Mack Brown is going to be upset. At his firing Tuesday, sure. So much for the North Carolina Hall of Fame coach going out on his own terms.
Less than 24 hours after saying he would return to North Carolina for a seventh season, Brown's bosses overruled him. The firing of the 73-year-old had a sordid quality to it.
It doesn't take an astronomer to see from a distance what had happened. In some form or fashion, North Carolina had given Brown the option of departing one of two ways -- a resignation or a firing.
Maybe Brown was stubborn. Maybe the administration doesn't have a heart. It was clear neither side was communicating properly with each other.
"While this was not the perfect time and way in which I imagined going out, no time will ever be the perfect time," Brown said in a statement.
A resignation would have included a fond sendoff at Saturday's regular season finale against rival North Carolina State. They could have put Brown's name up on a Kenan Stadium ring of honor right then and there.
But Brown is going to be upset for another reason today that I resurrect one of the greatest lines ever uttered after a national championship game loss. In January of 2010 against Alabama, his quarterback Colt McCoy had been knocked out of the game early on.
Bama rolled. After the injury, Brown never had much of a chance to win a second national championship. He never would come close again.
On his way out of the locker room at the Rose Bowl that night, I happened to run into Brown. I asked him in passing what would have happened if McCoy had been able to play.
"It wouldn't have been close," he said.
Mack wasn't pleased later I used the line but it was relevant then and helps describe one of the modern greats today. In one unguarded moment the coach allowed us to see what he, his players and his fans had probably been thinking on their own.
It added to the story. It revealed the coach. It helped define the man.
To paraphrase on this sad day for Brown: Texas, North Carolina -- even Tulane -- wouldn't have been close to what they are football without Mack Brown. At Texas, he delivered a national championship and greatness that hadn't been realized in four decades.
At North Carolina he returned "home" to become the first FBS coach to win at least 100 games at two schools. Even at Tulane, Brown produced the only bowl in an 18-year span for a moribund program.
What he accomplished -- what he was allowed to accomplish -- probably wouldn't be possible today. Brown didn't have an above-.500 season until his sixth year as a head coach, at his second program. He didn't win nine until his eighth season.
At the time of his College Football Hall of Fame in 2018, Brown had more wins than any other active head coach. That was six years ago. Brown had plenty left in the tank.
Less than 24 hours before being fired, he told the world as much again. But we live in a society that doesn't properly credit or honor experience at times. North Carolina certainly didn't in this case. Its fans on the message boards were furious he wouldn't think about stepping away. Many of the comments regarding Brown in recent weeks had been soulless.
But as signing day and the opening of the transfer portal quickly approach, there are brutal realities. I just wish they could have been addressed sooner and with more class.
The accolades will flow Mack's way today. They should. But there's going to be a tremendous amount of bitterness left behind. This departure, probably Brown's last job, was similar to how he went out at Texas.
In 2013, the Longhorns had descended into mediocrity. That departure was going to be uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable. Brown wanted to stay and take another shot at rebuilding what he had established at Texas.
In that case, Brown chose to resign four years after delivering a national championship.
Until Steve Sarkisian arrived four years ago, it became evident that Brown had been less of the problem than Texas' vision. Like Nick Saban at Alabama and Kirby Smart at Georgia, the Longhorns needed someone to set it straight. Sark was finally that guy.
It is sad, then, that North Carolina came after Brown much the same way as Texas did when things turned sour. Mack deserved better. Texas and North Carolina didn't fall off a cliff; they fell short of a standard established by their elite coach.
North Carolina was lucky to have him. In two stints as head coach, Brown delivered eight seasons of at least eight wins at a blueblood basketball school. Outside of that, UNC has had only 23 such seasons in its history.
He put North Carolina on the map, made Texas relevant again, and then put North Carolina on the map again. How's that for a walk off?
If only that's what it was. It would have been nice if Brown wasn't shoved out.
After Bobby Bowden, Brown will go down as one of the greatest CEO coaches. That's not an insult. There is something to be said for a guy who can schmooze with boosters, recruits, fans, media and recruits.
Brown wasn't so much a tactician but a benevolent overseer who knew how to work a room. Look, anyone who landed Vince Young didn't have to know much about RPOs.
The Texas quarterback was a brilliant, talented wind-up toy who improvised much of the time anyway. Brown's biggest contribution to Texas football may have been landing Young and giving him enough encouragement and freedom to develop into a national championship quarterback at his own pace.
"We knew he was a big physical guy," Sarkisian recalled to me in a 10-year oral history of that USC-Texas BCS Championship Game. Sark was then USC's co-offensive coordinator. "We knew they didn't run a lot of plays. They didn't have a big playbook. He just kind of made their plays work."
Brown was among those who recalled in detail to me how motivated Young was in 2005 when he finished second to Reggie Bush in the Heisman Trophy voting.
"I covered the Heisman ceremony and my lead was: 'Beware, USC. Be very afraid,' former Austin American Statesman Kirk Bohls told me. "The Heisman folks told me they had never seen someone so upset after finishing second."
There was little coaching to be done that month. Or it seemed that way. Just let that anger simmer. The lid popped off with 19 seconds left in that championship game against USC.
Young scored the game-winning touchdown to clinch Texas' first title in 36 years.
Quarterbacks Sam Howell and Drake Maye blossomed into NFL prospects at North Carolina (flipping Howell from Florida State was the first thing Brown did when he landed in Chapel Hill for a sequel). Tailback Omarion Hampton just went for a career-high 244 yards against Wake Forest. He is about to pass 1,500 yards for the second consecutive season. Eighteen total Tar Heels have been drafted since Brown returned.
They are part of Brown's legacy, too. Too bad they don't actually have a ring of honor for coaches at Kenan Stadium. That will have to change.
