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After a tough loss, Mack Brown was actually at his best.
The attending media knows that when it shows up every Monday morning during the football season, Brown is going to get their attention. But it’s not always a coherent experience with the Tar Heels’ head man, who sometimes speaks in the form of coaching gibberish.
This week, 36 hours after a second-half loss at Clemson, Brown was candid, informative and somewhat philosophical about the progress of his team, the upcoming N.C. State game and rumors that he is retiring. Here are a few examples:
Of the 31-20 defeat in Death Valley, Brown said his team’s chances sank when Omarion Hampton lost his first two fumbles of the season trying to get into the Clemson end zone.
Brown said teams don’t win at Clemson unless they take advantage of “those opportunities to be up 21-0 and change the whole narrative of the game. It changes who they are. They have to get away from their running game and start throwing the ball a lot more. They have lost three home games since 2014, and we had a chance.”
He wanted to be aggressive, which meant going for it on fourth down near midfield and later trying a 2-point conversion trailing by 11 points after their third and last touchdown of the night. Trying to win without going into overtime, it ended up a meaningless call when Clemson stopped the Heels on their last two possessions.
“Analytics is a hundred percent that if you’re down by 10 points late, you should go for two,” Brown said. “If we’d made it, there would be no discussion. It would’ve been how aggressive we were and how positive it was.”
Brown turned to State and the regular-season finale Saturday night. He did not talk about possibly losing a fourth game late in the season to finish 8-4 after a 6-0 start. He knows how that will play after the skid to 9-5 last year.
“I’m a Brennan Armstrong fan,” he said of the Wolfpack’s transfer quarterback. “He threw for 500 yards over here two years ago [for Virginia]. He is tough as nails. It’s senior night, we’ll have another tremendous crowd over there. We’ve got our hands full this weekend against a really good team.”
Brown’s almost melancholy demeanor might be a sign social media reports are true that he is retiring after this season. He referred questions to media director Jeremy Sharpe, who released a statement denying the posts.
“Let’s say something, kibosh it and move on,” Brown told Sharpe.
“If I was gonna quit, I wouldn’t go to Clemson,” he told us, “I’d be in the mountains.”
Featured image via Associated Press/Jacob Kupferman
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Analytics say if “you’re down by 10 points late in a game , you go for 2…” How true that is. Common sense says the same thing! But UNC was down 11 points, and going for 2 (and WASTING A TIMEOUT) was stupid. Quit the analytics crap and use common sense! It looks like the Rams Club chieftains would look back on all the money they’ve poured into the football program and say, “That’s all I can stands ‘cause I can’t stands no more!” Or if not something so clever, at least, “It’s time to move on from a Hall Of Fame Coach to a sub-standard coach. We need to be fair and give other teams a chance.” Or if not something that clever, “Let’s hit the road, Mack…”
And for everyone who thinks our program will take a step back, assistant coaches will leave, players will transfer, recruits will decommit, etc, if Mack ever does leave, I don’t doubt that at all. But I like our chances of recovering fairly quickly, and we might not lose late season games every year against first year coaches with 3rd string quarterbacks! And maybe, just maybe, Taylor Swift might come watch a game and become a Tarheel fan!