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Mack Brown has always taken losses hard. And this one was about as bad as they come. But there was a different vibe surrounding the Hall of Fame coach following Saturday’s 70-50 humiliation at the hands of James Madison at Kenan Stadium.
Brown looked as beaten down as his team as he addressed the media afterward and shouldered the blame for the dismal performance.
“(If) the people want to blame me, they should,” he said. “Because I am at fault, 100%.”
According to multiple media outlets, Brown’s mood was even darker behind the closed doors of UNC’s locker room. Initial reports, attributed to unnamed sources, indicated that Brown may have told his players that he was ready to “walk away from his job.”
But later updates amended his comment to say that he would step down if he feels that he’s not the right man for the job of turning things around.
Inside Carolina quoted an unnamed staffer saying that he expected Brown to be back in his office working as usual on Sunday. But even if he is, it’s more than just idle speculation to wonder how much longer the Tar Heels’ coach plans to remain on the job.
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He’s 73 years old and in the 6th season of his 2nd tour of duty in Chapel Hill. Although he has helped clean up the mess left by his predecessor Larry Fedora and has produced 2 NFL quarterbacks, taken UNC to an ACC Championship Game and an Orange Bowl, his tenure hasn’t lived up to expectations.
His 41-28 record in his first 69 games back is exactly the same as that of Fedora. And despite the Tar Heels’ current 3-1 record, there are warning signs that like Fedora, things are heading in the wrong direction.
It’s not just the 70 points are the most ever surrendered in a game by UNC, matching the 70 East Carolina hung on them in 2014. It’s the way the Tar Heels did it. They had a punt blocked for a touchdown, allowed JMU to recover an onside kick and committed 5 turnovers. Their defense, supposedly improved with the addition of new coordinator Geoff Collins, was burned for 611 yards by a Dukes team that managed only 13 points against Gardner-Webb in its previous game, and Jacolby Criswell, the 3rd starting quarterback in 4 games, threw a pick-6.
If he does decide to stick around, Brown has a lot of work to do before UNC’s ACC opener at arch-rival Duke next Saturday.
While speculation about the veteran coach’s future is the headline of the week in the ACC, it’s not the only important development. Here’s what else we learned about the ACC in an eventful Week 4:
Florida State is no longer winless. But its offense is still underwhelming
The Seminoles finally got off the schneid Saturday, spoiling Cal’s ACC debut with a 14-9 victory that did nothing to dispel the pessimism surrounding their prospects moving forward this season.
It took 7 sacks by a defense that had recorded only 6 in the first 3 games combined, a pair of missed field goals by the Bears’ Ryan Coe and just enough offense to avoid falling deeper into the abyss. And by just enough, we’re talking about the bare minimum.
Even with all those sacks, FSU was still outgained 412-289. Mike Norvell’s team, which led the ACC in scoring a year ago, still has yet to account for at least 300 yards in a game and hasn’t scored more than 2 touchdowns since getting into the end zone 3 times in an opening loss to Georgia Tech.
Other than a 35-yard touchdown strike to Ja’Khi Douglas that completed a 12-play, 79-yard drive early in the 4th quarter, quarterback DJ Uiagalelei’s performance was similar to his first 3 as a Seminole. He completed 16-of-27 passes for 177 yards with a touchdown and an interception. But his offense showed little spark and had trouble sustaining and finishing drives.
That’s not going to be good enough once FSU starts facing some of the ACC’s more explosive offenses – including those of its next 2 opponents SMU and Clemson, both of whom topped the 50-point mark on Saturday.
Not everyone is offensively challenged
Seven ACC teams scored 43 or more Saturday. That includes UNC, which hit the half-hundred mark and still managed to lose by 3 touchdowns.
The prize for the day goes to the suddenly resurgent Pitt Panthers, who improved to 4-0 and surpassed their win total from last season with a 73-17 demolition of Youngstown State. Coach Pat Narduzzi showed no mercy on the program his father Bill took to the Division II national championship game in 1979. The Panthers rolled up 644 yards of total offense and quarterback Eli Holstein accounted for 5 touchdowns on the way to their highest-scoring output since scoring 77 against New Hampshire in 2021.
SMU claimed the Iron Skillet that goes to the winner of its cross-town rivalry against TCU by putting a 66-42 hurting on the Horned Frogs that infuriated former Mustangs and current TCU coach Sonny Dykes so much that he got ejected after receiving 2 unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.
Clemson continued its high scoring ways by putting 59 on a NC State defense that has been among the ACC’s best over the past 2 seasons. Just as they did 2 weeks ago against Appalachian State, the Tigers struck early and often. They led 28-0 after the 1st quarter and 45-7 at halftime and likely could have scored even more had Dabo Swinney not pulled quarterback Cade Klubnik and the rest of his starters early in the 3rd period.
Miami also hit the 50-point mark. Although it took the better part of a half to shake off USF, Cam Ward enhanced his Heisman candidacy by throwing for 404 yards and 3 touchdowns. Duke with 45 points in a weather-delayed win at Middle Tennessee State and Virginia with 43 in beating Coastal Carolina to match its 3-win win totals for both the 2022 and ‘23 seasons were the other ACC teams putting up big numbers.
Don’t underestimate the power of the red bandana
Superman had his cape. Popeye had his spinach. At Boston College, the impetus for extraordinary effort comes in the form of a simple red bandana. That was the trademark of former Eagles lacrosse player Welles Crowther, who famously sacrificed his life on Sept. 11, 2001, to save numerous others after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.
To honor his memory, BC designates one home date each season as its Red Bandana Game, wearing uniforms adorned with the same red paisley pattern that decorated Crowther’s headgear. Although the Eagles haven’t always celebrated the occasion with a win, they almost always put forth an effort that would have made Crowther proud.
They did it again Saturday.
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Faced with miserable weather conditions, an offense that wasn’t firing on all cylinders and a late 3-point deficit against Big Ten opponent Michigan State, they still found a way to overcome the adversity and rally for a dramatic 23-19 victory.
Taking over at his own 25 with 4:12 remaining, quarterback Thomas Castellanos drove BC 75 yards on 6 plays for the go-ahead score. The winning touchdown came on a 42-yard pass to Lewis Bond. Even then, it took one last heroic play – a game-saving interception by cornerback Max Turner – to finish off the victory that improved BC to 3-1 under new coach Bill O’Brien and set off a field-storming celebration.
Defenseless Wolfpack
NC State coach Dave Doeren summed up his team’s dismal performance against Clemson by saying “That’s not who we are on defense.”
That might be the case when compared to the past 2 seasons, in which the Wolfpack were among the ACC leaders in both scoring and total defense. But as far as this season is concerned, Saturday’s performance – in which they were yielded 523 total yards and gave up points on 8 of the Tigers’ first 9 possessions – is exactly who they are. The 59-35 loss was almost an exact carbon copy of a 51-10 beatdown at the hands of Tennessee in Charlotte 2 weeks ago.
In those 2 games against power conference opponents, State’s defense has allowed a combined 110 points and 983 total yards, with 518 of them coming on the ground. And one can only imagine how much worse those numbers might have gotten had Tennessee’s Josh Heupel and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney not taken their feet off the accelerator in the 4th quarter.
The Wolfpack came into the season with high expectations and their defense was anxious to prove that it could withstand the loss of Bednarik Award-winning linebacker Payton Wilson without suffering any dropoff.
But that hasn’t happened. Not by a long shot.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
