his college-level GM.
A few months into Belichick’s tenure, Lombardi said the goal was running a college program in a way similar to the NFL, saying the Tar Heels “consider ourselves the 33rd (NFL) team” because of the staff connections to the pros. That confident statement didn’t align with the on-field results; the Tar Heels had more more double-digit losses (five) than wins, along with multiple off-the-field distractions.
Lombardi was given a three-year deal paying him $1.5 million in base salary through the 2027 season. That made him by far the country’s highest-paid college football GM for the 2025 season, according to a USA Today salary database, another incongruity with the Tar Heels’ results.
At the college level, GMs across sports generally have front-office roles dealing with roster construction and negotiations over player compensation, with the heaviest work coming in the offseason.
Belichick said on July 30 that the team was “working through some things” in adjusting duties to compensate for Lombardi’s absence. Roberts said later that day the situation was “distressing to me and everyone else in the administration … that this is something that we have to have to spend time on.”
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