17 NFL head coaches who took college football jobs like Bill Belichick and how they did

Signs point to the University of North Carolina landing a new football coach. It's a guy who hasn't participated in the college ranks since he was playing on Saturdays at Wesleyan back in 1974.

Bill Belichick has gone on to do great things in the five decades since. He's won eight Super Bowls, including six as a head coach for the New England Patriots. He helped turn a sixth round draft pick into the greatest player in NFL history. But if the Tar Heels offer him a head coaching job, he'll be stepping into unfamiliar territory.

While Belichick may have a unique path to navigate, he'll be able to find comfort knowing several other coaches have swapped out free agency for recruiting with marked success. Pete Carroll, Nick Saban and Dennis Erickson all won national titles after leaving NFL sidelines. UNC shouldn't pop its champagne just yet, however -- mediocrity and failure have been a calling card for a handful of play-callers who dropped down a level as well.

There have been several coaches who went from top jobs on Sundays to recruiting high school stars for Saturdays. Let's talk about 17 of the most notable ones.

1. Pete Carroll

NCAA record: 97–19 at Southern California, two national titles, seven Pac-10 titles

NFL record: 181–131–1, one Super Bowl win

Carroll is the gold standard; a coach who was completely fine as Belichick's predecessor in New England (27-21) who went on to restore USC to glory in nine years on the job. He skedaddled before NCAA sanctions hit the Trojans, leading the Seattle Seahawks to their first Super Bowl win in 2013.

2. Bobby Petrino

NCAA record: 137–71, two conference championships

NFL record: 3-10

Petrino turned Louisville into a perennial interloper in the AP top 10 in four seasons with the Cardinals. That led to a disastrous tenure with the Atlanta Falcons, wherein he resigned via hastily typed notes that were taped to each of his players' lockers after 13 games. He returned to the college ranks soon after.

3. Jim Harbaugh

NCAA record: 133–52, five conference championships, one national championship

NFL record: 57–26–1 (as of Dec. 11, 2024)

Harbaugh was a successful college coach when the San Francisco 49ers hired him from nearby(ish) Stanford. He went 44-19-1 with the Niners, leading the franchise to a Super Bowl in the process but fell out with team owner Jed York after an 8-8 2014 campaign. That led him to his alma mater, where he rebuilt Michigan into a national powerhouse and claimed the program's first national title since 1997 last winter.

4. Jerry Glanville

NCAA record: 60–69

NFL record: 9–24

The man in black guided the Atlanta Falcons to modest success but was unable to turn around I-AA (now FCS) Portland State. The Vikings never won more than four games in any of his three seasons at the helm.

5. Lane Kiffin

NCAA record: 104–52 (as of Dec. 11, 2024)

NFL record: 5–15

Kiffin was a hot name amongst college assistants as a rising star at USC when the Oakland Raiders came calling in 2007. He lasted less than two seasons with the franchise, then was hired by the Tennessee Volunteers, left them to return to the Trojans to take over for a departing Carroll and lasted four seasons in Southern California before getting infamously fired on the tarmac after a 62-41 loss to Arizona State. He's since rebuilt his value following stops at Florida Atlantic and, currently, Ole Miss.

6. Nick Saban

NCAA record: 292–71–1, seven national championships, 12 conference championships

NFL record: 15–17

Lou Saban, who is not related, bounced between the NFL and NCAA throughout a storied career, racking up at least 60 wins at each level. Nick lacked the pro success of his similarly named compatriot, winning only 15 games in two seasons with the Miami Dolphins. That led him to the University of Alabama, where he restored a program that had known occasional success since Bear Bryant's departure and turned it into a true powerhouse.

7. Steve Spurrier

NCAA record: 228–89–2, one national championship, seven conference championships

NFL record: 12–20

The Head Ball Coach failed to bring the Fun-n-Gun offense to Washington, but was able to lead South Carolina to success after returning to the college ranks. While he was unable to duplicate the success he'd had at SEC rival Florida, he still won 86 games in 11 seasons in Columbia -- including back-to-back-to-back 11-win campaigns between 2011 and 2013

8. Bill O'Brien

NCAA record: 22–14 (as of Dec. 11, 2024)

NFL record: 52-48

O'Brien parlayed two good years with a post-sanctions Penn State program reeling from the fallout of Jerry Sandusky's molestation scandal and turned that into the most prosperous stretch of Houston Texans football to date. He was undone in later years by his general manager, who was also Bill O'Brien, and returned to the college ranks at Boston College in 2024. The Eagles went 7-5 in his first season as head coach.

