Roy Williams: 'There's Some Excitement Around North Carolina Football Right Now'

Roy Williams admits that, despite being two of the most famous people on UNC’s campus, he and Mack Brown have not interacted much since Brown arrived on campus.

“I haven’t spent very much time with him,” Williams said during his weekly radio show. “I saw him the night before the press conference, and I went to the press conference, and he met the coaches that morning, but our paths have crossed a little bit since then, but he’s been a little busy and so have I. That’s one thing that we both understand.”

UNC held the introductory press conference for Brown, who was returning for his second tenure in Chapel Hill, on November 27. The next day, Williams and the basketball team traveled to Ann Arbor to play Michigan and Brown began assembling his coaching staff.

Since then, Carolina has dived into the heart of conference play on the basketball court while Brown has traveled across the state to start developing relationships with high school coaches while filling out the remaining spots on his first recruiting class.

First Head Coaches meeting in the books ✅#MackIsBack pic.twitter.com/xrC6fxCPRz

— Carolina Football (@TarHeelFootball) November 27, 2018

“There’s some excitement around North Carolina football right now,” Williams said.

Of course, this is not the first time that the two legendary coaches have worked in Chapel Hill together.

In 1988, Brown began his first season as UNC’s football coach while Williams was on Dean Smith’s staff with the basketball team. Williams would leave Carolina later that year to become Kansas’ head coach, but said that he and Brown formed a strong relationship in those brief months.

“I think he was hired in December 100 years ago,” Williams said jokingly. “And I stayed until July and that’s when I left and went to Kansas as a head coach. So we had a few months together, a few Rams Club stops together and he would always like to ride with me because I could sneak out the back door and drive faster than anybody else.”

The two coaches stayed in contact even after Brown left UNC for Texas. Williams said he reached out to Brown before the 2005 college football national championship to wish him luck and Brown returned the favor later that year.

“I called him that day and wished him good luck. Thankfully later that year, he called me the day of the national championship and wished me good luck. He’s been a good friend for a long time.”

Both coaches would win their first national titles in their respective sports that year, with Brown’s Longhorns defeating USC in the legendary 2005 Rose Bowl while Williams’ Tar Heels beat Illinois on the basketball court.

Featured image via @TarHeelFootball

Roy Williams: ‘There’s Some Excitement Around North Carolina Football Right Now’

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