Mack Brown: North Carolina is 'very close' to taking next step

The North Carolina Tar Heels football program has been on the rise as of late under head coach Mack Brown. Last season was their best season under Brown despite finishing the year with a loss to Oregon in the Holiday Bowl. But if you ask the Tar Heels headman, last season was just a stepping stone on the path, and North Carolina is getting close.

“This team is very close. It’s an older team, more mature team. They’ve had their ups and downs, but the younger guys have been to the Orange Bowl. (we) had a poor season, by our estimation, last year,” said Brown during a recent press conference. “And then this year, we won the Coastal and had a chance to end with 12 or 13 wins, and (we) didn’t do it. So they also understand what could have been.

“It’s a lot of hope for them moving forward because they can see that we didn’t finish well. Oregon was a really good team. We were short-handed, and it came down to 19 seconds in that game. So that’s how close we are to getting where we want to go. But when you don’t do it, it’s a motivator. In some cases, falling short is more of a motivator than if we had won 13 games or gone to the playoffs. And we sure have a chip on our shoulder. There’s an edge out there about the people calling us soft, needing more toughness. So I like what I see when I’m talking to these guys and watching them work out.”

The Tar Heels are looking to wash the bad taste out of their mouth from how the 2022 season ended. And with the experienced players they have on their roster, along with one of the best quarterbacks in college football, Drake Maye, UNC is in a prime position to do just that.

Brown takes responsibility for lack of aggressiveness last year, plans to change in 2023

North Carolina flamed out to end the season, losing four straight games in the process. Brown believes that came from a lack of aggressiveness at the end of the year. Something that he took full responsibility for in the press conference.

“There were a lot of great things we did against Clemson. What was usual for us; we turned it over three times and had a field goal block,” said Brown. “(The) defense played a lot better than they had played and stopped the run better than they had stopped it. NC State comes down to a kick in the end. Oregon comes down to 19 seconds. Georgia Tech, I thought we felt a little arrogance coming out of winning Coastal. And they lost some players, didn’t have a coach, and we walked in there, got up 17 to nothing, and left the building. I didn’t think we finished, and that’s my fault.”