The offseason is a time where football players get treatment and heal from injuries sustained during the grueling regular season. That includes UNC football coach Mack Brown, who underwent successful knee replacement surgery earlier this week.

The procedure was performed by Dr. Michael Bolognesi, who played football for UNC under Brown from 1989-93.

“The surgery went really well with no issues or complications and he’ll begin a standard rehabilitation program in Chapel Hill immediately,” said Bolognesi in a statement released by the university. “We don’t expect there to be any need to alter his summer schedule as it relates to team and football operations.”

Brown is expected to be back at work later today.

“First off, how cool is it that one of our former players replaced my knee yesterday,” Brown stated. “We talk about building young men so they can be productive husbands, fathers and citizens. Carolina produces a lot of special people and I’m happy we were able to play a small part in Mike’s development because we counted on him and he, along with the rest of the surgical and anesthetic team, did a tremendous job.

“We had been planning to have this procedure done in February, but after accepting the job here at Carolina that obviously wasn’t going to be possible. We did want to get it taken care of and this window on the calendar made the most sense. I don’t expect this to slow me down at all.”

Here’s hoping Brown didn’t make Dr. Bolognesi run too many sprints one day at practice or Brown’s recovery might take longer than expected.

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