Will Mack Brown be back as HC next year for UNC?

Okay, round two. Name something that's not boring. Laundry?

Ooh, a book club. Computer solitaire, huh? Ah, sorry. We were looking for Chumba Casino. Ch-Ch-Ch-Chumba.

That's right. ChumbaCasino.com has over 100 casino-style games. Join today and play for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. Ch-Ch-Ch-Chumba. ChumbaCasino.com. All right, Ross Martin, our old friend who moved away, but we still like to talk to him about Carolina football. He joins us.

We just call him Inside Carolina Emeritus. How are you, Ross? I'm good, man. We got about four inches of snow here in Michigan. It's 19 degrees this morning. Perfect. We got two jackets on, boots, socks, leggings. Yeah, but your shirt is still open probably three buttons down.

That's right. I got all the tuck there, Breeze. All right, let me ask this question. I'm going to start very broad here, because it isn't just about this year. I think we can all agree that Drake May is an NFL quarterback. So, five years of Mack Brown, two NFL quarterbacks for all five years, Sam Howell for the first three, Drake May, the last two. 38 and 26, 24 and 18 in ACC play. How do we evaluate five years of the Mack Brown era?

All right, we're ready to begin. So, Mack Brown has raised the floor of Carolina football immensely. The expectations are so much higher now. You've got, I think fans in general expect to win nine, ten games. Like, hopes of ten and eleven game seasons is kind of where UNC football is now. Now, they haven't really reached that, right? They've got nine, I think they could have won ten, eleven in some years, especially last year with the ACC championship game.

So, the four has been raised on so many different levels. You have recruiting, you know, first three or four years, recruiting was, you know, top 15. You had, not just recruiting, but like your facilities, fundraising, getting donors back involved, raising fan excitement.

The floor has been raised. But, with those expectations, I don't think they've really been on the field. The product hasn't been consistent in terms of just winning the games they should win and getting to the point where they're competing for, you know, ACC championships and high-level bowls and getting that ten game point. The on-the-field product in many games has left a lot to be desired, and that's where I think fans are a little upset, kind of worried about the future a little bit with the program, and wondering, like, you know, what's it going to take where they're not losing to Georgia Tech and Virginia and State three years in a row.

I think that's a huge deal, too. And so, the floor's been raised, expectations have been raised, but is there a next step? Can they get to the next step?

And who is the right person, persons, to get them to the next step? And I think it's important with the quarterbacks. Matt Brown's had five great quarterbacks. He's started five years of great NFL quarterback play. That's not going to happen every year. It's a kind of a fluke to have back-to-back NFL quarterbacks.

So, when you don't have that quarterback, what does it look like? Ross Martin is joining us here. Inside Carolina, Emeritus, now standing in, you know, snow up to his knees in the state of Michigan, but finger on the pulse. I know he told me in confidence that he's going to spend a lot of time on message boards to find out what was really going on.

I kid. Here's the thing about it, because I agree with you that the floor has been raised, right? He came back and immediately repaired relationships with high school coaches to ramp up recruiting and get back into the good graces after that had really atrophied under Larry Fedora. So, there's a lot of good to point to with Matt Brown. He's also phenomenal with us, right? Although, I would point out that this year, he didn't do a lot of with us apart from the normal weekly media obligations.

And the university doesn't even deny it, which leads me to wonder, are we looking at the end? Now, I don't think he's going to retire after this year, because I think he wants to go out maybe on a better season. But what is your take on, maybe is Matt growing a little tired of this?

Chumba Casino.com Honestly, like you said, I'm not covering the team like I was, so I'm not sure exactly where he stands. I think Matt really wants to win, and he really wants to bring this program to a point where it's stable and it's set up for success. I think he's done a lot of that. I mean, I don't know if he's going to step down next year. I don't know if this is going to be, he's going to be here for three, four more years. I mean, I don't really know what's exactly in his head. We've always heard, and this is the company line from UNC and Jeremy Sharp, that he is locked in, and every year he gets a one-year extension. He's 72 years old, so I don't know what he really thinks and what his plan is.

