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AJ: Heels Show The Program Isn't Ready For Big Stages

Of course, it is NOT. The issue is:Should it have been last year as well as this year? Yes. Clemson ws down both years. The ACC was ripe for the taking. But Mack simply was not up to the task, and was not really all that close to being up to the task.

Mack is the right guy for UNC if you care more about recruiting Ws than winning championships and being ranked Top 10. He is the right if you care more about a nice guy who can charm the socks off grandma than becoming the best team ninth ACC that also can win big in the postseason. Mack is not the right guy to make UNC football relevant in any meaningful sense.
 
Some things never change.
Deep down in your heart, you knew that Mack could not win a "big" game.
 
I'm 38 years old. UNC hasn't won a big game since I've been alive. Mack is just continuing a tradition.
 
I'm 38 years old. UNC hasn't won a big game since I've been alive. Mack is just continuing a tradition.
I just turned 36 and trying to think about the biggest wins I've witnessed. @ FSU in 2016, @ Miami in 2020, Auburn in 2001, Miami in 2004. Obviously, none of those are BIG games but this is all I've got, which, sadly, proves your point.
 
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i live in heart of gamecock country and some of, if not most of them often tell me “north carolina not winning big in football is crazy.”

it really is considering what’s in place and the footprint.
 
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Some of the above sentiments are true. In most cases Mack is Mack. He makes everybody feel good, the world's biggest optimist, raises money as good as anybody, healed the divide amongst the fan base after the Fedora fiasco, and took the older donors down memory lane. But all that being said Mack while supposedly recruiting well it is not translating to that much improvement. Yea, they were the ones left standing out of a weak division in a weak league. Get to the championship game and a Clemson team, that has struggled, embarrasses UNC. Both lines on either side of the ball were just dominated all night long. Maye does what he can, but hard to.make things happen when running for your life all night. And of course, it doesn't seem to matter who our DC is. I like Mack. In a way he is the perfect personality fit for UNC. But his M O had always been the same. Recruits well, but has two, threw, games a year where you wonder if they prepare properly. After the game Mack said they were surprised to see Cade in the game for them at QB as he thought they would stick with DJ since they had stuck with him all year. This after Dabo clearly said earlier in the week that DJ had his shoulders on the mat with a two count and if he didn't have it going Cade would be in. So with that instruction you just cast aside sny planning for him? Mack had one magical year at Texas where he amassed so much talent that they rose above the coaching. But after that, though he still had talent, he would.manage to.lose a game, or two, he had no business losing. That got him run out of Austin. I figure Mack goes one more year before retirement hoping for a big year to go out on. If that big year doesn't happen, there will probably be some hard decisions to make if he didn't want to step down. You hear everybody connected with football that UNC is a sleeping giant in football. Somewhere there is a guy out there that can take the program in that direction. And UNC has the cash to chase anybody they really want. Not some up and comer that you hope can win at the big level, or a retread that once had a few days in the sun. But unfortunately, I don't see things trending in the right direction right now.
 
i live in heart of gamecock country and some of, if not most of them often tell me “north carolina not winning big in football is crazy.”

it really is considering what’s in place and the footprint.
The sleeping giant died long ago. I'm going to blame it on moo. Being so close we get caught in their shit storm. I would say at least it's contained to football, but it might be covering basketball at this rate.
 
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Agree that the sleeping giant is dead.
That became evident when the coaches/athletic department spent so much time and effort to produce the "uniform reveal" video every week.
Sell the sizzle when you don't have a steak.
 
Agree that the sleeping giant is dead.
That became evident when the coaches/athletic department spent so much time and effort to produce the "uniform reveal" video every week.
It's been dead since the late 80s.
 
He couldn't win the really big games the first time he was there.
Which is all you need to be able to see why hiring him at his age, after being fired fro taking the Texas program down a couple of notches in just 4 years was a bad idea.
 
Some of the above sentiments are true. In most cases Mack is Mack. He makes everybody feel good, the world's biggest optimist, raises money as good as anybody, healed the divide amongst the fan base after the Fedora fiasco, and took the older donors down memory lane. But all that being said Mack while supposedly recruiting well it is not translating to that much improvement. Yea, they were the ones left standing out of a weak division in a weak league. Get to the championship game and a Clemson team, that has struggled, embarrasses UNC. Both lines on either side of the ball were just dominated all night long. Maye does what he can, but hard to.make things happen when running for your life all night. And of course, it doesn't seem to matter who our DC is. I like Mack. In a way he is the perfect personality fit for UNC. But his M O had always been the same. Recruits well, but has two, threw, games a year where you wonder if they prepare properly. After the game Mack said they were surprised to see Cade in the game for them at QB as he thought they would stick with DJ since they had stuck with him all year. This after Dabo clearly said earlier in the week that DJ had his shoulders on the mat with a two count and if he didn't have it going Cade would be in. So with that instruction you just cast aside sny planning for him? Mack had one magical year at Texas where he amassed so much talent that they rose above the coaching. But after that, though he still had talent, he would.manage to.lose a game, or two, he had no business losing. That got him run out of Austin. I figure Mack goes one more year before retirement hoping for a big year to go out on. If that big year doesn't happen, there will probably be some hard decisions to make if he didn't want to step down. You hear everybody connected with football that UNC is a sleeping giant in football. Somewhere there is a guy out there that can take the program in that direction. And UNC has the cash to chase anybody they really want. Not some up and comer that you hope can win at the big level, or a retread that once had a few days in the sun. But unfortunately, I don't see things trending in the right direction right now.
But Mack seems soft app that often is just false. For example, Mack, and his right supporters, sold the idea to fans who came of age starting around the mid-1990s that Dick Crum, his predecessor, never accomplished anything. As a result of that successful propaganda, I have known many young fans over the previous 30 years who actually have assume that the back to back 1-10 teams, the worst 2 years in UNC football history, were under Crum. But those were Mack's first 2 seasons at UNC. Crum was fired after a 5-6 season, which came after a 7-4-1 season. Mack totally ruined what Crum left and then slowly rebuilt on the ashes that Mack himself caused.

