Editor's Note: We learned late Tuesday night that defensive end Beau Atkinson and defensive back Zion Ferguson are entering the portal.

CHAPEL HILL – When Bill Belichick and Michael Lombardi assumed their roles atop North Carolina’s football program in December, the transfer portal was open and chaos had already ensued.

They managed to bring in 18 players, including 10 from Power 4 conferences. But others came from schools like Troy, Rice, Prairie View, and Holy Cross. They had a plan and attacked it right away but it was still more a partial plan given time constraints.

With the spring transfer portal opening Wednesday, Belichick, Lombardi, and their massive staff are well ahead of where they were in December and ready to find some more new Tar Heels.

“I think every time you can acquire more talent, it’s an important window,” Lombardi said in a press conference before spring practice started. “I think we have obviously more time to prepare for it because we wouldn’t have just gotten thrown right into it. I think a lot of scouting is preparation.

“We won’t know the names who are in the portal, but we’ll have a better idea about what it takes to be in the portal and who could possibly enter, and then have an ability to evaluate them.”

So, when the names begin appearing in the portal, the Carolina staff won’t have to thumb through a mountain of paper work, so to speak, and film. In most cases, they will be on top of it.

“The way you want to run a program isn’t to be reactive,” said Lombardi, UNC’s general manager. “Al Davis used to say this all the time, to me — the secret to any great organization lies in the ability to anticipate problems, not react. I think when we got in here, we were reacting to the portal, and now we can anticipate the portal, which certainly will help us.”

This will not only be Lombardi’s first spring portal ever, as he’d been in the NFL for the previous 40 years. The Tar Heels’ head man owns eight Super Bowl rings, six as a head coach. But this is Belichick’s first stint in the college game.

In addition to scouring the nation, they have been scouting their own team since early March when spring practice started. It concluded this past Saturday and the likelihood that a healthy handful of UNC players will enter the portal is strong.

Some will move on because they aren’t happy for a variety of reasons, including how challenging Belichick has made the process, but also some players will be nudged out by the staff. It used to happen quietly behind the scenes, now it’s a bit more in the open.

As a result, that means those players must be replenished on the roster with the intent of upgrading.

Belichick has said multiple times in his limited media availability since being hired he wants to build the program and each team from within; inward-out. Meaning, he wants to load up on offensive and defensive linemen. A program can really never have too many.

Of the 18 players brought in from the portal in the winter, eight were linemen: five offensive and three defensive. Expect more activity there starting Wednesday, especially on the defensive side of the ball.

While there wasn’t much media availability this spring, and nothing from the program about position groups, it appears the defensive front needs the most attention, especially the interior. Expect UNC to add a few defensive linemen, likely interior players, but also some more offensive linemen, a linebacker, a running back, and a quarterback.

Only three scholarship quarterbacks were on the roster this spring, and just two participated in anything competitive.

Max Johnson was lost for the season in the opener last August at Minnesota and has still not been fully cleared. He appears well away from getting the green light. Ryan Browne, a transfer who started two games at Purdue last season, and true freshman and early enrollee Bryce Baker are the other two.

Freshman Au’Tori Newkirk arrives in June, but it’s hard to imagine UNC moving forward with three quarterbacks with very little combined experience and two of them true freshmen.

This isn’t suggesting the staff won’t bring in players from other positions, but the groups already noted will be the main focal points.

The portal window closes April 30, so this will be much more of a spring than the December period was, and with it will be departures and arrives of former and new Tar Heels.