Mack Brown was fired as North Carolina’s head football Wednesday. And with the ouster, also came another sign of the passing of the guard in college football. But perhaps the biggest thing that came from the firing was that it didn’t need to be like this.
The Brown Record
Brown has a career record of 288-154-1 in 41 years of coaching. This was his second sting at North Carolina. He was 44-32 since 2019 in Chapel Hill. Brown previously spent 10 years at UNC from 1988 to 1997. He was 69-46-1, including 20-3 in his final two seasons before taking over at Texas. In Austin, over 16 years he was 158-48 including a national championship.
When he came back to North Carolina it was to resurrect a program that he had left in good shape and which had been summarily taken down several steps in his absence, particularly by Larry Fedore just before Brown’s return.
There were five bowl games in Brown’s second term. The sixth will come this December. Whether he coaches in it or not is still to be determined. He will be leading the Tar Heels in their season finale this weekend against North Carolina State. They were 1-4 in the previous postseason play.
A Rocky 2024
But this season was too turbulent for some to handle. The Tar Heels started 3-0. But then a 70-50 loss (yes in football) to James Madison set a roller coaster tone. They lost ensuing games to Duke, Pitt, and Georgia Tech. They currently sit at 6-5 overall, but 3-4 in ACC play and sit in the bottom half of the conference.
Brown had impetuous comments about whether it was time to leave. It was easily assumed that the 73-yeard old Brown would call it a career at the end of the season. But a week ago, when he indicated that he intended to come back, it set off alarms in the UNC booster community. Insiders at UNC say athletic director Bubba Cunningham really had no choice but to make the move if he wanted the continued flow of booster money.
A Legacy That Is Bigger Than the Numbers
But with the move comes a generational change. Brown is referred to here by his last name because it is journalistically correct. But in the college football world, he is simply, “Mack.” As an elder statesman in the game, he was sought for comments when it came to the monumental changes in the game in recent years.
He was outwardly in favor of players getting money but hated the system in which it was happening. He was in favor of players having some level of freedom of movement. But he was very outspoken when it came to allegations of schools tampering with his players to get them to go into the transfer portal.
He was equal parts pro-athlete and pro-protecting the game in which they played. But a comment about Brown that has cut through all the pontificating about what happened at UNC and why is this; “I think he is good for college football.”
That came from Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson on Tuesday. It was the second time in as many weeks that he had made such a comment. The previous time was his weekly press conference prior to the game against UNC.
Clawson had a connection with Brown over the years. Both are widely known throughout the game for their willingness to address college football’s big-picture issues. “We kind of came at things from the same standpoint,” Clawson said Tuesday. “We developed a friendship.”
A New World Order
Coupled with the news out of Salt Lake City on Tuesday that Utah coach Kyle Whittingham is going to take some after the regular season ends this weekend to address what his future is, Brown’s firing portends a change in the landscape.
Clawson paused before addressing the difference in the coaching business and what made Brown good for college football. “I think there is a new generation of head coaches that have gotten into this for the money,” he said, further discussing the size of contract guarantees and buyouts. He said between that part of the profession and player movement, some coaches lean toward viewing the players in a, “Transactional way.”
“Mack genuinely cared about his players,” Clawson added. “I think at his heart when he says that what he loved about the job was sitting and having lunch with a young man and helping him through problems. I think there’s a certain percentage of head coaches nowadays that say something like that and everyone knows it’s just a line. And I think with him, that’s really the way he is wired.”
Clawson drew a distinction between younger head coaches coming up in a system that has changed dramatically over the last three years, and someone like Brown who had survived several iterations of the game. “It’s become a much more transactional profession,” he said. Clawson said when Brown got into coaching 40+ years ago, it was more about teaching than it was about the contract.
Who takes over the old-school torch while winning in the new-school world is yet to be seen.
