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Mack Brown Tarheel Football: The Orange Slice Boogaloo

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MaybeACoordinator

MaybeACoordinator 8349

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There are still people on this site who as of two weeks ago were seriously trying to say we'd have been better off with Mack vs Arkansas and in all the years in between. 

You could write a terrifying dystopian novel on that very subject. Strong sucked on the field but he reversed the slide in recruiting and got rid of the least talented potheads. Herman maintained the recruiting and brought a flash or two of misbegotten faith.

If we were stuck with Mack through all that....man, some of the recruiting nerds tracked all the guys Charlie pulled offers from in his transition class, and the guys Mack had lined up for the next year or two, and it was a fucking nightmare parade of busts and head cases. He would have had us scraping Kansas levels of terrible if he'd somehow been magically granted the last decade to continue fucking shit up. 

Honestly I can't figure him out. He was never a great coach but he was damn good for a decade or so and he's spent the last decade destroying his legacy with assholery off the field and incompetence on it. 

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South Austin
South Austin

He wrote “Fuck you, pay me,” didn’t he.

MrBig
MrBig

I posted this last night in the shoe thread with all the memes and then JMU lays 70 on Mack at home the next day. Perfection.   

CurlyDumps
CurlyDumps

Some UNC fan just liked my fire Mack Brown tweet from 2013.

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Davis Lane

Davis Lane 5587

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1 hour ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

There are still people on this site who as of two weeks ago were seriously trying to say we'd have been better off with Mack vs Arkansas and in all the years in between. 

You could write a terrifying dystopian novel on that very subject. Strong sucked on the field but he reversed the slide in recruiting and got rid of the least talented potheads. Herman maintained the recruiting and brought a flash or two of misbegotten faith.

If we were stuck with Mack through all that....man, some of the recruiting nerds tracked all the guys Charlie pulled offers from in his transition class, and the guys Mack had lined up for the next year or two, and it was a fucking nightmare parade of busts and head cases. He would have had us scraping Kansas levels of terrible if he'd somehow been magically granted the last decade to continue fucking shit up. 

Honestly I can't figure him out. He was never a great coach but he was damn good for a decade or so and he's spent the last decade destroying his legacy with assholery off the field and incompetence on it. 

Word.

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Vito Andolini

Vito Andolini 9127

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It took a couple years, but the Tired Mack Brown Experience has arrived in NC, and he’s done. No coming back from it this time, no reenergizing, no Lazarus act. Go retire for good, and try to keep from shitting on Texas in the ESPN break room to all who’ll listen to your bullshit this time (but I know you can’t).

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Eggo

Eggo 3978

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The Athletic

Spoiler

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — At 6:12 p.m., the march began.

You might note that, at that moment Saturday evening, North Carolina’s home game against Florida State had yet to end. That is correct. The final whistles didn’t blow until roughly an hour later, when the sun had set on Kenan Memorial Stadium. But as the third quarter flipped to the fourth — and, more significantly, the Tar Heels trailed FSU (1-4) by three scores — the painful processional began: UNC fans, of all ages and levels of disappointment, slowly trudging up the aisleways and out of the stadium.

Slowly turning away, really. In more ways than one.

Ironically, by the time those final whistles did sound and declare Florida State a 35-25 victor, the march out of Kenan had slowed significantly. Not because fans stuck around for the end. There just weren’t that many blue-clad fans left.

“When we play well, we’ve got a chance to win,” UNC head coach Mack Brown said. “When we don’t, we’re not gonna win. That’s just the way it is.”

With the loss, the Tar Heels dropped to 3-3 and 2-3 in the ACC. You don’t need me or anyone else to tell you how far a cry that is from this program’s preseason expectations, for what the nation’s one-time No. 10 team hoped to accomplish. Back then, in the before times, the top 10 and the ACC title and even the College Football Playoff — yes, really — were all discussed and debated as realistic results. Now? Well, Brown’s club will be lucky just to make a mid-tier bowl game.

Maybe to make a bowl game at all.

