Mack Brown stresses need for North Carolina to finish better in future seasons

For the second straight season North Carolina started the year in good enough position to be in the mix for the College Football Playoff, only to falter down the stretch in a major way.

In 2022 it was four straight losses to end the season 9-5. In 2023 it was losses in five of the final seven games to finish 8-5.

“My job the next six months will be to figure out why are we doing so well early and not doing well late,” coach Mack Brown said. “And you can look at everything, and everyone’s got an opinion… I’m the one that has to make the decisions. Opinions are easy and unimportant. Decisions are what’s important, and they have consequences, and I’m the one that has to make those.”

Brown has already made some consequential decisions when it comes to the direction of the program going forward. First, he fired defensive coordinator Gene Chizik, who had been in his post for two years.

To fill the void, Brown turned to former Georgia Tech head coach Geoff Collins as his new defensive coordinator. Collins arrives after getting a year off to refresh his spirits and study the game.

Defense has been an obvious Achilles’ heel for North Carolina, which will surely feel like it wasted a great quarterback in Drake Maye, to a certain extent. Not only will the defense have to be repaired, now North Carolina will have to find a new starting quarterback too.

For his part, Brown is intensely focused on fixing the problems with finishing.

“I talked to the team, you’re 9-1 last year and you didn’t finish,” Brown said. “Well part of it’s schedule, but still, you’ve got to do some good things to win. They’re 6-0 this year, you didn’t finish well. We’ve got to figure out why we’re not finishing well. We’re so close. We don’t want to hang around, 8-9 (wins). We said we needed to get there, now we’ve gotten there, we need to get over the hump to get to more.”

North Carolina’s schedule might just be the trick to finishing the season a little stronger.

The Tar Heels have a very navigable schedule in 2024, taking on Minnesota (on the road), Charlotte, NC Central and James Madison in the non-conference. The conference slate does not include Clemson, Louisville or Miami.

But if the Tar Heels can’t figure out how to finish…

“I’ve got to really figure it out, and I can’t figure it out right now, why we can’t get over the hump at the end,” Brown said. “I’ve got to figure that out. I’ve been doing this a long time, so I’ll look hard. I’ll sit down and talk to every coach. I’ll ask them their opinions because they see it every day. I’ll ask players their opinions, but we’ve got to get it fixed.”