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CHAPEL HILL – One of the great mysteries of athletics is how fan bases, and often the media, treat successful players, coaches, teams, and programs at the first signs of trouble.

The tenor directed at Ohio State’s Ryan Day right now after losing two in a row to Michigan is quite perplexing. Clemson’s Dabo Swinney has been pilloried on various Tiger message boards in recent weeks because his program has had the audacity to lose five games over the last two seasons.

North Carolina Coach Mack Brown is getting some similar heat, too, though the scale of expectations are currently different for the Tar Heels than the Buckeyes and Tigers. Still, Brown’s resume of big-time winning, his stated mission at UNC, and 9-1 start followed by two head-scratching losses to close the regular season has many fans frothing at the mouth.

Brown, 71, is too old. The game has passed him by. He’s done what he can restoring something, now it’s time to move on. His staff stinks. Players aren’t developed. Players aren’t strong enough. Etc.

In four years, Brown has managed to turn UNC’s fan base from sheer apathy to anger, and to a degree with some, even to hurt. That coincides with success, and regardless of what the negative Nancys say, the program has been successful.

Pain is actually a good thing because it means they care, and they usually care that deeply once the program delivers. UNC basketball fans live in that world. Football is trying to get to that doorstep, and with some have recently crossed it.

“I look at how the fans support,” Brown said Monday during his weekly press conference at the Kenan Football Center. “I don’t get on the internet, those guys usually aren’t very happy when they’re on the internet. I learned that at Texas.”

Brown’s last few years at Texas is a perfect example of how fans turn on those who built them up to begin with.

Facts: In the 12 seasons before Brown was hired in Austin, the Longhorns went 77-60-2, which works out to 6.4-and-5 each season, a winning percent of 56.1; In Brown’s 16 seasons that followed, the Longhorns went 158-48 (9.9-and-3 average), a winning percentage of 76.7, plus they won a national title and played for another; and in the nine seasons since Brown was nudged out of town, the program has gone 61-50, which is a 6.7-and-5.6 average, and winning percentage of 54.9.

So, in the 12 years before and nine years since Brown, Texas has combined to go 138-11-2, which is a 55.6 winning percent. The only time the program has been any good was when he was at the helm, yet that ultimately didn’t matter.

UNC won five games in the two seasons before Brown was hired, and in four years, he has taken the program to an Orange Bowl, its first major bowl in 71 years, and this Saturday will play for the ACC championship for just the second time since the game began in 2005. He could take Carolina back to the Orange Bowl.

Also, Carolina’s nine wins are its second most since Brown left for Texas in 1997. Yet, the negative tenor directed at the Hall of Fame coach and his team and program this week has echoed loudly. Two straight losses, albeit unbecoming ones, and much of the base is sharpening its knives.

Brown says he doesn’t hear it, but listening closely to a 43-minute press conferences suggests he has at least gotten slight scent of their mood.

“I don’t interact with fans,” the coach said. “I’m over here at 5:30 in the morning, 6 o’clock in the morning, and I leave here at 6 o’clock at night. That’s just kind of what happens in my life. I don’t go shopping. I don’t go to the grocery store. I don’t go out. I don’t see anybody. I see you all here on Monday and that’s about it.”

Regarding the fans, Brown was presented with a question Monday about getting push-back from angry and hurt fans serving as a sign he’s actually done a quality job. Apathy hung over Kenan Stadium during Larry Fedora’s last two seasons, but not anymore.

Expectations met with some results – 2020, a 9-1 start this year and Heisman Trophy candidate in quarterback Drake Maye – made the last two weeks unbearable for some. Their dissatisfaction is understandable.

After clinching the Coastal Division title with a win at Wake Forest on November 12, the Heels lost at home to a Georgia Tech team with an interim coach playing third and fourth-string quarterbacks. Then last Friday, struggling rival NC State and its fourth-string quarterback left Kenan with a win.

To go from 9-1 with Maye getting national attention and a distant outside shot at sneaking into the College Football Playoff, to off the national radar and concerns about the program’s direction is a swift change.

“The thing I’d say, me included, if you’d ask a North Carolina fan in August, ‘Would you take nine wins and a chance to play Clemson for the conference championship?’ We’d be so excited,” Brown said.

After comparing the Tar Heels to 9-3 Florida State, Brown continued.

“We look at facts: The facts are this is one of the best seasons in our school history and we’re playing for the conference championship for the second time ever. That’s pretty cool. So, I’m not going to let a play or two get me down.”

He certainly isn’t.

Whatever happened the last two weeks, it’s in the distant past to the Tar Heels. That is Brown’s message. They have something tangible sitting right before them, and reality is, a win Saturday in Charlotte over the ACC’s premier program would promptly shift the narrative, especially since UNC has not won an ACC championship since Lawrence Taylor was terrorizing quarterbacks in the league 42 years ago.

“It’s fair to not sit around and pout,” Brown said about the two-game skid, “because there’s only two teams in this league that are playing for the conference championship, and we’re one of them.

“And that’s pretty cool. I’m going to be proud of this team, I’m not going to beat them up.”

No matter what anyone says.