This, obviously, was not the plan for Year 3 under Brown, not after two seasons of ascension back to respectability. It definitely was not the plan for star quarterback Sam Howell’s junior (and likely last) season in Chapel Hill. And despite Howell’s continued rise up the program’s record books — he passed Darian Durant on Saturday for the second-most offensive yards all-time in program history — the rest of this team hasn’t continued climbing with him. Just consider the multitude of miscues Saturday:

• The inability (again) to contain a rushing quarterback.

• The inability (again) to create turnovers.

• Dropped passes. Unnecessary penalties. Missed defensive assignments.

Those are the same symptoms that plagued North Carolina against Virginia Tech, against Georgia Tech and, really, against almost every team that has out-toughed UNC the past three seasons. There have been ways to write off certain losses — “It was on the road!” or “But the special-teams mishaps!” — but not this one. There was no one miscue, no singular mistake that doomed the Tar Heels at home on Saturday. They simply were outplayed, taking their foot off the gas after building a 10-0 first-quarter lead. From then on, the Seminoles ran roughshod over a defense that still doesn’t play up to the sum of its parts.

That it was FSU to do this — Brown’s alma mater and now the program he sports an 0-11 record against — only rubs salt in the wound. Somehow, half of Mike Norvell’s four FBS wins as Seminoles coach have come against North Carolina. Oof. Last year, No. 5 UNC waltzed into Tallahassee and fell flat against arguably the worst Seminoles team of the past two decades. On Saturday? Well, at least the Tar Heels didn’t have another ranking to lose.

That has been gone for a few weeks.

Perhaps the most glaring point of frustration was the play of FSU quarterback Jordan Travis, the latest in a line of running quarterbacks to twist the Tar Heels defense into knots. Last year, Travis had 198 all-purpose yards and three touchdowns. This time, those numbers jumped to 266 total yards and five scores. But it wasn’t just that Travis posted season-high passing totals against the Tar Heels; it was how, surrounded by three blue jerseys, he always managed to disappear, seemingly to teleport 15 yards downfield. Past the first-down marker, of course.

“He’s definitely one of the slimiest, quickest quarterbacks we’ve played since I’ve been here,” linebacker Jeremiah Gemmel said. “When he’s in the open field, when he’s in the box, he makes really good cuts and knows how to get the ball out quick.”

And as if beating Travis and FSU’s run-heavy offense wasn’t difficult enough, the Tar Heels did one heck of a job beating themselves. North Carolina was flagged 12 times for 110 yards, drawing whistles in every phase of the game. Freshman linebacker Power Echols was disqualified after a targeting call in the first quarter. Then defensive lineman Ray Vohasek was flagged for a late hit on Travis. Even wide receiver Josh Downs, a surefire Biletnikoff Award finalist, committed two false starts to complicate drives.

Even the best teams in college football would struggle to win with self-inflicted wounds like that. The so-so ones, like UNC has proved to be, simply can’t survive them.

Which brings us back to this: What now? Where does 3-3 UNC go for the rest of this season … and beyond that? Depending on the rest of this weekend’s slate, it may or may not be mathematically impossible for the Tar Heels to make it to Charlotte in December for the ACC championship game. But either way, this team has shown that it simply doesn’t have the discipline to get there. Clearly, however, quitting isn’t an option. Miami comes to town next week, like clockwork, with its own demons to exorcise and its own upset bid in tow.

“We can either just lay down for the rest of the season,” Howell said, “or we can keep working and keep trying to win football games.”

So, yes, the Tar Heels will attempt the latter. But it is fair now to question where exactly this program is — and what’s more importantly, where it goes in a seemingly near post-Howell world.

There’s no question that North Carolina is a more talented team than the one Brown inherited in the winter of 2018. It just played in the Orange Bowl 10 months ago, for crying out loud. That, clearly, represents progress. And it keeps stacking top-15 recruiting classes like nothing, with the same ease of Howell dropping 50-yard dimes. Again, a good sign. And yet …

The on-field problems that Brown’s team struggled with two seasons ago still crop up. There are still communication issues defensively, despite the return of every Orange Bowl starter. There are still times when five returning offensive linemen can’t open holes for effective, drive-sustaining run plays. And now three years into Brown’s second tenure in Chapel Hill, there isn’t the same patience for the same old song and dance.

