Mack Brown looks part of CEO coach, but he learned to play another role

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Mack Brown, North Carolina’s new/old coach, showed up at the Westin Hotel last week for the ACC Kickoff media days with the look of a CEO. The Not surprising since the CEO coach approach has become a bit of a trend in college football.

Let the head coach with a recognizable name and engaging personality sell tickets while the assistant coaches, his Young Turks, do the game-planning and technique teaching.

Brown certainly has the distinguished grey look at age 67 for the role. He displayed an easy smile at questions from the media and provided expansive answers. He wasn’t Nick Saban growling at questions and grumbling students are leaving empty seats in the stadium by either showing up late or leaving early for mismatches against Football Championship Subdivision opponents.

Brown said he now better understands the media’s job after five years as an ESPN analyst. He took the position in 2013 upon resigning from Texas, where his 16-year run that included a 2005 national championship came to an end with pressure for not winning big enough. The Longhorns went 5-7, 8-5, 9-4 and 8-5 his final four seasons.

But looks can be deceiving.

Brown isn’t a CEO type anymore. He is digging into his return to Chapel Hill, where he coached Tar Heels for 10 seasons, with Top 10 rankings in 1996 and 1997 to attract the eyes of Texas. He’ll be coaching more like the 32-year-old he was as a head coach for the first time at Appalachian State or four years later after a stop at Tulane as North Carolina’s 36-year-old head coach. Make no mistake, people will take notice at an online sportsbook.

He says that’s what he learned from five years away from coaching while looking back on what went wrong his final seasons at Texas.

“I think the thing that I learned is, I will never let a staff have too much control again, which is a strong statement,” Brown said. “I’m the one responsible for everything that happens in football at the University of North Carolina. So I need to make those final decisions. I’ll get their input; samething with recruiting. I’m the one that knows who fits the place better than anyone else, so I need to make those final decisions.

“The other thing I’ll do is you get into coaching because you love the game and you love the players. If you’re not careful, you win so many games, it becomes about the wins more than anything else.”

Brown admitted influencing young lives is one of the reasons his wife Sally signed off on him returning to coaching.

“There’s a void in your life,” he quoted her saying. “You love mentoring young people, and you can’t do that right now on TV.”

The next question about returning is how much latitude fans will give Brown upon returning. With the Tar Heels coming off records of 3-9 and 2-9 that cost Larry Fedora his job, the program is closer to Brown’s first two seasos in Chapel Hill than his final two.

The Tar Heels finished 1-10 in 1988 and 1-10 in 1989. But in 1992, he began a string of six straight bowl trips capped by 10-2 in 1996 and 10-1 in 1997 (he didn’t coach the Gator Bowl victory after taking the Texas job).

Fedora’s 2-9 record, including a loss to East Carolina, a team that finished 3-9 and fired its coach before a 58-3 loss to N.C. State to finish the season, won’t be easy to top, judging by a difficult schedule. The Tar Heels do have seven returning starters on offense and seven on defense, but they have to identify a starting quarterback, a weak spot a year ago. Phil Steele Magazine picks the Tar Heels fifth in the ACC Coastal.

North Carolina opens against South Carolina (7-6) in Charlotte, Miami (7-6) at home, at Wake Forest (7-6), Appalachian State (11-2) at home and then faces defending national champion Clemson (15-0) at home.

South Carolina and Wake Forest are on upward trends in rebuilding programs, while underachieving Miami is under a new head coach, Manny Diaz. App State won the Sun Belt Conference and finished with poll voting points equal to No. 26 in the final AP poll and No. 28 in the USA Today. App State isn’t the Football Championship Subdivision cupcake it was the last night Brown coached in the ACC.

A 2-3 UNC record would be an encouraging start but much is expected by the second and third seasons from from Brown and UNC fans..

“Because of a lot of different circumstances, Sally and I thought it was best for us to leave (for Texas) at that time,” Brown said. “But we did feel bad leaving a great team. I think there were 20, 22 guys off that defense drafted in ’96 and ’97.

“We want to come back and get it back like it was. But even better, we’d love nothing more than to win a national championship here.”

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