LOOK: Mack Brown appears to take victory lap following transfer portal win
The North Carolina Tar Heels have been active in the transfer portal this offseason, and their latest commitment was news that even head coach Mack Brown couldn’t help but celebrate on social media. Former Georgia State safety Antavious Lane committed to North Carolina on Sunday night, and Brown took to Twitter following the news posting a celebratory GIF.
Lane joins eight other Tar Heel commits from the transfer portal and is ranked the No. 15 safety in the transfer portal and the No. 262 overall prospect according to On3’s Transfer Portal Rankings. He had a decorated career at Georgia State earning first, second, and third-team All-Sun Belt Conference honors in his last three seasons, and will leave the Panthers with 225 tackles, 12 pass breakups, two forced fumbles, and 11 interceptions, two of which were returned for touchdowns.
Lane is also one of five group of five commitments to North Carolina this offseason, headlined by the wide receiver duo of Devontez Walker and Nate McCollum who are ranked No. 11 and No. 12 wide receiver prospects in the transfer portal.
He rounds out four defensive back commitments for the Tar Heels as well, a position that was clearly a point of emphasis following injuries and struggles towards the end of the season in the secondary.
Mack Brown opens up on what transfer class will do for North Carolina
North Carolina added nine transfer portal additions to their roster this offseason comprising of four players that come from other ACC programs and five group of five conference talents. Head coach Mack Brown was asked if their new transfers would help the Tar Heels take the next step, which he couldn’t agree more with.
“I’d like to think that our four years, the nucleus we have on our team, the fact that we’ve got one of the best quarterbacks in the country coming back, and the addition of not only the 10 high school guys, because some of them will play because they’re more like sophomores when they go through spring practice, and then the addition of the nine will take us another step,” Brown.
There’s no question that North Carolina had a great season last year, exceeding all pre-season expectations. Brown believes they’re on the brink of being even better and even more special next season, and their combination or new and returning talent could be the difference.
“And that’s what we talked about yesterday, not everybody played great, and I’ll go over that in a second, in the Oregon game. And we lost with 19 seconds left to a really good team by one point, that’s how close we are,” Brown said.
Brown helped lead the Tar Heels to their best season since his second tenure with the team, but after a disappointing last four weeks of the season he had a clear message to his team about improving next season.
“So come on guys, we all need to do something better than we’ve got right now to get where we want to go. So whatever you’ve done, take it another step. I need to take it another step, our coaches need to take it another step, we are so close,” Brown said. “And you look at what happened, Clemson and Notre Dame beat us by more than 13 points, we beat Pittsburgh and Virginia Tech by more than a few, all other 10 games came down to the last drive.”