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Carolina owes a debt of gratitude to Mack Brown.
The media (including yours truly) has been speculating whether the Hall of Fame football coach will retire (or be fired) after his 16th overall season at UNC. If so, it will match the same span he coached at Texas from 1998 to 2013.
Greg Barnes of Inside Carolina wrote an analytics-driven story of how five and half years into Brown’s second stint in Chapel Hill the Tar Heels find themselves “mired in mediocrity.”
Emma Moon of the Daily Tar Heel predicts “The Mack Brown 2.0 Era is over” and asks “was it really ever an improvement” from his predecessor Larry Fedora since they both own a 41-30 record through their first 71 games on the job here.
Fedora ended his stay with two seasons of disappointment, eventual anger and then apathy when the stadium cleared out as the mythical October 15 start of basketball practice approached.
Both coaches went 1-4 in bowl games, captured one ACC Coastal Division title and lost competitive championship games to league powerhouse Clemson, Fedora in 2015 and Brown in 2022. They had programs that featured high-powered offenses and dismal defenses under ever-changing coordinators.
Of Brown, Moon concludes, “has he changed anything at all?”
While IC and DTH have fact-based theories, Brown has definitely improved the program he inherited from Fedora. Yes, he won a national championship at Texas. And, no, that will never be a realistic possibility at what is known as “a basketball school.”
But if Bubba Cunningham makes a coaching change, the new guy will find a football program with higher brand recognition, greatly enhanced facilities and a tradition of selling out Kenan Stadium.
No doubt, Brown is an icon of his sport who fashions himself as a father figure to players and a mentor to young coaches. He has pushed Cunningham for at least two major renovations of the Kenan Football Center, now a showpiece. Despite lower capacity than most Power 4 stadiums, Kenan still rocks with a full house.
Winning championships is always the top priority because with that comes more money. But at UNC, selling season tickets and keeping those seats filled go a long way toward building revenue that had fallen off sharply in the Fedora era.
And if Carolina can find the right young coach who won’t have the same pizzazz, he will still have plenty to work with that can be credited to Brown’s natural marketing ability.
When Mack was hired back in late 2018, a long-time member of the athletic department was asked about Brown, then 67, coming back. “I think it’s great,” he said, “but is there a succession plan?”
Not so far, although this time it will be a much more coveted job, thanks to Mack Brown coming back and doing more good things than bad.
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
