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MORE THINGS CHANGE BY ADAM LUCAS
PHOTOS BY JEFFREY CAMARATI & UNC ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS
Mack Brown hopes to use some of the same principles that worked in his first stint at Carolina, but expect plenty of updates
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BORN & BRED
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veryone involved hopes Mack Brown’s second tenure as North Carolina’s head coach has very similar results to his first stint, when he propelled the Tar Heels to the national top ten and the cusp of competing for a national title. But in the blitz of nostalgia and enjoyable throwbacks to some of the best Carolina football teams that have ever played at Kenan Stadium, it’s also worth remembering one other key factor: this isn’t the same Mack Brown. We shouldn’t expect it to be. After all, 1996 and 1997 are over 20 years ago. Are you the same as you were twenty years ago? Probably not—and neither is Mack Brown. He still possesses many of the same characteristics that helped him dominate the state of North Carolina. But he also has 16 seasons of experience at Texas, followed by five years of experience with ESPN that allowed him access to programs across the country. He didn’t just stop working at Carolina and go sit on a beach somewhere. He’s been in the game of football, and his decisions in the first few months of his Chapel Hill reprise have illustrated his feel not just for college football, but for college football in the year 2019.
