Mack Brown accepts blame for loss to Virginia

North Carolina suffered its first loss of the season to a team that was previously just 1-5, and coach Mack Brown is taking on the full brunt of the criticism following the loss.

Virginia managed to engineer a 31-27 win, holding off late comeback attempts by quarterback Drake Maye and company.

“Obviously very disappointed in Saturday night,” Brown said. “You can look at it. I’ve looked at the game five or six times and talked to our coaches obviously a number of times and our team, met with everybody. The truth is it all falls on me. It’s my fault.”

Despite the loss, though, Brown seemed to indicate that his team should have known what was coming. Strolling in undefeated, it sure seemed like the Tar Heels were a little overconfident.

But the Cavaliers were both well-rested and ready to pull off the unthinkable upset.

“Then you add that Virginia’s 1-5, they’ve just won a game,” Brown said. “They were on their off week, so they put in a lot of new stuff. They’d be fresh when they’re coming in, they’ve got absolutely no pressure. There’s no buzz about the game, it’s fall break. I mean there were all kinds of checkmarks that say this was going to be a tough one and a handful and nobody thought it was, and that’s usually when you’re in trouble.

“They had their team more excited about playing than I had ours. They coached better than I coached, and that’s what happens.”

Brown pointed to how difficult it is to win games after coming off a big game. And the team was clearly riding high after a win over a ranked Miami program.

High enough to be knocked unceremoniously off its perch.

“You look around the country, Texas and OU game’s always a tough one,” Brown said. “After that it’s hard to play. So OU has trouble and has to stop a two-point play to beat Central Florida, who had lost three games in a row. Texas has to stop Houston on the 10-yard line with one minute left to win the game. And both of them did that. Washington has got one of the best quarterbacks in the country who’s up for the Heisman, they didn’t score an offensive touchdown, and they were running up and down the field against Arizona State. So it happens across the country. It’s not different. But you’ve got to find a way to win the game.”

Of course, those teams managed to win. North Carolina did not.

Thus Mack Brown taking the blame for the performance and the disappointing loss, which might have ended North Carolina’s chances to reach the College Football Playoff.

“I hired every coach and staff member here. I’ve recruited every player that’s here,” Brown said. “I make the decisions for everything we do. I looked at last year’s Wake Forest game, where we won, we were excited and didn’t play well the next week against Tech. I looked at the South Carolina game where we won, we were excited, we didn’t play well against App State.

“So I knew this was a week after Miami, where it looked like we wouldn’t play well. We didn’t play well against Virginia last year. We didn’t play with high intensity and we were lucky to win because our offense played well and won the game.”

In other words, it’s on Brown and his staff to get his players to show up each and every game.

That’s one game this season where they clearly didn’t, and the Tar Heels paid the price.