Howell, make no mistake, has expedited UNC’s rebuild. He is the reason the Tar Heels ever sniffed the top 10, the reason they have a chance in every game he plays. As of Saturday, he’s fewer than 1,000 yards from passing Marquise Williams for the program’s all-time record for offense, a mark Howell should easily best before the regular season’s end. He’s going to the NFL. He deserves to.

But the rest of the team hasn’t played up to Howell’s par and at times inhibits his effectiveness. Khafre Brown had just one drop on the night, but when he’s wide open and streaking across the field, that drop counts for more than it shows on the stat sheet. Same for every failed third-and-1 run that forces a punt or every overturned first down as a result of some ridiculous penalty. Howell keeps the ship afloat, as he has since earning the starting job against South Carolina two seasons ago, but he can’t steer it and plug every hole at the same time. Which is why, in what was supposed to be Howell’s breakout season, it’s so disheartening for fans to see these sorts of struggles. Howell may come back as a senior, but what happens in the likely case he doesn’t?

Or, better question: If this team hasn’t stepped up with him, how is it going to without him?

“We’ve got to get better as a program. Sometimes we look so good, and it’s so exciting for the future, and then sometimes we’re so disappointing,” Brown said. “So we’ve got to go back to work. We’re not good enough to pout, and we’re not good enough to win unless we play well.”

The good news: With Howell, this team can play well. It has before, many times during the past three years. But it hasn’t played well consistently, and in six remaining games — or seven, should the Tar Heels make it to a bowl — it’s unlikely that the trend corrects itself. And then Howell, the most prolific passer to ever play here, almost certainly will be gone.

So, no, UNC won’t pack up its things and go home. It’ll play Miami, Notre Dame, the full remainder of its schedule. But the stakes for those games are now dramatically different from what they once were, or even were before Saturday.

Once the fans turn away, it’s not as easy getting them to turn back.

“Obviously no one thought we’d be 3-3 at this point in the season, but it is what it is. There’s nothing we can do about it now,” Howell said. “All we can do now is control what we can control, and all we can control is just our effort and our mindset moving forward for the rest of this year. We’ve got six games left, and we’re going to give it everything we’ve got for these last six weeks.”

 

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MaybeACoordinator

MaybeACoordinator 8349

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"The national media expectation, the expectation for us to be a top-10 team, were wrong. So I guess we should all be critical of the media for picking us that high."

 

mind-bottlingly Torbush on that quote. "i knew we sucked, but you believed in me like a bunch of morons. Advantage: me. Now get out of my way so i can maybe lead this team to the Goo Goo Cluster Bowl."

"Oh, and FUPM."

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troph

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49 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

"The national media expectation, the expectation for us to be a top-10 team, were wrong. So I guess we should all be critical of the media for picking us that high."

 

mind-bottlingly Torbush on that quote. "i knew we sucked, but you believed in me like a bunch of morons. Advantage: me. Now get out of my way so i can maybe lead this team to the Goo Goo Cluster Bowl."

"Oh, and FUPM."

Totally.

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Pimphand

Pimphand 5814

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8 hours ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

So hilarious that Mack is 0-11 lifetime vs. FSU.  Got damn I'm glad he's gone.

Yeah the best part is not only that North Carolina managed to beat FSU 3 times while he was gone but his combined scores against FSU is 153-392 so he gets outscored at over a 2.5x clip by FSU.

 

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Tex Pete

Tex Pete 20410

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1 hour ago, Pimphand said:

Yeah the best part is not only that North Carolina managed to beat FSU 3 times while he was gone but his combined scores against FSU is 153-392 so he gets outscored at over a 2.5x clip by FSU.

