UNC offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens cringes when you refer to the Tar Heel offense as “his.”
“I learned from different people,” Kitchens recalled earlier this week. “It was never ‘their’ offense. It was ‘our’ offense.”
This season, Kitchens will be tasked with coordinating “our” offense while relying on several positions which have been almost completely retooled. There will be a new starting quarterback, a new starting running back, a new starting tight end and multiple new starting receivers.
But for all the new faces around the Kenan Football Center this fall, Kitchens is not one of them. He is one of only two major holdovers from former head coach Mack Brown’s coaching staff. After Brown’s dismissal and the hiring of head coach Bill Belichick in December, Kitchens was promoted from tight ends coach to offensive coordinator. He also served as interim head coach for UNC’s appearance in the Fenway Bowl.
“Freddie is a very aggressive coach,” Belichick said. “He wants to have a physical team, physical running game, physical presence on offense.
“It’s been very helpful for me,” Belichick added, “that he was here the last couple years.”
Kitchens, like so much of Belichick’s staff, has extensive NFL experience. He worked for four franchises over the course of 15 years in the professional ranks, including spending the 2019 season as head coach of the Cleveland Browns. He and Belichick also share the privilege of having once worked for the same famous boss: Bill Parcells. Kitchens’ first pro experience came coaching tight ends for Parcells’ Dallas Cowboys in 2006, in what ended up being the last season on the sidelines for the “Big Tuna.” Belichick, of course, teamed up with Parcells and former UNC linebacker Lawrence Taylor to win a pair of Super Bowls with the New York Giants.
Parcells was legendary for his no-nonsense approach, and the aftereffects are visible whenever you interact with his most famous protégé. Kitchens’ crossover with Parcells may have been brief, but now he said he’s making up for lost time with the “other” Bill.
“I feel like I got cheated from only having one year with Coach Parcells,” Kitchens told reporters Wednesday. “I feel very fortunate that I get to be around Coach Belichick and learn from him.”
Kitchens’ new offensive staff includes running back coach Natrone Means (the other major holdover from Brown’s staff), offensive line coach Will Friend, receivers coach Garrick McGee and quarterbacks coach Matt Lombardi (son of general manager Michael Lombardi). Kitchens might be able to pull rank when the need arises, but the fact is the only other offensive coordinator gigs he’s held were interim roles with the 2021 Giants (who finished 4-13) and the 2018 Browns (who finished 7-8-1). His one full-time head coaching appointment lasted one year, as the Browns fired him after a 6-10 season in 2019. Whether Kitchens likes it or not, those were “his” offenses.
That’s not to say Kitchens can’t claim any coaching success. He spent a decade with coaching multiple positions with the Arizona Cardinals, a decade which is by far the most successful in franchise history. As tight end coach in 2008, Kitchens helped the Cardinals to their first Super Bowl appearance. With Kitchens coaching quarterbacks in 2015, the Cardinals won 13 games, their most ever in a single season, and reached the NFC Championship.
In Chapel Hill, Kitchens is calling upon his past experiences, and those of his staff, to try and recreate that success with the Tar Heels.
“It’s a conglomeration of everyone, and everyone’s ideas,” Kitchens said. “Ultimately, you have to make a decision on things. And that happens. But it’s up to our room, moving up the ladder, to come together. And it becomes ‘our’ offense. We have plays from Arizona, we have plays from Cleveland, we have plays from New York, we have plays from Rolesville High School. It doesn’t matter. We just want the best football plays for our players.”
Sophomore receiver Jordan Shipp, who many are eyeing as the next great Tar Heel pass-catcher, said Belichick “kept [Kitchens] for a reason.”
“He liked what he was doing,” Shipp said. “So there’s no reason not to trust him 100 percent.”
Kitchens will be UNC’s third offensive coordinator in the last four seasons. With the 2025 Tar Heels, he’ll face a problem his predecessors Chip Lindsey and Phil Longo never did. Lindsey and Longo enjoyed the services of at least one offensive player who exuded NFL talent. The list from just the past four years is staggering: Sam Howell, Drake Maye, Omarion Hampton, Tez Walker and Josh Downs, to name a few. From the outside looking in, no such blue-chipper is taking the field with the Tar Heels this fall – that we know of.
“It’s not easy to replace a first-round draft pick at running back, or at any position,” Kitchens said. “But we’ve got some guys that are excited to be here. We’re excited they’re here. And we’ll see where it takes us.”
Where it takes the Tar Heels will be a season of unprecedented national attention. Never before has UNC football been so interesting to so many people. In the age of social media and the 24/7 news cycle, the talking heads can’t get enough of “Chapel Bill.” It’s quite the spotlight to cast on Kitchens, who stayed mostly out of the way as Mack Brown’s tight ends coach for the past two seasons.
Now, whether he likes it or not, his performance will be under a microscope. He can claim UNC’s offense to be “our” offense all he wants, but in the eyes of the suddenly football-obsessed Tar Heel fanbase, the buck stops with Freddie Kitchens.
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications
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