Yup. Carolina has been touted as a sleeping giant in CFB for most of my lifetime (I'm 61). Perhaps they'll hire a coach someday that will actually make good on that canard. But I'll keep taking the under for now and am glad as hell we have Nina King and not Bubba as our AD.
Buh bye! Mack Brown out at UNC, Bill Belichick in
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MChambers
Member
There is a risk that UNC will do better without Brown.
RoseBowl1942
Member
UNC might be the only P4 opening this cycle. It was already a desirable job before. It’s going to be even more coveted given the scarcity. This is not ideal
PackMan97
Member
If Mack Brown were a good coach (when UNC hired him) he would have still been coaching at Texas instead of giving his opinions in the broadcast booth. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that hiring a coach who was fired and then went into broadcasting for a few years because no one would give him another chance is always going to end badly.
BTW - Mark Gottfried says, "Hi".
The challenge with the "UNC sleeping giant" narrative is that the fans and students will NEVER embrace football the same way they do basketball. Coaches that have that drive to be the best and push for those national championships aren't going to settle for being second on campus. The second they have national success, they'll bolt for a football first school.
A great example is Mack's last season in his first go at UNC....UNC was top 10 the ENTIRE season...how may capacity crowds did they have? FOUR. Out of six home games. Once they lost to FSU, the next home game against Duke was their worst attended game of the season...WHY? They had a home basketball game against California laster that day.
They are not capable of being a big time football school because basketball will always hold back their football program.
CameronBlue
Member
Yes. Can we say "sleeping giant" is one of the more hilarious myths perpetuated in all of sports? That and they "do it the right way" unless cheating their patooties off for 20 years, is the right way, then yeah, they do it the "right way", that's the Carolina Way. They're 39th in total victories and 77th in winning percentage in college football history. Sleeping Giant, give me a break.
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wavedukefan70s
Member
Saw Roy at the S.C. /charleston baseball game a little while back.i see him every once in a while at the beach .
I Talked to chadwell a few years ago when my son was up at a camp at coastal. Hopefully they don't get him .he will get them right.
I think I was commenting more on what a failure Fedora was viewed as at the time. Brown was known as a great recruiter, and he coached Texas to 2 national title games, winning one, which is more than anyone had done at supposedly the best college football program with the most money since 1970, so yeah, Mack returning was seen as a step up from where Fedora had left the program. I'd also argue that Fedora's flashes of getting UNC to the next level in 2015 panned out poorly in 2016 when expectation set in, not unlike what happened with Mack in 2022 and 2023, and the Sam Howell years too. In the end there is no guarantee that the new HC at UNC will actually make the program better. Sure, he might go on a winning streak against Duke or NCSU, but thats not going to raise the national profile of the program at all.
Indoor66
Well-known member
They always say that they will get better. Bet they are wishing through their "hat".
tteettimes
Member
Mack…….the knife. 
I guarantee it will not be the only P4 job open this cycle.
I once read a very good in depth analysis of how and why Duke football deteriorated in the 70s and 80s here on this website (or an earlier interation of it) by I think Al Featherstone or Jim Sumner? I'd love to read a similar article about why UNC underachieves so consistently. Sure basketball is king now, but we've seen on these very boards how quickly that can turn. UNC is a fairly big state school which surely must have plenty of rich sports-mad alums, is beloved by most of NC, has a national footprint in fandom, no bothersome barriers to admission, a pretty campus, location in a diverse metro area...it would be interesting to parse out where and how they went wrong.
gillmic
Member
Hey now...watch your language. Please use "dadgum" and not something vulgar like "gosh darn."
OldPhiKap
Super Moderator
“Watch your language young man, this is a public market.”
You failed to mention that there is also no bothersome requirement for attending classes.
You might say the same thing about Duke.
chrishoke
Member
Yes, but nobody is calling us a sleeping football giant.
UrinalCake
Member
This is very out of character for UNC to fire their coach before the season is up due to underperformance. Usually they let him wait until two weeks before the season starts and then quit.