Bill Belichick says the edge at North Carolina can start in the lunch room. The Tar Heels' head coach and chef Joshua Grimes spoke to Digital about a nutrition setup built to help players eat better, recover faster and stay fueled in ways that fit each body.
That approach shows up in the details. UNC staff chops vegetables into micro pieces so players will eat them, sneaks extra grains and vitamins into the batter used to fry chicken and tailors nutrition, hydration and training to each athlete's biology. Public records show the team spent $129,644.38 at vendors classified as fast food or fast casual during the 2025 season, and head nutritionist Amber Rinestine-Ressa said there was a scientific method behind those transactions.
Grimes knows the model from the other side of the table. He served as the New England Patriots executive chef under Belichick from 2018 to 2024, and Belichick said the nutrition plan at North Carolina was recalibrated last year after he and Grimes arrived in Chapel Hill. Belichick tied the work to the same ideas that shaped his NFL teams, saying good nutrition, good hydration, pliability in the muscle tissues and related work are fundamentally good things that Tom Brady worked with and that the program now embraces.
He also cast the program as more than a cafeteria strategy. Belichick said NFL performance depends on preparation, training, nutrition, hydration, technique and fundamentals, and that everything that feeds performance matters. Rinestine-Ressa said she has to adjust to each player if they are not going to change for her, adding that the team does not live in a perfect world and needs some leniency to create buy-in. She said about 80% of the diet is made up of great food for the players.
The one place UNC does not always get to choose is on the road. When access to other food is limited, the team sometimes relies on fast food away from home, a practical compromise that sits alongside the more controlled work back in Chapel Hill. The tension in the program is plain: an NFL-style nutrition plan is built on precision, but college football still forces a team to eat in the real world.
For Belichick, that is the point. The plan is meant to turn food into another edge, one more place where preparation can separate a team from the opponent.
