UNC, Mack Brown part ways, ending Brown’s second stint in Chapel Hill

UNC and football coach Mack Brown are parting ways, the school announced Tuesday.

Brown will coach the team’s season finale against NC State on Saturday, although no decision has been made on whether Brown will coach the Tar Heels in a bowl game, the school said.

This is according to sources involved in the program Athletics that Tulane coach Jon Sumrall is getting a “good look” during the hiring process.

Brown, 73, has three years left on his contract. The decision to split comes in the midst of a roller-coaster final season in Chapel Hill. The Tar Heels lost four straight games, including an embarrassing 70-50 loss to James Madison in September, regrouped to win three straight and then lost to Boston College 41-21 on Saturday.

After the loss to James Madison, Brown said he told his team in an emotional postgame locker room, “If you all don’t feel like I’m the leader you need, I’m going to go do something else.” But he walked back those comments and later told SiriusXM radio on Nov. 20 that he was still committed to the job.

Brown’s second run with the Tar Heels resulted in a trip to the ACC Championship Game in 2022 and trips to bowl games in all six seasons. UNC never won the league championship with Drake Maye or Sam Howell, quarterbacks who were NFL Draft picks, but Brown left the program in better shape than when he entered it. He inherited a program that had gone 2-9 and 3-9 in the previous two seasons under Larry Fedora.

In his first tenure in Chapel Hill, Brown went 1-10 in each of his first two seasons and then led the Tar Heels to four top-20 finishes in the AP poll, including an 11-1 season in his senior year in 1997. Browns 113 career wins, 10 bowl games and four bowl wins are the most in school history. He is simply the best football coach North Carolina has ever had.

“Mack Brown has won more games than any football coach in UNC history, and we greatly appreciate everything he has done for Carolina Football and our university,” UNC athletics director Bubba Cunningham said in a statement.

“Coach Brown has led the Carolina Football program back into the national conversation as we improved the program’s facilities, significantly increased the size of the staff, invested in salaries and strengthened our nutrition and strength and conditioning programs.”

Brown led Texas to a national championship in 2005. His 282 career wins between stops at Appalachian State (1983), Tulane (1985-87), North Carolina (1988-97, 2019-2024) and Texas (1998-2013) are 18 . all-time in college football — and is just 10 fewer than legendary coach Nick Saban.

This story will be updated.

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(Photo: Grant Halverson/Getty Images)