{"id":633192,"date":"2026-05-09T16:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T16:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/633192\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T16:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T16:55:07","slug":"bill-belichick-cant-or-wont-put-an-end-to-a-rash-of-player-driving-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/633192\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Belichick can’t, or won’t, put an end to a rash of player driving violations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Under coach Bill Belichick, the North Carolina Tar Heels are struggling to win on the field. Off the field, the players have caused ongoing concern regarding the manner in which they drive, and park, their NIL-financed vehicles.<\/p>\n

A new report from WRAL<\/a> looks at the various issues related to speeding, reckless driving, and parking in places where they shouldn\u2019t be parking (such as spots reserved for people with disabilities).<\/p>\n

Pushing the matter internally is professor Mark Peifer, who has been peppering North Carolina Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham with complaints about the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there no one who can rein in these players, probably only a subset of the football team, who are tarnishing the reputation of our school and of all Carolina athletes?\u201d Peifer wrote in a recent email to Cunningham, per the WRAL report.<\/p>\n

Cunningham told Peifer in an April 2026 email, \u201cI don\u2019t know how many more times I can apologize. Disappointing to say the least<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

One player, per the report, has been cited four times for speeding and two times for reckless driving since arriving at the Chapel Hill campus in January 2026. Another player has received three citations since February; on one occasion, he was allegedly driving in excess of 100 miles per hour.<\/p>\n

Belichick was asked about the situation by WRAL in November 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur conduct outside of the building, outside of the program, is important to us, and we stress that<\/a>,\u201d Belichick said at the time. \u201cWe\u2019ve addressed multiple things, not just that. There are other things that go on, besides driving, that we\u2019ve talked about absolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talking apparently hasn\u2019t solved the problem. And Peifer now believes Cunningham has no power to fix it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought [Cunningham] actually was probably right up there with the chancellor and running the university, but I found out when I wrote to him that he doesn\u2019t have any control over the football program anymore,\u201d Peifer told WRAL. \u201cHe clearly was frustrated and ultimately angry about this behavior and didn\u2019t seem to be able to change it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Behavior won\u2019t change without consequences. And while Belichick has a well-earned reputation when it comes to imposing consequences for behaviors that directly impact the goal of winning games, the fact that this specific problem persists shows that Belichick can\u2019t, or won\u2019t, demand compliance.<\/p>\n

And, yes, issues like this aren\u2019t uncommon from the football players on college campuses. For Belichick, who is facing increased pressure after a grossly subpar debut season, the issue gives local media outlets (like WRAL) an obvious way to point to flaws in the program unrelated to not winning enough games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under coach Bill Belichick, the North Carolina Tar Heels are struggling to win on the field. Off the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-633192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}