CHAPEL HILL – Contrary to published reports last week, North Carolina Football Coach Mack Brown hasn’t been going around the Kenan Football Center telling players and coaches he will be back next season to lead the Tar Heels. He hasn’t needed to because there’s never been any discussion otherwise within the program.

His focus has been on this season, that week’s game, and he has every intent on being back. Sources inside the program have indicated the same to THI dating back to the James Madison Game when a frustrated Brown told the team afterward if he’s not the right person to lead the program he won’t.

Speculation about his future at UNC has been high since then, and certainly flared up again Saturday when the Tar Heels were clobbered, 41-21, at Boston College in their most listless performance of the season and perhaps since Brown’s return to Chapel Hill following the 2018 season.

Naturally, the topic came up during Brown’s weekly press conference Monday in advance of the Tar Heels’ game against rival NC State on Saturday afternoon. It began with a question of whether he’s had any conversations with Director of Athletics, Bubba Cunningham, about his future.

"You never talk to your athletic director until the year's over," Brown replied. "Everybody always does that. My total focus is on NC State. What an awful thing to be talking about me when we just played a bad game and need to beat State."

So, his intention is to return next season?

“Yes,” Brown replied.

Yet, he also struck down the idea he has talked to players about his future.

"Not one player has ever come to me and asked me about my future,” Brown said. “Not one coach has ever come to me and asked me about my future. That's what happens this time of the year. It's really funny when, when I talk to my friends, if you lose a game now, you're fired.

“It's 100 percent, it's unbelievable. And the message boards are worse. I mean, they all have the same thing with just different names, but they've all got the same stuff on them. So why worry about (that), you just got to do your job."

The Tar Heels are 6-5 overall and 3-4 in the ACC. The season has not gone nearly as planned, which includes the 70-50 embarrassment at home against JMU which triggered a four-game losing streak. One of those defeats was when the Heels blew a 20-0 second-half lead at Duke.

Three consecutive wins over teams with combined 6-16 ACC records followed, and it appeared the Heels were doing exactly as the Hall of Fame coach said they would by closing the season. Then came the BC game.

UNC trailed 41-7 with 5:51 remaining in the contest and at that time had failed to convert any of its 10 third-down tries, and was outgained by the Eagles 411-103. Astonishing statistics that reflect a team playing about as poorly as it can.

It also came a few days after the reports surfaced last week about Brown’s conversations with players and coaches. He had, however, talked with recruits who have asked, and that hasn’t been anything new this year as opposed to past years since his return.

“Recruits have asked every day for every year, ‘How long are you going to do this?’ And I’ve said, ‘I’m going to do it as long as I’m happy, as long as I’m healthy, and as long as I’m effective,’” he said.

“I’m not going to think about retiring, I’m not going to talk about retiring; hadn’t changed that for six years. I learned that from Texas. And there’ll be a morning when I’ll get up when I say, ‘You know what, somebody else should be leading this team…’ And then I’ll go do something else.”

And Brown isn’t ready to do anything else. He is in the business of trying to lead UNC to the next level as a program, something he has tinkered with as the program played in the Orange Bowl in 2020, won nine games and played in the ACC title game in 2022, and won eight a year ago, but that hill hasn’t fully been scaled.

“What I do this for is the kids,” he said. “That you have a powerful purpose in your life when you can help change someone’s life. Not many of us get to do that. I didn’t get to do it with TV. I started reporting on things, but I didn’t change people’s lives.”

Brown is certainly changing the lives of his players, but many fans and observers say he hasn’t won enough and at 73 years of age, it’s time to move on and give the program a fresh start. Perhaps Cunningham believes the same thing, and if so, that will be imparted on Brown when he sits down with his boss next week.

But the operation of the program on every level is full speed ahead. Every indication suggests that, including Brown’s words Monday.