That's what happens when you "withstand the surge." It's code for "wait until they've scored a bunch of points before you attempt to move the chains."

Mack is still withstanding.

Edited by Tex Pete
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Pimphand

Pimphand 5814

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1 hour ago, Tex Pete said:

That's what happens when you "withstand the surge." It's code for "wait until they've scored a bunch of points before you attempt to move the chains."

Mack is still withstanding.

Oh snap he gets to play _iaz this weekend!  FUPM v. _iaz should be entertaining to see who can screw up the most.

Also good thing for FUPM he has Wofford for Senior Day.  Good looking out by the football scheduling gods for the kids.

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Tex Pete

Tex Pete 20410

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1 minute ago, Pimphand said:

Oh snap he gets to play _iaz this weekend!  FUPM v. _iaz should be entertaining to see who can screw up the most.

I am rooting for Manny.

Manny was a shitty coach here, but he is a straightforward, genuine person, in my experience. Mack is a deflecting phony of a man who put his own interests above the good of Texas Football and he still got paid to go away. Notice Manny went away very quietly here. 

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Pimphand

Pimphand 5814

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2 hours ago, Tex Pete said:

I am rooting for Manny.

Manny was a shitty coach here, but he is a straightforward, genuine person, in my experience. Mack is a deflecting phony of a man who put his own interests above the good of Texas Football and he still got paid to go away. Notice Manny went away very quietly here. 

Well minus that whole accept the Temple job then turn around and tuck tail and ran 3 weeks later when Richt retired.  

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South Austin

South Austin 52523

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4 minutes ago, Pimphand said:

Well minus that whole accept the Temple job then turn around and tuck tail and ran 3 weeks later when Richt retired.  

Eh, I don't fault Manny for that. 

Somebody posted another thread a while back asking for thoughts about starting a job with a new employer and then shortly thereafter accepting a job with a different employer (for better pay other other more favorable conditions).  Most people didn't seem to have a problem with that.  I have a friend who recently accepted a job with one employer in late summer, and about six weeks later accepted a better job with significantly higher pay, and that better job wasn't available when she was doing her job search.

I don't think Manny should have stuck with Temple when a job like Miami suddenly came open.  It pays better, is located in more fertile recruiting ground, and is his home.  And it was three weeks later, so it's not like him bolting did too much damage to Temple's recruiting, staffing, etc.

Back to Mack being a thin-skinned bitch.

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WhatTheBuck

WhatTheBuck 28794

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5 hours ago, South Austin said:

Eh, I don't fault Manny for that. 

Somebody posted another thread a while back asking for thoughts about starting a job with a new employer and then shortly thereafter accepting a job with a different employer (for better pay other other more favorable conditions).  Most people didn't seem to have a problem with that.  I have a friend who recently accepted a job with one employer in late summer, and about six weeks later accepted a better job with significantly higher pay, and that better job wasn't available when she was doing her job search.

I don't think Manny should have stuck with Temple when a job like Miami suddenly came open.  It pays better, is located in more fertile recruiting ground, and is his home.  And it was three weeks later, so it's not like him bolting did too much damage to Temple's recruiting, staffing, etc.

Back to Mack being a thin-skinned bitch.

Does your friend suck at her new job too?

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Funk Doctor Spock

Funk Doctor Spock 12456

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On 10/11/2021 at 11:57 PM, MaybeACoordinator said:

"The national media expectation, the expectation for us to be a top-10 team, were wrong. So I guess we should all be critical of the media for picking us that high."

 

mind-bottlingly Torbush on that quote. "i knew we sucked, but you believed in me like a bunch of morons. Advantage: me. Now get out of my way so i can maybe lead this team to the Goo Goo Cluster Bowl."

"Oh, and FUPM."

Still a deflecting pussy 

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Deej

Deej 76859

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Posted (edited)
11 minutes ago, Chad said:

Well, that was awkward. Old butter tooth was probably like remember when I fired your ass?

 

"You know I completely laid the blame of my failure on you, even though I was mailing it in. Hahaha!"

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