The Athletic is doing their state of the program series and today they published their UNC preview. I'm not going to post the whole article because most of us don't care about the position battles at UNC and whatnot (if you do, buy a subscription to The Athletic and go check it out). But the first part about how he got the job is good and I thought some of you would like to read it.
Of course, I know some of you are miserable and just can't forgive Mack for the end of his tenure here. If that's you, then read it or don't read it, I don't care. But know, nobody else care's what you think.
By Grace Raynor 6h ago
13
Part of a continuing series examining the Power 5 and top Group of 5 teams for the 2019 college football season.
His phone rang on a Sunday morning in November. Mack Brown still remembers it vividly.
He was in Connecticut, sitting on the set of ESPN’s “Who’s In?” amid the College Football Playoff race and going over his talking points. He remembers how Texas fans were upset he thought Oklahoma was deserving of the No. 4 spot in the Playoff. And he remembers, after the show wrapped, seeing a missed call from a familiar friend.
On his way back to the Bristol, Conn., DoubleTree hotel where he would gather his things before a flight back home to Austin, Brown called North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham back.
“What have you got, Bubba?” the Hall of Fame coach casually asked his friend, one day after coach Larry Fedora and the Tar Heels lost to N.C. State in overtime to end a deflating season with a 2-9 overall record and a 1-7 mark in ACC play.
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Brown continued. “Great game.”
Cunningham jumped right in.
“Well, we changed coaches,” he said, cutting to the purpose of the call. “Would you take this job?”
“I’m not going to interview, Bubba,” Brown replied.“That’s not my deal.”
“No, I don’t want you to interview,” Cunningham countered. “I want you to take the job.”
“Well,” Brown said, “let me call Sally.”
About three months earlier, Sally Brown had stood inside a Carolina Inn hotel room as the couple traveled from school to school to say their thank yous ahead of his 2018 College Football Hall of Fame induction. She told her husband that she felt like something was missing.
After a particularly encouraging August night at North Carolina, where some 200 of Brown’s former players showed up to honor their coach, she felt compelled to say something.
“I understand now,” she told an initially confused Mack in the hotel room. “You haven’t been the happiest in the last five years as you should have been.”
“I’ve been good?” Brown responded, recalling the conversation to The Athletic. “And she said, ‘Yeah, but you haven’t been excited. You haven’t been driven.’ She said, ‘I get it. Those players are what you miss. You miss football and you miss the process and you miss the coaches and you miss the organization. You miss being the boss. I get all that now. I never got it.’ ”
The fit at other schools for Brown’s potential return to coaching had never felt right in his five years out of the game. But when UNC called?
“She said, ‘Let’s do this,’ ” Brown said.
That Sunday night, he arrived back home in Austin from ESPN’s Connecticut studios around 10 p.m. By 3 p.m. the next afternoon, a plane Cunningham sent picked up the Browns up to take them back to Chapel Hill, the place they left in 1997.
Brown was introduced the next day as UNC’s next head football coach. He now has the keys to a Tar Heels team desperate for major repairs.
“When the call came, it’s just like, ‘OK, God,’ ” Brown said. “ ‘This is what you wanted me to do.’ So this is what we’re going to do.”
And there is much to be done.
Of course, I know some of you are miserable and just can't forgive Mack for the end of his tenure here. If that's you, then read it or don't read it, I don't care. But know, nobody else care's what you think.
By Grace Raynor 6h ago
Part of a continuing series examining the Power 5 and top Group of 5 teams for the 2019 college football season.
His phone rang on a Sunday morning in November. Mack Brown still remembers it vividly.
He was in Connecticut, sitting on the set of ESPN’s “Who’s In?” amid the College Football Playoff race and going over his talking points. He remembers how Texas fans were upset he thought Oklahoma was deserving of the No. 4 spot in the Playoff. And he remembers, after the show wrapped, seeing a missed call from a familiar friend.
On his way back to the Bristol, Conn., DoubleTree hotel where he would gather his things before a flight back home to Austin, Brown called North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham back.
“What have you got, Bubba?” the Hall of Fame coach casually asked his friend, one day after coach Larry Fedora and the Tar Heels lost to N.C. State in overtime to end a deflating season with a 2-9 overall record and a 1-7 mark in ACC play.
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Brown continued. “Great game.”
Cunningham jumped right in.
“Well, we changed coaches,” he said, cutting to the purpose of the call. “Would you take this job?”
“I’m not going to interview, Bubba,” Brown replied.“That’s not my deal.”
“No, I don’t want you to interview,” Cunningham countered. “I want you to take the job.”
“Well,” Brown said, “let me call Sally.”
About three months earlier, Sally Brown had stood inside a Carolina Inn hotel room as the couple traveled from school to school to say their thank yous ahead of his 2018 College Football Hall of Fame induction. She told her husband that she felt like something was missing.
After a particularly encouraging August night at North Carolina, where some 200 of Brown’s former players showed up to honor their coach, she felt compelled to say something.
“I understand now,” she told an initially confused Mack in the hotel room. “You haven’t been the happiest in the last five years as you should have been.”
“I’ve been good?” Brown responded, recalling the conversation to The Athletic. “And she said, ‘Yeah, but you haven’t been excited. You haven’t been driven.’ She said, ‘I get it. Those players are what you miss. You miss football and you miss the process and you miss the coaches and you miss the organization. You miss being the boss. I get all that now. I never got it.’ ”
The fit at other schools for Brown’s potential return to coaching had never felt right in his five years out of the game. But when UNC called?
“She said, ‘Let’s do this,’ ” Brown said.
That Sunday night, he arrived back home in Austin from ESPN’s Connecticut studios around 10 p.m. By 3 p.m. the next afternoon, a plane Cunningham sent picked up the Browns up to take them back to Chapel Hill, the place they left in 1997.
Brown was introduced the next day as UNC’s next head football coach. He now has the keys to a Tar Heels team desperate for major repairs.
“When the call came, it’s just like, ‘OK, God,’ ” Brown said. “ ‘This is what you wanted me to do.’ So this is what we’re going to do.”
And there is much to be done.
