WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Mack Brown made no grand promises when he returned to North Carolina four years ago, and instead spent much of his introductory press conference sharing a broad vision of hope. The Tar Heels football program had deteriorated into a mess, one with five victories over two miserable seasons, and of the task ahead Brown cheerfully said, “We love to fix things.”
The challenge had brought him back. That, and he missed a lot of things about coaching — the relationships, especially. Even so, he said then, after years of living the cozy life of an analyst at ESPN, and after leaving the grind of the sideline when he left Texas under less-than-amicable circumstances, “You start asking yourself, why coach again. Maybe you’ve done enough.”
Four years later, Brown at last has a definitive answer to the question he posed then. Why coach again? For this. For the kind of moment and place at which North Carolina arrived here Saturday night, with a 36-34 victory against Wake Forest. Afterward, inside a jubilant locker room, Brown found himself surrounded by reminders of why he wanted to come back to UNC for a second time.
There were his players, “screaming and singing and shouting,” as Brown put it, while they passed around the ACC Coastal Division trophy. Some of them came up to Brown and gave him a hug. For a few moments he found himself taking it all in, and all he could say was that “it’s so much fun to see happy kids that feel good about themselves.”
Parts of his return haven’t been so joyful. An up-and-down first season gave way to the Orange Bowl appearance at the end of the 2020 season, one marred by the pandemic. Last year, UNC started in the top 10 only to finish 6-7, a disappointment that called into question whether Brown, now 71, could rekindle the Tar Heels the way he did three decades ago. Then came this season: the early escapes against Appalachian State and Georgia State and the one-sided loss against Notre Dame before four (now five) consecutive wins.
Even amid the recent success, though, the Tar Heels have fought to prove themselves. Drake Maye has been sensational, and has become a viable Heisman Trophy candidate, and yet the defense has remained an enigma, even if it has improved. The trip to Wake Forest, then, was a game, and a test, that a great many UNC fans anticipated with dread. And rightfully so.
The Demon Deacons, after all, were a top-10 team but a few weeks ago, before stumbling to their third consecutive loss. They have an offense capable of exploiting the Tar Heels’ porous defense, which indeed happened often Saturday. And besides, how many times had other Tar Heels teams reached a crossroads like this and faltered? How many times had UNC climbed the national rankings — it’s now 15th, and rising — only to receive a cold, heaping serving of wait-til-next-year?
Not this time. Not this night.
Josh Downs, the Tar Heels’ junior receiver, thought about some of those past letdowns Saturday night, while he held the Coastal Division trophy to his chest. A year ago, he said, “we just we looked ahead” and lost focus after entering the season with some of the loftiest hopes in program history.
“We’ve come such a long way from last year,” said Downs, who finished with 154 yards receiving and three touchdowns, “from being overrated, I can say that, and not performing — to this year.” Downs, himself, was physical proof of the program’s growth under Brown, for if Brown hadn’t returned Downs said he would’ve instead gone to N.C. State. Now he’ll soon play for a conference championship.
UNC’s place in Charlotte in the ACC championship game was already secure, by virtue of Georgia Tech’s defeat on Saturday. Instead of backing into the league title game, though, the Tar Heels went in through the front door, and they punctuated their arrival with a victory against an in-state rival that has set the standard, among North Carolina schools, for maximizing its potential.
“I didn’t want to back in,” Brown said, his hair mussed and his eyes red from a bout with pinkeye, if not a bit of happy tears. “I didn’t want somebody to have to lose.”
And so the Tar Heels went out and won it. Like most of their other victories this season, this one hardly came easily. The offense, which generated 584 yards, proved fallible and allowed Wake Forest to stay in it late. UNC’s defense, which again came up with the necessary stops late, made it more difficult than it needed to be throughout the first three quarters, and still allowed nearly 500 yards.
Still, this is likely to be remembered as one of the defining moments of Brown’s second act at UNC. The victory also underscores the reality that four years into his tenure, the time is now for his program to take the next step — to ascend to the kind of heights it failed to reach even during his mid-1990s heyday. Back then, Brown had an understandable excuse for never winning an ACC championship. Florida State was still Florida State, after all, and there was never any shame in losing to those Seminoles.
But now? Now there’s no one really standing in the way.
Indeed, Clemson is likely to be the favorite in a few weeks in Charlotte, but these Tigers are hardly the Tigers of even a few years ago. And in Maye, the Tar Heels have an asset that no opponent has found a way to stop or even slow. The Demon Deacons actually fared somewhat OK in that quest Saturday, keeping Maye and UNC’s offense out of the end zone on three consecutive possessions in pivotal moments during the third and fourth quarters.
But then look at what Maye did throughout most of the game: a season-high 448 yards passing. Sixty-one yards rushing. Four touchdowns. Ho-hum. Another Heisman-like performance from a player who’s looking more and more like he’ll be in New York City as a finalist for what’s probably the most prestigious individual honor in sports.
By now it’s almost become easy to take for granted what Maye is doing, because he does it every week. It’s not normal, though. UNC has a generational talent at quarterback. It has another one, Downs, catching Maye’s passes. On paper, it looked for a while like next season might be the year for UNC, given the expected maturation of a few heralded recruiting classes.
More than ever, though, the Tar Heels’ time is now. Next year isn’t guaranteed. Downs is likely by then to be in the NFL. Who knows if Phil Longo, the mastermind of UNC’s offense, lands another job after this season. The defense, barring a significant step forward, could again be a liability. It has taken four years, but the Tar Heels are here, now, with the kind of opportunity that lured Brown out of retirement.
He spoke afterward of how difficult it is, for a team to come together the way this one has.
“They’re a team that really likes each other,” Brown said. “We talk about culture, we talk about chemistry, all of that’s really good with this team. We’ve had very, very little problems with any of them. And that’s just positive, and it’s hard to do. It sounds easy, but it’s really hard to do. And, and even next year, we’ll have a lot of great players coming back.
“But we got to start over, we can’t expect it to happen. That’s when you get in trouble.”
All the more reason for the Tar Heels to capitalize on the present. They have remaining a woeful Georgia Tech team, whose head coach was fired, before hosting fading N.C. State in the regular season finale. Then comes Clemson, and the chance for the Tar Heels to win their first ACC championship since 1980.
If not this season, and in this time, then when?
