Brown Unveils Several Staff Hires

CHAPEL HILL --- Dré Bly, Tim Brewster and Tim Cross are the first staff hires for North Carolina head football coach Mack Brown. Bly and Brewster have already begun their coaching duties, while Cross is set to start work on Sunday.

Bly, a 2014 NFF College Football Hall of Fame inductee and a three-time All-America cornerback at UNC, will coach cornerbacks.

Brewster, who previously coached with Brown for 13 seasons at UNC (1989-97) and Texas (1998-2001), will be UNC's assistant head coach as well as the tight ends coach.

Cross, who worked with Brown at Texas and has most recently been the assistant head coach and defensive line coach at the Air Force Academy, will coach the defensive line.

Additionally, Tommy Thigpen, who played for Brown and returned to the UNC coaching staff in January, has been elevated to co-defensive coordinator and will continue to coach safeties.

“I’m thrilled to announce four outstanding coaches who will be part of our staff at Carolina," Brown said. "Each of them are, first and foremost, excellent people and know how to coach, recruit and develop players to be the best they can be in the classroom, in the community, on the field and in life. Dré and Tommy are among the very best I’ve had the opportunity to coach and it has brought me great joy to watch them grow to be the successful people they are today.”

The first freshman in ACC history to earn consensus first-team All-America honors, Bly earned AP All-America honors in 1996 under Brown, becoming just the fifth freshman in NCAA history to do so. Bly left UNC as the ACC's all-time leader in career interceptions with 20 and was a second-round pick of the St. Louis Rams in the 1999 NFL Draft.

Bly played 11 seasons in the NFL with St. Louis, Detroit, Denver and San Francisco, winning Super Bowl XXXIV with the Rams. He was a two-time Pro Bowl selection and an All-Pro cornerback in 2003. Since retiring following the 2009 season, Bly has remained active in the football community, most recently working as a defensive intern with the New Orleans Saints and the Miami Dolphins.

Brewster returns to Chapel Hill for his second stint on the UNC coaching staff after one season coaching tight ends at Texas A&M. A two-time All-Big Ten tight end as a player at the University of Illinois, Brewster coached five years under Jimbo Fisher at Florida State before joining Fisher in College Station. At Carolina, he mentored some of the best tight ends in program history, including future NFL standouts Ethan Albright, Alge Crumpler, Greg DeLong, Freddie Jones and Deems May.

Prior to his time in Tallahassee, Brewster spent four seasons as the head coach at the University of Minnesota. He also has extensive experience coaching at the NFL level, mentoring tight ends for the San Diego Chargers (2002-04) and the Denver Broncos (2005-06).

Prior to coming to Chapel Hill, Cross spent five seasons coaching defensive linemen at Air Force. Before returning to the University of Texas in 2011, Cross spent two seasons at Syracuse (2005-06) coaching defensive linemen and four seasons at Minnesota (2007-10) as associate head coach and the defensive line coach.

Cross had two stints at Texas as a strength and conditioning coach under Mack Brown (2001-04, 2011-13). A four-year letterwinner and all-conference performer as a linebacker at Northern Colorado, Cross was promoted to assistant head coach at Air Force prior to the 2017 season.

Thigpen, a three-time All-ACC linebacker under Brown, returned to Chapel Hill in January for his third stint on the Carolina coaching staff. He served as a graduate assistant in 1998-99 and coached the UNC linebackers for four seasons under John Bunting and Butch Davis before spending four seasons at Auburn, where he helped the Tigers to the BCS National Championship in 2010.

In addition to being a standout coach, Thigpen is widely considered one of the top recruiters in college football. He was named National Recruiter of the Year by Rivals.com in 2013 after helping to sign the No. 5 recruiting class in the nation at Tennessee. Thigpen was also honored by Rivals as one of the nation's top 25 recruiters in 2007 while at Carolina.