Mack Brown is overdue to get his first win ever over Florida State.
Perhaps the only glaring blemish on the record of the nation’s winningest active college football coach is 0-9 against Florida State. And while that looks bad, here are the mitigating circumstances.
When Brown was the head coach at Tulane in the 1980s, he lost three games to the Seminoles right in the throes of Bobby Bowden building a national powerhouse that resulted in finishing ranked in the top four for 14 straight seasons. Mack’s Green Wave was out of its league.
Then Brown leaves New Orleans for Chapel Hill and almost-unbeatable Florida State is a member of the ACC. Six straight losses to the ‘Noles ensued, but while they were all double-digit defeats in the last two the ‘Noles scored 13 and 20 points, respectively, the fewest they in those seasons.
Brown was long gone to Texas, where his Longhorns never played Florida State, by the time John Bunting’s first UNC team stunned Bowden’s boys during the 9/11 September to remember. The Seminoles won the next four over Carolina before the Butch Davis and Larry Fedora Tar Heels beat Jimbo Fisher’s FSU teams in Tallahassee by exact 37-35 scores six years apart.
Since Fisher departed for Texas A&M after the 2017 season, the Seminoles have struggled to regain their prominence. Despite looking better in a loss at Notre Dame and installing a talented young quarterback, 1-3 FSU is still a 10-point underdog picked to lose its third straight meeting with Carolina at home.
With the No. 5 team in the country behind a powerful offense, and the Seminoles missing one of their best-skilled players, Brown’s team could get its coach a first career win over his alma mater, where Mack was a reserve running back for two years in the 1970s before launching his coaching career.
However, he said himself that this will be the best team his Heels have played so far after beating Syracuse, Boston College and depleted Virginia Tech last week. With a loud crowd in the stands, they probably have to play their best game to do it for him.
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