9. Jim L. Mora

NCAA record: 63–50 (as of Dec. 11, 2024)

NFL record: 31-33

Mora rose up through the coaching ranks to spend four seasons with the Falcons and Seahawks, making the postseason in his Atlanta debut and even advancing to the NFC title game in the process. Diminishing returns followed, which led him back to the college ranks. He had three 10-win seasons in six years at UCLA, but his greatest accomplishment may be getting a moribund UConn team to bowl eligibility twice in his first three seasons at the school.

10. Chip Kelly

NCAA record: 81-41, three conference championships (all before leaving for the NFL)

NFL record: 28–35

Like Mora, Kelly went from a frustrating finish to his NFL career to a gig at UCLA. Unlike Mora, he mostly failed to escape mediocrity. After 46 wins in four seasons at Oregon he had only 35 across six seasons with the Bruins -- though that included three years with at least eight victories each to wrap up his UCLA career.

11. Lou Holtz

NCAA record: 249–132–7, one national championship, four conference championships

NFL record: 3-10

Before he was a national champion and waaaaay before he was Ryan Day's arch enemy, Holtz turned jobs at William & Mary and North Carolina State into a single, awful season leading the New York Jets. This failed to diminish his demand at the college level, where he spent the next three decades at three Power 5 schools and Notre Dame.

12. Dennis Erickson

NCAA record: 179–96–1, two national championships, six conference championships

NFL record: 40–56

Erickson was a head coach at either the NFL or NCAA levels for nearly three straight decades between 1982 and 2011, stopping at Idaho, Miami, Wyoming, Oregon State and Arizona State at the college level. He also helmed the Seahawks and 49ers. He won two national titles but failed to make the playoffs in any of his six seasons as a pro.

13. Lovie Smith

NCAA record:17–39

NFL record: 92–100–1

Smith was the head coach behind some of the best years of the Chicago Bears' recent history in his nine years on the sideline. He went 81-63 in the regular season and even brought the team to the Super Bowl in 2006. He followed that with two uninspiring years with the Buccaneers. His firing led him to a faded Illinois program, where he won only 17 games in four-plus seasons (but did bring the program to the RedBox Bowl, so...)

14. Herm Edwards

NCAA record: 18-20

NFL record: 56–78

Edwards was an NFL coach from 2001-2008, scraping the non-dizzying heights of "kinda good" (10-win seasons with the Jets) and falling to the depths of the league (a two-win 2008 with the Chiefs). A decade after his last full-time coaching gig, Arizona State brought him out of mothballs. He enjoyed some modest success with the Sun Devils before everything fell apart and he was fired in 2022.

15. Dave Wannstedt

NCAA record: 43-32

NFL record: 84–90

Wannstedt was a perfectly cromulent NFL head coach who was never truly great and rarely terrible. His experience led him back to his alma mater (and an NFL stadium) at Pittsburgh, where he was blandly solid across six seasons.

16. Bill Callahan

NCAA record: 28-23

NFL record: 20–26

Callahan was pegged as Jon Gruden's replacement with the Raiders, but when an 11-5 season gave way to a 4-12 one (and after having his own players question his effort in the previous season's Super Bowl) he was fired. That led him to Nebraska, where he joined a lineage of underwhelming coaches who'd eventually be let go for merely being good in a cauldron of greatness.

17. Matt Rhule

NCAA record: 58-56 (as of Dec. 11, 2024)

NFL record: 11-27

Rhule's reputation as a builder led him to Carolina, where he struggled to mold the Panthers into something greater than the sum of its parts. He was dismissed five games into his third season with the team and returned to the college ranks at Nebraska. He's already paying off for the Cornhuskers; his 6-6 record in 2024 marks the program's first bowl invite since 2016.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: 17 NFL head coaches who took college football jobs like Bill Belichick and how they did