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.”

A play here or a play there may have elevated the Tar Heels to an unprecedented season, but regardless Brown is still fond of the season his team had last year and will look to build on that headed into the 2023 season.

“10 games, we won seven lost three, and the disappointing thing is we lost the last three so some people wouldn’t see it as a great year,” Brown said. “It’s only the second time we’ve won nine games since I left in ’97, so it’s a great year, it’s only the second time we’ve ever won the coastal, so it’s a great year.”