The Mack Brown television series resumes tomorrow.
I’m not sure UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham knew what he was getting when the conversation with Mack, the consultant, turned to Mack, the potential candidate to become the head football coach at Carolina for the second time.
Brown was working as an unpaid consultant for both Cunningham and former coach Larry Fedora as the Tar Heels sputtered along through the 2017 and 2018 seasons. Brown had kept his ties to Chapel Hill and he was a friend and mentor to Fedora.
But when the program bottomed out, Cunningham had to make a change to end the apathy that had overcome alumni and fans. When Brown said he didn’t want to take Fedora’s job, Bubba said somebody will take it because it’s coming open. Only then did Mack come back.
Cunningham knew his new coach would fire up the fan base during the off-season and that he could recruit, based on Brown’s success here and at Texas. But the fact that Mack had become an ESPN personality was a hidden benefit still paying dividends.
Coaches who last coached five years ago are long forgotten in this here-and-now society, especially for kids glued to their cellphones and the 24-hour sports cycle. So while they were barely teenagers when Brown last coached, they knew him from the guy on ESPN Game Day every Saturday. And now he was in some of their homes.
It helped Sam Howell change his mind and instead of FSU play for his home-state university. And it certainly helped in Carolina closing the No. 17 recruiting class in the country. Did anyone realize Brown would get that kind of immediate boost from a TV persona?
Maybe not. But now that he has led the Tar Heels to a bowl game for the first time since 2016, Mack has also been back on TV over the last month, whenever asked as a studio analyst or featured guest; and he’s sure to get camera time against a good 8-4 Temple team.
He’s also the reason why thousands of Tar Heels are either going to Annapolis or will make the Military Bowl appointment TV Friday at noon on Brown’s favorite network. As a lead-in to the college football Final Four Saturday, it’s the perfect place for Brown and UNC to be and, win or lose, bodes well for the future of both.
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