Mack Brown Goes Back to North Carolina Football. Why?

I promised I'd talk about 2 "new" college football coaches yesterday, and I come to you today with the second "new" one. This is now official. I saw a quick little snippet of a press conference on "PTI" last night. Mack Brown is officially back as the new head coach of North Carolina's college football team.

I had forgotten until yesterday that Brown coached there before moving on to Texas. Whenever I see Mack Brown now, I think of Texas football. And he was great there. He won a national title, was a perennial top 25 team and regularly won 9 or 10 games every year. But, much like Les Miles and Lloyd Carr, he kind of got lost in the new world of college football. He was still coaching as if he was coaching in the early 21st century. And the Texas fans and boosters got tired of it. Suddenly he couldn't beat Oklahoma, and 8 wins and a solid bowl game weren't enough. He "retired" just like Carr, but it really seemed like a forced retirement.

Texas still hasn't fully recovered since he left. I feel like they didn't give Charlie Strong a real chance, and while I know they are a top 15 team right now, it doesn't feel like the same Texas teams from the past. They are stuck in a similar limbo that Michigan is stuck in. I do think, while he is a scumbag of a human being, Tom Hermann will turn it around, but I wish it was Charlie Strong reaping the benefits instead.

Back to Brown. While I feel like he was pushed out, the time had come for him to step away. As I said, he couldn't, or wouldn't, adapt to the new world of college football. The moment Colt McCoy graduated, Brown and Texas took a step back. Now though, after 5 years away, he is back where it truly all began for him. After realizing he previously coached at UNC, I looked some stuff up. He was pretty good there. He won double digit games a few times. He had UNC in bowl games pretty much every year, and he turned it into a bigger, and higher paying, head coaching job. But, this hire feels a lot like Herm Edwards being hired by Arizona State last offseason. That hiring puzzled me. Edwards had never coached college football, and he had been away from coaching all together for a decent amount of time. He was an analyst. He worked for ESPN. The exact same things can be said about Brown. Brown was one of ESPN's main college football in studio guys. He has been away from coaching for 5 years now. I just assumed he was done and was going to continue getting paid with his cushy and easy job. But I guess the allure of coaching is too much to resist for guys like Edwards and Brown.

So Brown is now back. He is back in a power 5 conference. He is coaching a power 5 team. He will be going up against teams like Miami, FSU and Clemson every year. This all feels a lot like Miles at KU, except UNC has a slightly better upside, at least to me. UNC is a basketball school. People in Chapel Hill only really care about the college basketball team. If the football team is good, that is just an added bonus. I cannot remember the last time UNC football mattered. You may say, Mitch Turbisky played there. I say, did he ever win more than 8 games as a starter? You may say that Butch Davis had them in the top 25. I say, look at the mess he left when he was caught cheating. UNC football is just not much of a program. And while that will give Brown the same long leash that Miles has at KU, and while this school will give him all the time he needs to rebuild.

I ask, what is the ceiling with Mack Brown as the head coach at UNC? Just like Miles, he is going to have to fight against better football schools for big time recruits. Brown was able to pull these 4 and 5 star kids in at Texas. He won't find it as easy at UNC. If he is recruiting against the likes of FSU, Miami and Clemson, I feel like most big time recruits will have Clemson as their top school, then Miami and then FSU. UNC will, at best, be fourth on any major recruit list. For me, success for Brown at UNC will come easier than it will for Miles at KU. UNC is in a worse conference. The ACC, while it has gotten much better, is not at the Big 12's level. So I think the ceiling for Brown is 8, maybe 9 wins, and maybe, possibly, a New Year's Day bowl. I do not think they will be able to compete with the upper echelon of the ACC. They are coming off a 2 win season. They have been getting crushed by the likes of Clemson, NC State, Syracuse and even Duke. And while I know FSU and Miami struggled this year, I feel like that is an aberration. With UNC, I feel like this 2 win season, while bad, is more towards the norm. Mack Brown will make them marginally better, but just marginally. As I said, I feel like year one will be tough, year 2 will be slightly better, and by year 3, he should have them at bowl eligibility, but that is the best they can be. UNC is not a national title contender. Mack Brown will not turn them into a national title contender either. He may make more people talk about them because of his name, but as far as on the field stuff goes, Brown is going to find out that the game has changed even more since he left 5 years ago.

UNC got a big name, just like KU, but I feel like it will be pretty much the same for both guys. They will struggle, and I think they may get more frustrated than anything else. College football has changed so much since Miles, and now Brown, have come back to coaching. It is going to be a punch in the gut for both of them.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. With all these announcers going back to coaching, Ty is waiting for Lee Corso and Lou Holtz to jump on the bandwagon. Oh what joy to not have to see those two every Saturday.

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