By Brian Murphy, WRAL

The last time North Carolina athletics director Bubba Cunningham hired a football coach, it took two days to select Mack Brown in December 2018.

Cunningham won’t be able to move that fast this year. He said in an interview with the Tar Heel Sports Network on Tuesday night before the men’s basketball game in Maui.

Brown was fired Monday night after six seasons in his second stint with the Tar Heels. The school announced the decision Tuesday morning.

Brown will coach the 6-5 Tar Heels against NC State in their regular-season finale Saturday night.

“I’d like to go very quickly,” Cunningham said. “Last time we hired Mack, it was 48 hours. It won’t be that fast this time. We have a different Board (of Trustees). We have a different chancellor … This isn’t my hire. This is going to be our hire.”

John Preyer, the chairman of the UNC Board of Trustees, told WRAL in a statement Tuesday that “there must be a fair and transparent process for selecting the next head coach or else the broad base of support needed to sustain the program might not be there.”

North Carolina is the only job open in the “Power Four” conferences: the ACC, the SEC, the Big Ten and the Big 12. Brown was making about $5 million per year.

“They talk about what a great job Carolina is,” Cunningham said of the agents and search firms that he has spoken with. “It’s the only Power Four job open, and it may be the only one open this year — a highly sought-after job.”

The Tar Heels are bowl eligible for the sixth consecutive season under Brown, but the team suffered an embarrassing 70-50 home loss to James Madison earlier in the year. After the game, the 73-year-old Brown made remarks that some interpreted as him quitting. He quickly clarified the remarks.

UNC had a four-game losing streak followed by a three-game winning streak before a disheartening 41-21 loss to Boston College on Saturday.

“We’ve had some inconsistencies,” Cunningham said. “We had a lot of ambiguity about what our future looked like, and we needed clarity. This year in particular, we were up and down. We had all the things – the James Madison postgame thing — and i was really hopeful that he and I could agree what the future would be and when we would make that decision and go forward. But ultimately, we couldn’t.”

Cunningham said the pair have been having conversations about future and about “clarity” since the James Madison game.

The administration offered Brown, the winningest coach in program history, the chance to retire, sources said. Brown said during a press conference Monday that his intention was to coach the Tar Heels in 2025.

“I said that we’re going to have a different coach next year, and we couldn’t agree about how,” Cunningham said.

Athletic director Bubba Cunningham and head coach Mack Brown before the start of the game. NC State defeated UNC by a score of 39-20 at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh, NC on November 25, 2023. (Jerome Carpenter/WRAL Contributor)
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In a statement Tuesday, Brown said: “While this was not the perfect time and way in which I imagined going out, no time will ever be the perfect time.”

Brown had three years left on his contract. He will be paid $900,000 for each year left on his deal. Brown coached the Tar Heels for 10 seasons in the 1990s, elevating the program in his final years to a top-10 team, before leaving for Texas, where he won a national championship and played in another title game.

Brown returned to UNC in December 2018.

“He’s done everything and more that what we’ve asked,” Cunningham said. “Our facilities are better. Our fundraising has been better. We have better staff. We have better coaching salaries, and all of that was because he’s so good at doing all those things.”

The Tar Heels reached the Orange Bowl in the COVID-impacted 2020 season and played for the ACC title in 2022. But they’ve suffered late-season swoons in 2022 and 2023 — even with star quarterback Drake Maye.

Cunningham praised Brown for the program’s academic success and for his handling of the death of wide receiver Tylee Craft earlier in the year.

He said he hopes Saturday’s game against NC State is a celebration of Brown and his wife, Sally.

“It’s still a celebration because of what they’ve done,” Cunningham said. “And I really want to focus on all the great, positive things they’ve done.”

Source: wralsportsfan.com