‘Man, don’t do that’: UNC’s kickoff return for TD almost costs Mack Brown a win

Mack Brown has seen a lot of football over the course of a coaching career well into its fifth decade. He has won 267 games and a national championship. He has coached a Heisman winner. He has gone 1-10 (three times) and 13-0. But North Carolina’s game Saturday at Appalachian State? Brown hasn’t seen anything like that.

The Tar Heels gave up 649 yards – and won. They gave up 40 points in the fourth quarter – and won. They beat the Mountaineers 63-61, stopping two two-point conversions in the final minute. Yeah, it was that kind of day for the defense. App State scored two touchdowns in the final 31 seconds.

Brown is in the fourth season of his second stint in Chapel Hill. He returned to the sideline after five years of calling games and studio work at ESPN.

“I need to get off the ESPN text chain during the games,” Brown said. “I looked down at my Apple Watch and Booger (McFarland) said, ‘Nice defense.’ ”

The reason App State scored twice in the last 31 seconds is the special teams disaster created by North Carolina sophomore tight end Bryson Nesbit. With the Tar Heels ahead 56-55, Nesbit did the last thing Brown wanted him to do – return a kickoff for a touchdown. Nesbit caught the Mountaineers’ onside kick, saw daylight and took off running. That’s what football players do. Nesbit went down the sideline right past Brown and his cheering teammates. Brown may not have been cheering. If Nesbit had taken a knee, the Tar Heels could have run out the clock.

“He took off running and I said, ‘Are you kidding me? What else can happen in this crazy game?’ ” Brown said. “ ‘What else can keep you from winning this game?’ ”

Brown could laugh about it as he walked to practice Sunday evening. Nesbit’s touchdown gave App State another chance to tie the game, which they nearly did. Mountaineers quarterback Chase Brice, who missed an open receiver on a two-point conversion with 31 seconds remaining, failed to run in a two-pointer with nine seconds left.

To be clear, Brown didn’t blame Nesbit. The coach owned the error for the coaching staff. The Tar Heels have a “down” call for kickoffs: Catch it and go to the ground. The coaches didn’t make the call. First things first. All anyone thought about was catching the ball.

“We lost a game at NC State last year when we didn’t get the ball on an onside kick,” Brown said, referring to a 34-30 loss in which the Wolfpack scored 14 points in a 26-second span in the final two minutes. That will leave a scar.

“We didn’t think it would bounce right to a (sophomore) and he would take off running,” Brown said. “When he got the ball, we were all so happy. So he took off with it. Man, don’t do that.”

We have come to expect special teams disasters in Week One. They are as dependable as an Ohio State victory (23 consecutive openers) and a New Mexico State loss (eight in a row). Coaches sing the same lament every season: There’s not enough time in August to prepare offense, defense and kicking game. Practice speed isn’t the same as game speed.

So we get disasters like East Carolina, which gave up a punt block for a touchdown in the first half, and missed an extra point and a field goal in the final three minutes to lose 21-20 to No. 13 North Carolina State. We get meltdowns like LSU, which muffed two punts in its own red zone (somehow Florida State converted neither into points) and had two kicks blocked, the second a PAT after time had expired to lose 24-23. Even No. 1 Alabama had a punt blocked by Utah State.

Six teams returned punts for touchdowns in Week One. A typical FBS season has 55 to 60 punts taken to the house over a 13-game season. In other words, special teams make mistakes early in the season. Some errors are mechanical, others mental, but they all can be costly.

Brown said Sunday that Nesbit has been told “19 times today” what he should have done. “So have all of them,” he said. But Brown is in sight of 300 victories in part because of his incurable optimism.

“We came back from 21-7 down and scored 28 unanswered points. Then we had to go win it twice again. From my standpoint, it’s a win on the road,” Brown said. “When you’re an underdog and you win, there are so many teachable moments. We won without our two best receivers, (one of them) our best offensive player, Josh Downs. We scored 63 points with a freshman quarterback (Drake Maye). So we got a chance.”

They just need to do some work on special teams. And defense. And maybe Brown needs to silence his notifications for a few hours on Saturday.