The Tar Heels are slowly piecing together Bill Belichick’s first staff in Chapel Hill and on Wednesday the team went into the high school ranks and the CFL for their latest additions.
It started this morning with multiple reports from both Inside Carolina and FootballScoops that the Tar Heels are expected to hire IMG Academy head coach Billy Miller to the staff. His role on the staff has not officially been determined, but Miller’s coaching history would suggest that he will be involved in some ways with special teams.
Miller has spent the last ten years down at IMG Academy, one of the most prestigious prep schools in the country, and has climbed the ladder after originally coming to the school as an assistant head coach and special teams coordinator. He took over as head coach back in 2022 and has led the program to a 25-3 record in the last three years.
Prior to his time in Bradenton, he spent five months as a special teams coaching assistant with Belichick on the Patriots staff. This followed a stint with Greg Schiano, a friend of Belichick’s, which started at Rutgers as a special teams assistant from 2009-12 and extended to Schiano’s time at the NFL level with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The second report of the day from 3DownNation came this afternoon saying that Chris Jones, a guy with experience at the college, NFL and CFL, is expected to join Belichick’s staff as a defensive assistant.
Jones started his coaching career back in 1993 when he coached at North Jackson High School in Alabama. After a two year stint there, he stepped up to the college level where he would serve as a graduate assistant for Tennessee Tech and Alabama before he moved to Tennessee-Martin to become the team’s defensive line coach. After one season with the Skyhawks, he also added recruiting coordinator to his time which he would hold for three years.
In 2002, Jones was hired by the Montreal Alouettes as their defensive line coach, kicking off an very successful CFL stint. Just a year after arriving in Montreal, he was elevated to defensive coordinator, a position he would hold for four seasons. In 2008, he left Montreal for the same position with the Calgary Stampeders and he would add the assistant coach and assistant director of player personnel just a year later. In 2012, he departed for Toronto to take over as the Argonauts' defensive coordinator, assistant head coach and assistant general manager role.
In 2014, Jones accepted a job with the Edmonton Eskimos as their head coach. In 2015, Jones led the Eskimos to a victory over the Ottawa Redblacks in the 103rd Grey Cup game. In the offseason, he was given permission to interview for a vacant job with the Saskatchewan Roughriders and he would leave to be the head coach and general manager. He would hold that position until 2019, when he departed to take a defensive assistant job with the Cleveland Browns. He would last just one year before heading back to the high school rankings after a year off. He spent one season with South Pittsburg High School in Tennessee before he left to become a defensive consultant with the Argonauts in 2021. Just a year later, he was hired as the Edmonton Elks head coach and general manager. After struggling in his first two seasons and losing the first five game in his third, he was fired. He would land with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats as a senior defensive analyst, but would be elevated to defensive play-calling duties midseason after the team parted with their defensive coordinator.
These are two spectacular additions, but it is worth noting that these are the latest members of staff that the Tar Heels are expected to hire but that they have not made official. As of right now, only Belichick and general manager Michael Lombardi have been formally hired.