Just because UNC had to move on from Mack Brown doesn’t make it any easier

Just because it had to be done doesn’t make it any easier.

So much of Mack Brown’s identity was tied up with being the football coach at North Carolina. It’s partly why he came back. It’s a big part of why he didn’t want to leave. But everyone but him could see it was time for a change.

It was impossible to look at the Tar Heels this season and see a program on the verge of a breakthrough. The losses to James Madison and Boston College alone were fireable offenses. For everything Brown did for the program, for everything he did to restore its legitimacy and luster after the comedic excesses of his predecessor, there was still a cold, hard decision to be made about where the program was headed.

Brown came back for this season to show, at age 73, he was still the right man for the job. In some ways, he turned out to be. There was no better coach to lead the Tar Heels through the loss of teammate Tylee Craft, an unwelcome assignment Brown handled with grace and humanity. Unfortunately, there’s more to it than that, and too often even Brown looked baffled on the sideline at the way things were going sideways.

The failure to win more than Brown did during his second stint at UNC with two elite quarterbacks will be a matter for debate long after he’s gone. The persistent inability to put together a functional defense predates Brown and may very well succeed him; at this point, it’s clearly buried deep in UNC’s DNA.

The next coach will have to confront that, but he will also benefit from the foundation Brown rebuilt in his return, a program on solid footing, its reputation restored. No matter the results this season, that remains true. Brown did what he came back to do: He built a team that played for an ACC championship and left the program far better than he found it.

It’s possible his replacement won’t do any better. It’s a fair question whether any of the Triangle teams are set up to truly compete in college football, scrabbling over the same in-state recruits, in the shadow of Clemson and South Carolina and Tennessee, always with an eye to basketball season. Forget about national relevance and the College Football Playoff; it’s been 35 years since a local team could claim even a share of the ACC title, and another decade past that for UNC and N.C. State. Eight ACC teams have won championships in the interim.

Brown came close, twice. But the man who won a national title at Texas couldn’t overcome those headwinds here, before or after.

So this is how it ends, in one last rivalry game at Kenan Stadium, where one hopes the closure of his departure will replace whatever restlessness might have settled over the crowd Saturday with appreciation for Brown’s efforts and career.

There’s a delicious bit of circumstance in the timing. The man who basically invented the concept of a state college-football championship in North Carolina will coach his final home game in Chapel Hill with a chance to deny five-win N.C. State the opportunity to play in a bowl game. The stakes of whatever backwater bowl game the Tar Heels end up in will be paltry compared to that.

This final season may not have been what anyone, Brown especially, wanted. His forced departure may have been turbulent. But it still, nevertheless, offers the possibility of a poetic exit.

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This story was originally published November 26, 2024 at 11:35 AM with the headline "Just because UNC had to move on from Mack Brown doesn’t make it any easier."

Luke DeCock

The News & Observer

Luke DeCock is a former journalist for the News & Observer.