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Paul Finebaum reacts to Mack Brown's 'train wreck' at UNC after loss to Duke

IMG_6598by:Nick Kosko09/30/24

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Rob Kinnan-USA TODAY Sports

Paul Finebaum can’t look away at the “train wreck” of Mack Brown and North Carolina. You know when there’s a car crash and you can’t look away at the wreckage?

It might be similar to that for the ESPN commentator. The Tar Heels lost 21-20 to rival Duke, blowing a 20-0 lead and falling to 3-2.

At this point, it’s just worse and worse every single week.

“And I’m not going to waste a lot of time on beating a dead horse, but every week, it’s harder to watch the train wreck that is Mack Brown,” Finebaum said on The Matt Barrie Show.

In an important rivalry between the two schools, North Carolina could’ve gotten back on the right foot. Then Brown’s team just saw it all unravel.

“I mean, that’s a pretty big rivalry in about a 10 square mile area of North Carolina, between Duke and North Carolina,” Finebaum said. “You can’t lose like that. And I think his path is to finish the season and do whatever he would like the rest of his life that doesn’t involve being a head coach at North Carolina.”

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Mack Brown responds to questions about future

Brown questioned his own team if he should stick around following a blowout loss to James Madison, but he regretted saying that out loud.

Safe to say, it hasn’t been easy in Chapel Hill for the national champion head coach who returned to UNC a few years ago out of retirement. Brown hasn’t quite gotten over the hump his second time around.

“I say go to the Pittsburgh game next week and really support these kids,” Brown said postgame. “They’re great kids that work their rear ends off to do the best they can do. Everybody in the country that loses a football game has noise. So I don’t worry about the noise.”

Even before the Duke game, the JMU loss shook the foundation of Brown’s program at North Carolina. So says ESPN’s Rece Davis at least.

“I know it’s one loss. One game,” Davis explained. “Things happen. 70? To James Madison. With a new coach? Not like this is Cignetti having built, built, built. Coming off all these FCS Championships. Better, better, better. Undefeated. Trying to get into a New Year’s Six Bowl. It’s not that. It’s a lot of guys gone. It’s a new coach. And they come into your place and put 70 on you? That’s a tough loss.”