Changes to the UNC football staff have begun.
Bill Belichick has fired two assistant coaches, and the university has agreed to pay the second year Freddie Kitchens and Mike Priefer had on their guaranteed contracts, of which the total is about $2 million.
Offensive coordinator Kitchens presided over the 129th (of 134) total offenses in the NCAA college football statistics. Of the special teams run by Priefer, the Tar Heels were in the top half of only one ACC stat category with Rece Verhoff sixth in field goal accuracy.
The veteran Kitchens was head coach of the 2019 Cleveland Browns’ 6-10 season. He joined Mack Brown’s staff in 2023 as running game coordinator and tight ends coach, having Omarion Hampton and a bevy of tight ends catching passes from the 2022 ACC Player and Rookie of the Year Drake Maye.
After Brown was fired following the 2024 regular season, Kitchens served as interim coach for the transfer-depleted team that lost to UConn in the Fenway Bowl. When Belichick arrived, Kitchens joked that he never applied for the job and just “hung around” until the Hoodie hired him. Granted there was no Maye left under center, and Kitchens had South Alabama transfer Gio Lopez who finished No. 16 in ACC total offense, same place as the team. Rumors are swirling that peripatetic coach Bobby Petrino will be next.
That brings up quarterback coach Matt Lombardi, son of Belichick’s general manager Michael Lombardi. The younger Lombardi also has a reported guaranteed two-year contract like all of the assistants, but with a far thinner resume than most of them.
The bio on goheels.com does not mention if Matt ever played football at Delaware. He is listed as having been a scout, special teams quality coach, tight ends graduate assistant, assistant quarterbacks coach, assistant wide receivers coach, offensive assistant and offensive analyst.
In other words, Lombardi was never an actual position coach for the dozen or so college and professional teams he worked for.
While Kitchens wasn’t much of an offensive play caller, was Matt Lombardi any help? With the late start Belichick had, did he attempt to also retain Clyde Christensen, the decorated quarterbacks coach who was at UNC for Brown’s final two seasons after working for eight other college programs and had multi-year stops with the NFL’s Buccaneers, Colts and Dolphins. Christensen coordinated offenses and coached Super Bowl winning QBs Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. He is 69 and now associate head coach at Appalachian State.
And then there is Lonnie Galloway, 54, the North Carolina native who was assistant head coach and offensive coordinator for Brown and is now an analyst for Dabo Swinney at Clemson.
Big names still on the staff are UNC’s All-ACC running back Natrone Means and all-pro linebacker Jamie Collins, but neither with prior coaching experience.
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
