7/6/2019 football Edit

Looking Back At Mack Brown's Previous HC Debuts

THI takes a look back at how Mack Brown's teams have fared the four previous times he debuted at a program. (AP)

Andrew Jones • TarHeelIllustrated

Publisher

Andrew Jones has covered sports for 26 years, including all major college & professional sports for daily newspapers & national sites. He's done radio and TV & is entering his seventh year at THI.

Mack Brown will lead North Carolina onto the football field n Aug. 31 for a game against South Carolina, just like he did 31 years earlier.

Only then, it was his first game ever as the Tar Heels’ head coach and was played in Columbia, SC. The contest next month is in Charlotte and it will be the first game of Brown’s second tour of duty with the Tar Heels and his fifth opener in a new job as the head man in his career.

So, with that in mind, here’s a brief look back on how Brown’s teams have done in his four previous head coaching debuts:

Sept. 3, 1983 – Appalachian State 27, Wake Forest 25

App State had won just seven total games over the previous two seasons, so when Brown led the Mountaineers to a surprising road upset over the Demon Deacons from the ACC, it signaled times were different on the Rock. Brown was just 32 years old when he took over the App State program and the main reason his team scored the upset was because it interceptions for touchdowns. App went 6-5 that season.

Aug. 31, 1985 – Tulane 12, Florida State 38

After spending one season at the helm at Appalachian State, Brown took a job as the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma. From there, he was hired as the head coach and athletic director at Tulane. The Green Wave lost their first eight games before defeating SW Louisiana and finished the season 1-10. But as he did in his next job, Brown laid the foundation of fixing what wasn’t working, and two years later led Tulane to a bowl game.

Sept. 3, 1988 – UNC 10, South Carolina 31

Brown’s first UNC team traveled to Columbia for an ugly opener a week before getting shutout at home, 28-0, by Oklahoma in the first of consecutive 1-10 seasons. Brown essentially tore down the UNC program before building it up again, so while things didn’t look great on the field, a process was in place that eventually led to three 10-plus win seasons over a five-year span and consecutive top-10 final rankings.

Sept. 5, 1998 – Texas 66, New Mexico State 36

Brown set all kinds of records for the first games of every Longhorns’ coaches as his team steamrolled the Aztecs. The first touchdown scored of the Mack Brown era in Austin was by Ricky Williams, who eventually won the Heisman Trophy. Brown won a national championship a Texas, played for another and led the Longhorns to 13 final rankings in the national polls, including seven in the top 10.