Mack Brown won’t be back in North Carolina for the 2025 season after all.
A day after Brown said he planned to return next season, UNC said it was 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 deeply appreciate all 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 excellent job of community in Carolina, including raising money for the UNC Children’s Hospital while organizing other popular events such as the Ladies Day Clinic. Both also did an excellent job of leading our program through some incredibly tough times, including the tragic death of wide receiver Tylee Craft this season.
Brown, 73, was one of only 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 over the past two seasons.
North Carolina (6-5) has lost four straight games after starting the season 3-0. 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 the go-ahead 68-yarder. run with 16 seconds left.
The Tar Heels are 3-1 since that four-game losing streak, but they 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 yielded only 36 yards. 25 attempts thanks to seven sacks of QB Jacolby Criswell.
“While this wasn’t the perfect time or way I envisioned going out, no time will ever be the perfect time,” Brown said in a statement. “I spent 16 seasons at North Carolina and will always cherish the memories and relationships that Sally and I built during our time as head coaches. We have had the opportunity to coach and mentor some great young men, and we will miss the opportunity to do that in the future. Going forward, my total focus will be on helping these players and coaches prepare for Saturday’s game against NC State and giving them the best chance to win. We want to send these seniors off on a good note and I hope our fans show up on Saturday to do the same.”
Brown returned to coaching in 2019 after a stint at 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 head coach of the university in 1985, he was hired at North Carolina in 1988.
The Tar Heels were 2-20 in his first two seasons before posting eight consecutive winning seasons. Brown left North Carolina for Texas after the program went 10-1 in 1997.
In 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 and then lost to Alabama in the BCS title game in Pasadena at the end of the 2009 season. Texas QB Colt McCoy was kicked out out of that game due to a shoulder injury and it was the first of Alabama’s six national titles under coach Nick Saban.
Texas won at least 10 games in nine straight seasons from 2001 through 2009. However, things went sideways after the BCS title game loss. Texas was 5-7 the next season and never won 10 games again under Brown. As Texas struggled to an eight-win season in 2013, Brown resigned in December, saying Texas had not met the standards it 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 coaching. Very few coaches in power conferences are expected to lose their jobs this season thanks to a lack of top candidates and the upcoming player revenue-sharing agreement through the House settlement.
