North Carolina fires Mack Brown a day after he said he planned to be back in 2025

On November 27, 2024By Littum

North Carolina head coach Mack Brown looks on as the team warms up before an NCAA college football game against Wake Forest, Saturday, Nov. 16, 2024, in Chapel Hill, NC (AP Photo/Chris Seward)

After all, Mack Brown won’t be back in North Carolina for the 2025 season.

A day after Brown said he intended to return next season, UNC said it is firing the longtime coach. Brown will still coach in the team’s season finale against NC State on Saturday.

“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,” North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham said in a statement. “Over the past six seasons – his second campaign in Chapel Hill – he has coached our team to six bowl berths, including an Orange Bowl, while mentoring 18 NFL Draft picks. He and his wife Sally have done an outstanding job in supporting the Carolina community, including raising funds for UNC Children’s Hospital, while hosting other popular events such as the Ladies Day Clinic.Both have also been great at leading our program through some incredibly tough stretches, including that one tragic passing of wide receiver Tylee Craft this season.

Brown, 73, was one of just three active coaches with a national championship, along with Georgia’s Kirby Smart and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney. The 2024 season was the sixth year of his second stint with the Tar Heels, and the team had taken a step back the past two seasons.

North Carolina (6-5) has lost four straight after a 3-0 start to the season. The Tar Heels gave up a shocking 70 points to James Madison in a 70-50 loss to start that streak, and the fourth loss was a 41-34 loss to Georgia Tech after the Yellow Jackets scored on a 68-yard TD run . race with 16 seconds left.

The Tar Heels are 3-1 since the four-game losing streak, but lost 41-21 at Boston College in Week 13. The Eagles rushed 52 times for 228 yards and three scores in the win, while North Carolina mustered just 36 yards on 25 attempts thanks to seven sacks of QB Jacolby Criswell.

“While this was not the perfect time and manner in which I envisioned walking out, no time will ever be the perfect time,” Brown said in a statement. “I have spent 16 seasons at North Carolina and will always cherish the memories and relationships Sally and I have built while serving as head coach. We have had the chance to coach and mentor some amazing young men and we will miss the opportunity to do that in the future. Going forward, my total focus is to help these players and coaches prepare for Saturday’s game against NC State. We want to send these seniors out, and I hope our fans will show up on Saturday to do the same.”

Brown returned to coaching in 2019 after a stint with ESPN following his departure from Texas following the 2013 season. After turning Tulane into a six-win team two seasons after the Green Wave went 1-10 in Brown’s first season as a college head coach in 1985, he was hired at North Carolina in 1988.

The Tar Heels were 2-20 in his first two seasons before posting eight straight winning seasons. Brown left North Carolina for Texas after the program went 10-1 in 1997.

At Texas, Brown took the Longhorns to two national title games. Texas famously won the Rose Bowl over USC at the end of the 2004 season thanks to Vince Young’s iconic run, then lost to Alabama in the BCS title game in Pasadena at the end of the 2009 season. Texas QB Colt McCoy was knocked out of that game with a shoulder injury, and it was Alabama’s first of six national titles under coach Nick Saban.

Texas won at least 10 games in nine straight seasons from 2001 to 2009. But things went sideways after that BCS title game loss. Texas was 5-7 the following season and never won 10 games again under Brown. After Texas struggled to an eight-win season in 2013, Brown resigned in December, saying Texas had not lived up to the standards it had set during his tenure.

Brown’s firing is the first for a power conference coach this season, as North Carolina now has a head start in its coaching search. Very few power conference coaches are expected to lose their jobs this offseason thanks to a lack of top-tier candidates and the impending deal on player revenue sharing via the house settlement.