Bill Belichick spent nearly five decades in the NFL. On Monday he said paying players at North Carolina is harder.

At his weekly press conference in Chapel Hill, Belichick said the biggest difference is information. In the NFL, there’s a salary cap, certified agents and a number on every contract that everybody can look up. In college, he said, that information is “more scarce.” He also said agents sometimes ask for things the rules don’t even allow.

He wouldn’t call the college system better or worse. Just different.

I’ll say it for him: he’s right, and it’s the most honest thing a head coach has said about the money all season.

Think about how this actually works right now. In the NFL, if a team pays a backup linebacker too much, every agent in the league knows by lunch. In college, an agent walks in with a number he heard from a guy, who heard it from another guy, about what some school three states over paid somebody. That’s not a market. That’s a yard sale with no price tags.

Players should get paid. That part’s settled, and good. But if Bill Belichick, the guy who built a dynasty on getting value nobody else saw, says he can’t tell what the going rate is, imagine being an athletic director at a school that didn’t hire Bill Belichick.

Meanwhile, the football: North Carolina is 4-4 and 2-3 in the ACC. The Tar Heels lost 38-35 to No. 1 Miami on Saturday, a week after losing 31-30 in overtime to Syracuse. They go to UConn on Saturday at 11 a.m. Central on CBS Sports Network. Scores and schedule are on ESPN.

Two close losses in a row. Maybe the price of a guy who can close out a game is the number he should be trying to find out.

Is college football’s pay system harder than the NFL’s, Faders, or is Belichick just used to having all the answers? Tell me on X or Instagram at @fiveandafade.

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Jeremy Durham is a sports columnist for TriStar Daily and the founder of Five and a Fade.