I think there probably is a plan, and I'm not sure if that's a discussion with Robert Cunningham, with himself, with his family, but there's a sense of, I don't think Mac Brown wants to go out like this. He has a huge pride thing. I also think you see this with a lot of coaches. This is their life, and he enjoys being in the building. He enjoys affecting young people.

He enjoys working and having a drive every day. I think that's important to people, and when you lose that, it kind of affects who you are. I think the winner and the prideful man that Mac Brown is, I don't see him walking away from that standpoint. Now, kind of compare this to Roy Williams to an extent, like at what point does him staying on hurt the program long-term?

At what point would these losses and maybe some recruiting misses and other variables, at what point does him staying on hurt the program? Now, I'm not sure we're at that point yet, because I think an important thing to think about is who's going to be better for this job? Who's going to do all the things that Mac Brown does well, like you said, with the media, with donors?

I mean, he has connections with old-school fundraising facilities have taken a huge jump, all the different construction and developments. Who's going to be able to handle that plus navigate coaching, hiring, and personnel and procedures? Like you bring in a new guy, a new hotshot young guy, and it could be a disaster in three years, and you're back to hoping for seven wins, hoping for eight wins, and back to that kind of where you were or were feeling at. So I think it's an important discussion. I think it's an interesting discussion, and I think it's something that youth are going to face until Mac Brown decides to leave or is asked. So it's a long-winded question there, but it's super interesting to break down kind of where the program is, where it's going with Mac, and what's next for your football. I'm going to ask you one final thing, and quick, I think I asked you a poor question, and I poorly worded it because you are not around the day-to-day of the team anymore.

Ross Martin is joining us here inside Carolina Emeritus. Actually, the only kid coach who has been really successful, other than Mac Brown, since I guess Dick Crum, has been Butch Davis, and we can debate the level of success, right? But I think had Davis survived that era, had maybe, you know, what Marvin Austin not tweeted out rap lyrics that people thought were about bottle service at a restaurant in a club, maybe that whole thing doesn't happen. They get away with it, and they just go about the business of winning a lot of football games. Other than that, it really has not been a consistently good product, but it has been really under Mac Brown. It just hasn't been as good as it probably should have been. People have always said to me that North Carolina will never win because of the culture, and it's a basketball school. My logical brain cannot compute that because if you have good players and you have good coaching, it shouldn't matter what your zip code is. So do you buy into North Carolina culture will not allow for good football, or is it just hasn't happened yet? I think you have to have consistent winning over multiple graduating classes, really over multiple, I don't know if generation is the right word, but you have to have consistent winning where alums and fans see the product every year, see the big-time wins at home, see the packed crowds, get excited for these home games.

You have to have that over four, five, six, eight years, and that's when you change the culture. That's right with UNC football. They haven't had that really since the 90s with Mac Brown, and they've kind of gotten back to that where some of these home games are rocking.

Duke at 8 p.m., I was at the App State game, the Miami game was rocking. So you have these good culture games and it's starting to shift, but you have to have these graduating classes that come back for games and start donating. You have to have fans that kind of buy back in to UNC football. It starts with winning consistently, you know, bowl games every year, ACC championship every couple years. That one season where it's like, man, they might make the college ball playoff, you have to have those years consistently. That's when Mac Brown is down.

I think it's getting there. But I think the issue, and kind of coming back to another thing you said, is that Mac's done really well, but the end of season, the last six games, the last four or five games, has really hurt the momentum every year. Last year, especially, they lost the last four last year, including state double overtime and then the Oregon Bowl loss.

Being Oregon or being state there and going out with two wins to close the season would have been huge. And then this year, there's so much hype. And then losing to Virginia, Georgia Tech, and a tough loss to Clemson and state, it just kind of deflates all the momentum.

And that's the issue people have with Mac and Mac Brown in this program right now. It's like they're not winning the big games. They're not carrying momentum consistently throughout the season. And it kind of leaves fans wanting so much more because they see the potential. Unrealized potential is the issue with this program right now. They have the players, they have the quarterbacks. They can't get to that next level.

They can't get over the top to win the big games and compete for championships. Ross Martin, Inside Carolina, emeritus. I appreciate your time in the snow in Michigan. My friend, I'll talk to you again soon. Be well. Merry Christmas to you in advance. All right. Thanks, Adam. See you then. That's all the time we've got for you.