Mack Brown to Mike Elko after he left for Texas A&M: 'You lied'

North Carolina head coach Mack Brown didn’t hold back about teams negatively recruiting against him when speaking with the media on Thursday at the ACC Kickoff event.

Brown mentioned current Texas A&M head coach and former Duke head coach Mike Elko in particular as someone who used to negatively recruit against him.

Elko allegedly told recruits that Mack Brown would leave North Carolina before he left Duke due to the fact that Brown is in his 70s. However, Elko left for Texas A&M following the 2023 season, while Brown is still at UNC coaching as a 72-year-old.

“Coach Elko said ‘I’ll be at Duke longer than Mack will be at Carolina,’” Mack Brown recalled. “I called him when he went out to A&M and said ‘OK, you lied.’ He said ‘Well, I didn’t think I was gonna [leave].’ I said ‘Yea, I got it. I hear all that.'”

Brown is heading into his sixth season back at North Carolina after previously coaching at UNC from 1988-1997. The Tar Heels are coming off of an 8-5 year but they must replace star quarterback Drake Maye.

Brown, who turns 73 next month, said he’s not ready to stop coaching yet.

“Every time you lose everybody wants you to quit. … But as long as I’m being effective and having fun and love this stuff, I wanna keep doing it. Because probably the next time that I quit will be the last time I’ll coach. Because I doubt if I’ll do it again,” Brown said.

“Right now, every recruit that comes in, the first thing he wants to know is are you going to quit. Because every coach that recruits against us says I’m going to quit, and six of them have been fired that said that already. They need to worry more about themselves.”

Brown is well aware that at some point he will have to step away from football. However, at the moment he is healthy, energized and determined to bring North Carolina a championship.

“I’m lucky, I’m healthy. I’ve got lots of energy. I’m having so much fun. And how many people get to change kids’ lives every day of their life? I mean it’s just amazing,” Brown said.

“The only problem is when you don’t have energy. If you can’t hang in there with the energy then you shouldn’t be coaching at my age. But if you’ve got the experience and you’re passionate about it and you love it and you’ve still got the energy, I think it’s a cool thing.”