Then Mack and his tight supporters presented Mack as the savior who inherited an endlessly using program and turned it into a winner.

The charm around Mack always has featured more than a bit of deception.

Crum did 2 important things that mack is never going to do: win the ACC Championship and win 4 consecutive bowls against Major Conference foes.
 
I'm 38 years old. UNC hasn't won a big game since I've been alive. Mack is just continuing a tradition.
Even Dick Crum won Big games. Mack started the tradition of UNC football not being able to win big games. That's why so many hardcore basketball people (like Art Chansky) love Mack. They know Mack is all hot air, all hat and no cattle. And so he never can be a threat to basketball being king.

Butch Davis, on the other hand, scared them to death. And they hated Davis and worked against him from his hiring.
 
i live in heart of gamecock country and some of, if not most of them often tell me “north carolina not winning big in football is crazy.”

it really is considering what’s in place and the footprint.
Correct. AS much as Bill Dooley accomplished (3 ACC Championships and reputation for always being tough in the biggest games) even he knew that UNC was not stepping up fully. That's why he left. He knew that the athletics department, in the hands of basketball people. would always make certain to hold UNC football back just enough that it could never do what Clemson would do in 1981: beat the SEC's best and win the National Championship. So Dooley campaigned to be made UNC AD and HC of football. If he were AD< he knew he could so all that was required so UNC could take the next couple of steps and become what Clemson would do in 1981.

But the basketball, people outflanked him, and he left to become AD and HC at VT. It was Dooley who laid all the ground wrk at VT that allowed beamer to then take the program up a couple of notches. Then Dooley went to wake ands saved that then nearly dead program.
 
Even Dick Crum won Big games. Mack started the tradition of UNC football not being able to win big games. That's why so many hardcore basketball people (like Art Chansky) love Mack. They know Mack is all hot air, all hat and no cattle. And so he never can be a threat to basketball being king.

Butch Davis, on the other hand, scared them to death. And they hated Davis and worked against him from his hiring.
i will agree that crum won some big games, i know he tied some big ones too…i also agree that mack is salesman, but it’s not snake oil like you make it sound like…he’s the same as bobby bowden and tom osbourne, but polar opposite of spurrier.

butch davis should’ve been left alone, that’s all i’m going to say…it just pisses me off that carolina wasn’t prepared for big time football.
 
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Even Dick Crum won Big games. Mack started the tradition of UNC football not being able to win big games. That's why so many hardcore basketball people (like Art Chansky) love Mack. They know Mack is all hot air, all hat and no cattle. And so he never can be a threat to basketball being king.

Butch Davis, on the other hand, scared them to death. And they hated Davis and worked against him from his hiring.
The last big game that was won was the last time we won a conference title. It happened years before Mack was here.
 
Which is all you need to be able to see why hiring him at his age, after being fired fro taking the Texas program down a couple of notches in just 4 years was a bad idea.
I never wanted to hire Mack Brown again. But, no one asked me!

If you're convinced that the basketball vs. football element exists in UNC athletics, and the basketball people will never allow the football program to flourish... WHY do you waste your time being a UNC football fan??? What's the point?
 
I never wanted to hire Mack Brown again. But, no one asked me!

If you're convinced that the basketball vs. football element exists in UNC athletics, and the basketball people will never allow the football program to flourish... WHY do you waste your time being a UNC football fan??? What's the point?
It's my school.
 
They showed they weren't ready for the big stage when they played App. They benefitted from a weak Coastal division and the emergence of two big-time players who could outscore mediocre teams - who could score pretty much at will against the defense. They dominated - start to finish - one team all year.
 
I would say the final nail was hammered in 97. IF UNC had decided they wanted to finally wake the giant then they should've done whatever it took to keep Mack then.
They probably didn't try as hard as they should have, but I'm not sure anything would have kept him from Texas. That's a top job and he could get away from FSU. Plus there was zero chance we are outbidding them.
 
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I never wanted to hire Mack Brown again. But, no one asked me!

If you're convinced that the basketball vs. football element exists in UNC athletics, and the basketball people will never allow the football program to flourish... WHY do you waste your time being a UNC football fan??? What's the point?

I never wanted to hire Mack Brown again. But, no one asked me!

If you're convinced that the basketball vs. football element exists in UNC athletics, and the basketball people will never allow the football program to flourish... WHY do you waste your time being a UNC football fan??? What's the point?
I have been asking myself that very question for over 50 years.

The problem for the University is that there aren't many "real" football fans left.
 
They probably didn't try as hard as they should have, but I'm not sure anything would have kept him from Texas. That's a top job and he could get away from FSU. Plus there was zero chance we are outbidding them.
they had beamer and then they didn’t.
 
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