The Tar Heels are adding the final pieces to Bill Belichick’s first staff and the team appears to have their new running backs coach.
According to Matt Zenitz of 247Sports, the Tar Heels are expected to promote Natrone Means to coach the team’s running backs. Means spent the last four years as an offensive analyst for the team under Mack Brown.
Means, a product of Harrisburg, NC, spent three seasons in a Tar Heel uniform in the early ’90s, helping carry some of Mack Brown’s early teams to success. After taking over in 1990 as the team’s starting running back, Means ran for 849 yards and 10 touchdowns while also catching 24 passes for 229 yards and a touchdown. In 1991, he would break the 1,000-yard mark for the first time in his career, carrying the ball 201 times for 1,030 yards and eleven touchdowns and catching 23 passes from 178 yards on the way to first team All-ACC while leading the conference in all three of those candidates. He closed his career in 1992 when he was named a first team All-ACC member once again after carrying the ball 236 times for 1,195 yards and 13 touchdowns and catching 14 passes for 93 yards.
Means would go on to play eight seasons in the NFL with the Chargers, Jaguars and Panthers where he ran for 5,215 yards and 47 touchdowns. His most successful days came during his time in San Diego, including his Pro Bowl season in 1994 when he ran 1,350 yards and 12 touchdowns on 343 rush attempts.
Means went into coaching in 2005 when he joined the Livingstone College staff as a running backs coach. He would take over as the team’s offensive coordinator in 2006 before leaving to go to the high school ranks in the same role for two seasons at Charlotte’s West Charlotte High School. He would leave coaching for six years after 2008 but resurface as the running backs coach at Winston-Salem State from 2014-17. In 2018, Means was elevated to the team’s offensive coordinator position and was named the assistant head coach, roles he would hold for two seasons. In 2020, he departed for the same roles with Fayetteville State, but would never actually coach for the team because of COVID.
This is a good hire for the Tar Heels because of the work that he’s done helping to develop guys like Omarion Hampton and Ty Chandler. Keeping Larry Porter would have been a really solid move, as well, but this is a strong secondary option.