CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina knew it let a significant opportunity slip through its hands after allowing Virginia’s 20-17 comeback win in a 1996 loss in Charlottesville.

Ranked No. 6 in the nation and Halloween in the rearview mirror, UNC led the Cavaliers 17-3 in the fourth quarter but crumbled. Carolina defeated West Virginia in the Gator Bowl and ended the season ranked No. 10 in the nation, so all wasn’t lost.

A year later, however, was the Tar Heels’ time to crack the ceiling. It was Brown’s tenth campaign at the helm and UNC opened ranked No. 7. Carolina and spent the entire season in single digits, rising to No. 4 in mid-October. A month later, the Tar Heels fell to No. 3 Florida State in perhaps the biggest game in ACC history to that point.

Carolina lost just once but was snubbed by the newly formed BCS, so the Heels went back to Jacksonville, FL, and the Gator Bowl, where they rocked Virginia Tech 42-3.

Brown left for Texas prior to the bowl and led the Longhorns to the top of the national landscape. UNC, meanwhile, fell apart waddling in mediocrity for two decades before reaching out to Brown hoping he could return to Chapel Hill and restore the program. He agreed, citing “unfinished business” as one of the reasons for going back to Carolina.

So, 25 months after beginning that resurrection project, anyone with a pulse would surely understand if the Hall of Fame coach had a personal moment Sunday after his team learned they were finally going to that coveted major bowl to face No. 5 Texas A&M in the Orange Bowl. But he didn’t, at least not now. Sort of.

“I actually stopped our team meeting in the middle and watched the ESPN report of the announcement because I wanted the kids to see it and feel it and understand the incredible accomplishments that they’ve had over two years here from where they were to where we are,” Brown said earlier this week. “I do remember being disappointed our last year (1997) here.”

Whether or not that fuels him now is hard to tell. Perhaps it does to a degree, and if so, Brown may not reveal it until his time is done, if ever. As much as UNC’s inclusion in a major bowl finally connects what Brown did his first time at the school, it also links these Tar Heels to the program’s greatest era, one honored with Carolina blue hashmarks on the 22-yeard-lines on the field at Kenan Stadium.

Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice, who famously wore No. 22, led UNC to four straight final AP rankings, three of which were in the top 10, plus two Sugar Bowls and a Cotton Bowl, the latter coming at the end of the 1949 season. UNC lost to Rice on Jan. 1, 1950, weeks after Justice finished second in the Heisman Trophy balloting for the second consecutive year.

No other college player would come in second twice until Darren McFadden of Arkansas 56 and 57 years later. It took another 14 years, plenty of losing and a bout of embarrassment before UNC was back in this spot.

“From two wins three years ago to an Orange Bowl bid, that’s tremendous strides for our program,” Brown said. “I’m proud of these guys, I’m proud for our fans. We haven’t been in this neighborhood. We haven’t been to major bowl games. This is just a step forward for us.”

The thing is, this isn’t a culmination of a masterful job by Brown, his staff and the players that remained after Larry Fedora was terminated following the 2018 season. It’s just the next step.

Brown has big plans for UNC, and each phase of the process is necessary. From the cosmetic changes made upon his arrival to approaching and later celebrating a lopsided victory in the Military Bowl last year, Brown has delicately treated each part of this operation as if it’s a foundational tool of the bigger picture. Because it was and is.

He inherited a group that went 6-21 over its last 27 games under Fedora. Egos were wounded. Confidence was shot. And the perception that football didn’t matter at Carolina was prevalent. Deteriorating performances on the recruiting trail reflected that.

In 25 months, Brown has built a culture within the program that is sustainable and witnessed by recruits. The best information they get about programs recruiting them often comes from the kids currently in them. The Heels speak positively of everything going on inside the Kenan Football Center.

Brown’s intention was to make UNC the “cool place to be” and he has. A top-15 recruiting class for 2021 would have been ranked higher if it included more than 18 kids. Carolina is off to a good start in 2022 and has firmly extended its footprint back into Virginia, where Brown had success during his first stint.

Kids want to win, though, and having all the bells, whistles and toys are great, but if the team isn’t winning, the Jimmys and Joes will play somewhere else. So, the Heels have won.

A 7-6 mark last season with the losses by a combined 24 points was appropriately deemed a success. An 8-3 mark this season, and 11-3 over Carolina’s last 14 games, indicates UNC is an IT program headed in the right direction.

Brown first credits the players.

“Those seniors could have left when I got here. They decided to stay,” he said. “They fought through a year last year, and we had to win our last game last year to get to a bowl game, and then they go to the Military Bowl and they win, and then coming back this year we didn't know, our expectations were probably better than our experiences at that time, and we got rated fifth in the country before everybody was playing, so that was a little facetious, but it was what it was, and we've been very honest with them.

“And then we are a team that just keeps getting better. We've gotten better and better each week. They haven't quit. They've played hard each week. When they've been behind, they've come back. All of that is talking about senior leadership and the way that those guys have stepped up and made sure.”

Additionally, Brown has been open with the UNC fan base. He hasn’t minced words about the mission and the speed bumps it will incur. He sees no reason why North Carolina can’t be a national factor in football. He did at Texas and had it headed there at UNC in the 1990s. He knows how this is done.

Learn from things that don’t go well and plow straight ahead. UNC sustained perplexing losses at Florida State and Virginia earlier this season and its offense was mauled in the second half by Notre Dame. But the program gained from those experiences.

Learning how to learn is a skill. It’s a positive trait, and it has become a part of Carolina’s DNA. That’s why what happened Dec. 12 is such a monumental moment in this program’s history.

UNC 62, Miami 26. How about 778 total yards, 554 rushing yards, and a ton of national attention. And this was at the No. 10 team in the nation with a spot in the Orange Bowl on the line.

“I’m really surprised at how quickly we’ve been able to get confidence and learn how to win games from where we were not only when we got here, but last year,” Brown said. “And yes, this is a great step forward to us.

“Number one, it shows recruits and our fan base what we can potentially be. And number two, we’re not there yet. We had a lot of hype in the offseason and we weren’t ready to beat a couple of the teams that we needed to beat early in the year. We’ve still got a ways to go.”

See, just getting to the Orange Bowl isn’t enough for Brown. It is unfinished business now just like it was 23 years ago.

Mack is indeed back, and the college football universe has been served notice.