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No doubt about it, Mack Brown is a very fine person.
When he fired his defensive coordinator and defensive line coach this week, Brown treated it more like graduation than “get lost.” That’s a man with a great heart and a mentor to many coaches, young and old.
The release from UNC said a “national search will begin immediately to identify and select the program’s next defensive coordinator” to replace Gene Chizik, who ends his second two-year stint at UNC, the first under Larry Fedora.
Caliber of players on any team is most important, but the job of all coaches is to put them in positions to be successful. This past season started strong on defense, but eventually the Tar Heels were out-schemed and poor tackling returned.
Chizik left Chapel Hill after the 2016 season. The year before ended with the infamous bowl loss to Baylor, when the Heels gave up 645 yards rushing to a team that did not have a quarterback and used its best athletes out of the shotgun to run the ACC Coastal Division champs crazy. The next year, the Heels were a disappointing 8-5 and lost the bowl game to Stanford, which played without Christian McCaffrey.
This past season, the defense was up and down and finished 10th in the ACC in allowing points per game (27) and 12th in average yards (404), losing the last three by a combined 50 points. Here is where the personally popular Brown is being criticized by both loyal and fed-up fans after two strong starts finished with losing streaks.
We have heard him say when he fired Jay Bateman following the 2021 season that his first phone call was to Chizik, his D-coordinator at Texas when the Longhorns won the 2005 national championship. We have also heard him say Chizik had not coached in five years, the game has changed and “Gene is catching up.” Brown is honest to a fault when he says something like that.
We also know that they didn’t “agree to part ways” because the defense got worse as the season wore on. There were injuries, like most teams have, but depth is something Brown has talked up only to walk it back.
He was warmly welcomed upon returning to Carolina, where he had one of the best defenses in the country his last two seasons of Mack 1.0. His goals were winning an ACC championship and reaching the College Football Playoff. And then he talks about “fixing it” when the defense does not measure up.
Much of the alumni and fan base are in favor of Brown stepping down and becoming a champion fundraiser for the university. After all, he had NFL quarterbacks for five seasons, and while the Tar Heels could light up the scoreboard the defense allowed the game to stay close and sometimes lose.
Mack Brown is an ambassador for college football, not a tough-guy coach. He is notorious for protecting his players and being hard to work for when his staff doesn’t deliver. He takes the blame after bad losses, which have killed potentially great seasons. Things have to change, including unrealistic expectations.
Eight or nine wins at Carolina used to be enough. The stadium rocks and the games are fun. Let’s take the pressure off and be satisfied with that.
Featured image via Associated Press/Erik Verduzco
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Amazing! We continue to blame anybody and everybody but Sweet Ol’ Mack! It’s Bateman’s fault, it’s Chizik’s fault, it’s the NCSU groundskeeper’s fault, it’s the referee’s fault, it’s Jimmy Hoffa’s fault. Mack continues to get $2 million or whatever it is per year, with contract extensions, while assistants and coordinators come and go. But Mack has won LESS THAN 60 percent of his games the PAST 9 YEARS, beating the likes of Campbell, Wofford, Georgia State, and Florida A&M. We never go to a bowl game worth a crap, and when we do limp into a bowl (of Mayo), we perform up to the expectations that most of us have. And Mack still talks the “used car salesman” talk that we’re not lemons; “We’re Grrrrrrrreat!” Tony The Tiger would be proud. But we’ll get another Defensive Coordinator and he will last 2 years and 75 year-old Mack will hire another. I think we should start our own conference and invite Elon, NC A&T, Campbell, Western Carolina, Wingate, and a few community colleges to join us, and maybe Mack might just win his third conference championship. He’s ONLY WON TWO CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS in 36 years of coaching. I’m not real good at math, but I think that’s only one every 18 years or so. Amazing! If he was in the private sector (or at a university that REALLY CARES), he wouldn’t have been coaching since the 90’s….when he wasn’t that good either, but he talked the talk and was in the ACC, a basketball conference only at the time. But he is a nice guy and a great recruiter! And we don’t want to fire a nice guy. Well, Mack will, but he doesn’t have to worry about it, as everyone focuses on the defense. Question: Who “coaches” the people who coach the defense? Should that person not be held responsible and let go too? Hmm…
Take off the pressure? Accept 8 or 9 wins? Is that level of success acceptable for m&w basketball, m&w lacrosse, field hockey, m&w soccer, m&w tennis, golf, wrestling? They seem consistently to strive for more, and generally always contend for championships. Why should we expect less from football?
I could be happy as a hog in a wallow if those were quality wins and the losses weren’t to teams with less talent and our rivals. Mack conveys the soft label. He wants everyone to like him, and he, in turn, likes everyone. He told Sally that he wouldn’t take the losses so hard, if I recall.
“Much of the alumni…” Really? How do you gauge beyond anecdotal info from social media whining? Feels like advocacy for Brown to be fired. Just say it if that’s what you mean.
If by “be satisfied”, you mean watching the occasional game to pass the time until basketball season starts and then ignoring the rest of the regular season and any bowl game, then so be it. There is more fun college football to watch out there than the sporadic, lackluster effort and play of this team. I had understood the coach, the program and the school had larger aspirations, as indeed your article appears to concede. Regardless, I never thought UNC was about accepting mediocrity in any endeavor, whether that be academic, athletic, or community-based achievement. Perhaps times have changed since I graduated and left Chapel Hill in the 1990s. I certainly don’t understand other sports programs at UNC — field hockey, cross country, tennis, basketball, lacrosse, wrestling, golf — to “be satisfied” with middle- to bottom-of-the-pack seasons where no one seems to truly care about success. “Being satisfied” is not, to me, the Carolina Way.
Art, I’m happy with Mack being Mack. He’s genuine. He coaches decency to his players. I’m happy with a winning program and a decent human being coaching the team. We’re lucky to have him. Leave him be and let him coach. He’s late in the 4th quarter in football terms. I want to see him finish well.
I agree with all of the above comments, so the main question remains…..?
Why is Mack still here ???????0