Mack Brown on negative fans: 'They gripe when you're winning, they go crazy when you're losing'

North Carolina is 3-2 nearing the midway point of the regular season, and the Tar Heels season has not gone how anyone has planned.

Losing quarterback Max Johnson for the season during the opener, giving up 70 points to James Madison, coming up one point short to in-state rival Duke after beginning the year 3-0 — head coach Mack Brown said fans always have a right to be dissapointed if their team loses.

“We have great fans. Some are better than others,” Brown said. “Some are vocal, some are not. Usually, the really positive fans don’t say anything. They go back to work. The negative fans wait till something — they gripe when you’re when you’re winning, they go crazy when you’re losing. That’s their voice.

“So what we’ve got with Saturday, be mad at me. I’m mad at me. I got it. I don’t want to ever lose a game. I’ve been doing this for 47 years. So come to the game to support the kids. They are great kids, and they are trying, and they’re college kids, so come and support them. Be mad at me. That’s okay. I got it. Be mad at the coaches. I’m mad at them. I’m on them. I’m mad at me. That’s what I signed up for. 36 years I’ve been a head coach 36 years, so there’s nothing anybody can say to me or about me that I haven’t heard. Good or bad. I’ve heard it all.”

Brown’s statement can’t help but be compared to Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy’s infamous ‘I’m 40, I’m a man’ speech. What Gundy was getting at in 2007 is the same thing Brown is getting at in 2024 — these are 18-22 year-old athletes who don’t deserve that type of hate at the end of the day.

“I’ve learned that none of that is important,” Brown said. “What’s important is I do the best job I can do for the University of North Carolina, and for these kids. That’s it.”

After a 3-0 start, UNC will look to get back to their winning ways when they host ACC foe Pitt in Chapel Hill on Saturday. Kickoff is scheduled at Noon ET live on ESPN2.