Holding Court: While Brown Should Be Celebrated, His UNC Future Had Become Alarming

 

 

While Brown Should Be Celebrated, His UNC Future Had Become Alarming

By David Glenn

 

When looking back, it’s easy to conclude that Hall of Fame coach Mack Brown deserved more time as the leader of North Carolina’s football program.

When looking ahead, though, it gradually became almost impossible to reach that same conclusion.

UNC fired Brown, who will turn 74 years old next summer, on Tuesday, one day after the coach said he intended to coach the Tar Heels in 2025.

“Mack Brown has won more games than any football coach in UNC history, and we deeply appreciate all that he has done for Carolina football and our University,’’ UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham said in a statement. “Over the last six seasons – his second campaign in Chapel Hill — he has coached our team to six bowl berths, including an Orange Bowl, while mentoring 18 NFL draft picks. …

“Coach Brown has led the Carolina football program back into the national conversation as we improved the program’s facilities, significantly increased the size of the staff, invested in salaries and bolstered our nutrition and strength and conditioning programs. He also has been a dedicated fundraiser, strengthening the football endowment while also supporting our other sports programs.

“We thank Coach Brown for his dedication to Carolina, and wish him, Sally and their family all the best.”

During Brown’s first tenure (1988-97) in Chapel Hill, he orchestrated perhaps the greatest stretch in UNC football history. While the Tar Heels fell short of the ACC title, mainly because their peak overlapped with legendary coach Bobby Bowden’s dynasty at Florida State, they reached many other rare or even unprecedented program milestones.

Brown’s 1997 team, which finished 11-1 and ranked #4 in the coaches’ poll, may have been the best in school history. Carolina massacred most of its opponents, with nine victories coming by double digits. The only UNC football team ever to end up with a higher national ranking, the 1948 Tar Heels (9-1-1 under coach Carl Snavely), finished #3 nationally based on their 9-0-1 regular-season record. Back then, there was no poll after the bowl games, and the Heels likely would have dropped at least a few notches after their 14-6 Sugar Bowl loss to Oklahoma.

From 1990-97, Brown posted eight consecutive winning seasons in Chapel Hill, capped by national top-10 finishes in 1996 (10-2) and 1997 (11-1). The only other time in UNC football history that the Tar Heels had that sort of success streak came in the primitive days of the college game, when — under five different head coaches! — they had nine straight winning campaigns from 1897-1905.

During Brown’s current tenure (2019-24), he stabilized and energized a program that had finished 3-9 and 2-9 in the final two seasons of the Larry Fedora era.

The Tar Heels will end this season by playing in their sixth consecutive bowl game. In 2020, they played in the Orange Bowl for the first time in program history and (at 8-4) finished in the national Top 25 for just the second time in the past 27 years. In 2022, they went 9-5 and played in the ACC championship game for just the second time in program history.

Just as he had done in the 1990s, Brown also changed the way prospects viewed UNC football during his second tenure in Chapel Hill.

Sam Howell and Drake Maye were two of the top quarterback prospects ever produced by the North Carolina high school ranks. Howell originally committed to play at Florida State. Maye originally committed to play at Alabama. Thanks mainly to Brown, both Howell and Maye ultimately signed instead with the Tar Heels. After their brilliant, record-setting careers in Chapel Hill, they now rank as two of the top National Football League quarterbacks ever produced by Carolina.

All of these things were spectacular accomplishments by Brown, especially given the modern state of UNC football, which hasn’t claimed a single ACC championship since 1980. Since 1982, the Tar Heels have finished in the national Top 25 only seven times; six of those teams were coached by Brown.

Lately, though, UNC football has seemed stuck in merely an above-average state, and perhaps trending toward true mediocrity … or worse.

When you round the numbers, Brown’s average record during his second UNC tenure is roughly 7-5. While the Tar Heels have played in five straight bowl games, they have lost the last four, most recently a 30-10 embarrassment against West Virginia in the 2023 Duke’s Mayo Bowl. Their extremely promising 2022 and 2023 campaigns crashed back to earth with demoralizing late-season slides. They have lost three straight games to archival NC State.

Perhaps most alarmingly, Brown also seems to have lost his touch on the recruiting trail. An impressive run of six straight bowl games would be viewed more optimistically if the next generation of special talents were on their way to Chapel Hill, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Among current high school seniors, whose first opportunity to sign with their college choice comes next week (Dec. 4-6), only one of the 20 top-ranked prospects in North Carolina has committed to Brown and the Tar Heels. When it comes to in-state recruiting, that’s about as bad a performance by UNC as anything seen since the 1980s.

Overall, according to 247Sports, UNC’s 2025 recruiting class currently ranks 77th nationally. Under Brown, the Tar Heels finished 14th in those rankings in 2020, 14th in 2021, 11th in 2022, 31st in 2023 and 26th in 2024. Even given the hit-or-miss nature of football recruiting rankings, especially when compared to (much more reliable) basketball recruiting rankings, that’s an extremely alarming slide.

Similarly, Carolina’s recruiting of the transfer portal has trended downward.

Prior to the 2023 season, Brown found a plethora of high-impact players in the portal, including offensive guard Willie Lampkin (Coastal Carolina), cornerback Alijah Huzzie (East Tennessee State), wide receiver Tez Walker (Kent State), cornerback Armani Chatman (Virginia Tech), defensive end Amari Gainer (Florida State), free safety Antavious Lane (Georgia State) and wide receiver Nate McCollum (Georgia Tech). All became regular starters for the Tar Heels, and Lampkin, Huzzie and Walker became stars. Walker and Gainer are in the NFL.

Prior to the 2024 season, though, Carolina mostly whiffed in the portal, while Miami, SMU, Duke, Syracuse, Louisville, Pittsburgh, NC State and other ACC teams were finding some of the best players on their team. Only four new transfers have become regular starters for the Tar Heels this season: Jacolby Criswell (Arkansas via UNC), left tackle Howard Sampson (North Texas), center Austin Blaske (Georgia) and strong safety Jakeen Harris (NC State). While they all have had good moments this fall, none is considered a realistic All-ACC candidate.

Looking further ahead, some of the top high school juniors in North Carolina already have announced their college commitments, and none picked the Tar Heels. Their choices were Tennessee, Notre Dame, Texas A&M and Miami, all schools that are currently ranked in the national Top 25.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, UNC fans should be thankful for Brown’s legendary contributions to UNC football, both in the 1990s and over these past six years.

Any hopes for a Happy New Year in 2025 under Brown, though, have become much more difficult to believe.

The present of UNC football is mediocre. The future of UNC football has become alarming. That’s why now was the right time for a change.

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David Glenn (DavidGlennShow.com, @DavidGlennShow) is an award-winning author, broadcaster, editor, entrepreneur, publisher, speaker, writer and university lecturer (now at UNC Wilmington) who has covered sports in North Carolina since 1987.

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