Mack Brown hopes that smaller is better — or at least just as good.
My new nickname for Carolina’s football stadium is “Kozy Kenan.” As practice begins this week just up Ridge Road, Kenan is more pristine than ever awaiting the first home crowd for the Miami game on September 7, after periodic practices there by the Tar Heels.
With stark silver benches replaced by new chairback blue seats, capacity has been reduced to just north of 50,000. Kenan, which had been getting bigger over the years, is now among smaller stadiums in the ACC and Power 5 football. But hopefully still as loud with a full house.
The $2 million synthetic turf is down with hundreds of thousands of tiny rubber pellets settling between the green fibers. The new field only has to be watered if it gets too hot before games, never has to be mowed or painted. Supposedly, it will look afterward just as it did before kickoff, nary a divot made by colliding opponents. Because it’s fake grass, supposedly faster and safer for the players.

The new “sleep pods” at Kenan (photo by Dakota Moyer)
Brown also debuted the reboot to the field house he built before leaving for Texas in 1997. The players lounge on the fourth floor has new everything: carpets picked out by the captains and coach’s wife to new couches, two pop-a-shots, video games, pool tables and something called sleep pods — two space-age lounge chairs that massages players, play music for them and let them rest and recover after hard days on the field.
The locker room, which cost $5 million, is spectacular in its new furnishings, with color photos of each Tar Heel above his locker, every compartment cooled to dry off shoulder pads, helmets, gloves and sweat-soaked under clothes. The digs have blue dimmed lighting and music coming from on top to comfort the troops before and after doing battle. Apparently, current and future Heels are wowed.
Asked how his less-than-spacious new locker room stacks up against the competition, Brown says “average size” but only a fraction of Clemson, the new Godzilla of college football. Mack hopes his kids feel more appreciative than entitled and play their butts off while more space is arranged for expansion in a few years.
Brown is happy to be back in coaching, another new knee letting him bound down stairs with no pain. Everything in Kozy Kenan looks really good. Hopefully, the team performance follows suit.
(featured photo by Dakota Moyer)
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