Mack Brown takes responsibility for lack of aggressiveness last year, plans to change in 2023

North Carolina football started the 2022 season on fire. The Tar Heels went 9-1 in their first 10 games, only losing to Notre Dame, while wrapping up the coastal division of the ACC. Unfortunately, North Carolina flamed out to end the season, losing four straight games in the process. And head coach Mack Brown believes that came from a lack of aggressiveness at the end of the year. Something that he takes full responsibility for.

“There were a lot of great things we did against Clemson. What was usual for us; we turned it over three times and had a field goal block,” said Brown. “(The) defense played a lot better than they had played and stopped the run better than they had stopped it. NC State comes down to a kick in the end. Oregon comes down to 19 seconds. Georgia Tech, I thought we felt a little arrogance coming out of winning Coastal. And they lost some players, didn’t have a coach, and we walked in there, got up 17 to nothing, and left the building. I didn’t think we finished, and that’s my fault.”

North Carolina started off their four-game losing streak with a head-scratcher of a loss to a struggling Georgia Tech squad that finished the year 5-7. The Tar Heels fell at home 21-17 after taking a 17-0 lead with just over three minutes to go in the second quarter. After the loss to the Yellow Jackets, North Carolina fell to their in-state rival, NC State, in a gut-wrenching 30-27 double overtime defeat.

“NC State, I think we’re fourth-and-three when we kick the field goal. We had not been a great field goal-kicking team. I second-guess myself; probably should go for the fourth-and-three because we’ve made fourth downs all year. Oregon, we were up by seven, nine minutes left, fourth-and-two at the goal line. I thought we were playing enough defense. It’d be hard for Oregon to score 10 points in nine minutes. Well, they beat me by 19 seconds. But, if I had to do it over, my attitude all year was to go for those fourth downs. So I’m going to go back and be really aggressive. I take responsibility for not being as aggressive against NC State and against Oregon in the end.”

From Brown’s statements, it appears the Tar Heels head man believes there was more he could have done offensively in those games to ensure a victory. And while that may be true, those games are all in the past now. But what is important is that Brown has learned from the error in his ways to end the 2022 season. And now the North Carolina head coach intends to build off of that in the upcoming 2023 campaign.