By Brian Murphy, WRAL

North Carolina coach Mack Brown walked off the Kenan Stadium field for the final time in that role Saturday night, waving to fans a few times before stepping into the tunnel.

It was time to go.

On that Brown, who led the Tar Heels to more football wins than any other coach, and the school’s administration agreed.

But disputes over the timing of the announcement and whether the university needed to force him out remain. Brown was fired Monday.

UNC lost 35-30 to rival NC State in Brown’s final game, the Wolfpack scoring the game-winning touchdown with 25 seconds remaining to ruin Brown’s send-off.

“I agree with the administration: We need a change of leadership at the top,” Brown said in post-game remarks. “I just wanted it to happen after the season was over. These poor kids have had so much turmoil in their lives. I think the administration is in the finding football coach and I’m in the saving lives.”

Brown, 73, went 44-33 in six seasons after returning to Chapel Hill. He led the Tar Heels for 10 seasons in the 1990s, pushing the program to top-10 status before leaving for Texas, where he won a national championship and played for another.

He thanked athletics director Bubba Cunningham for bringing him back in his mid-60s and discussed how much love he had for the university, the state and the program.

“I’m not mad. I’m not angry,” Brown said. “I think it’s time to go. I always said for God to tell me when it’s time to go. Oh my gosh, this year I’ve gotten a bunch of answers.”

Brown said the sport and college athletics — with name, image and likeness (NIL) payments, unlimited transfers in the portal and a seeming de-emphasis of academics — have changed too much.

“This isn’t the game that I signed up for,” he said.

He said he cleaned out his desk, turned in his phone and will have one more event with the team’s seniors on Sunday night. He doesn’t want to linger around.

“I’ve had enough,” he said.

Chancellor Lee Roberts attended Brown’s post-game remarks and praised the outgoing coach. Brown was 113-78-1 in 16 seasons at UNC.

“What Mack Brown has done for Carolina is extraordinary,” Roberts said. “We’ve been playing football since 1888 and no one has won more games than Coach Brown has. What he and Sally Brown have meant to this community and to this football program are immeasurable. We’ll always be grateful for their contributions.”

Questions about the end

Brown did not take questions after the game, saying he did not want his dismissal to turn into a “he said, she said” situation.

But questions remain about how and why his tenure ended the way it did.

Why didn’t everyone find a way for Brown, whose contributions to the program are not in dispute, to exit gracefully?

It depends on who you ask.

“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,” athletics director Bubba Cunningham told the Tar Heel Sports Network earlier this week.

“But ultimately, we couldn’t.”

Brown said he did not want his job status to be a distraction as the team prepped for NC State, which has now beaten the Tar Heels four consecutive times, and preferred to address it after the season.

He said administrators wanted him to announce his retirement on Monday. Instead on that day, Brown told local media that his intention was to return for another season, echoing similar comments reported the previous week.

Brown said then administrators wanted him to announce it on Friday. Such an announcement would have allowed the school and program to turn Saturday’s game into a celebration of Brown.

“I sure wasn’t going to it Friday before the game,” he said. “You’re 24 hours from the game and disrupting their entire lives.”

Brown said he would have the conversation about his future on Saturday night or Sunday, after the game.

“I was just disappointed in the way it was done,” Brown said. “We could have had a joint press conference. I could’ve stayed and worked all this out where I worked here for a while, but that didn’t happen.”

Instead Cunningham fired Brown on Monday. On Tuesday, Brown told his team and the university announced it publicly.

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

In his remarks Saturday, Brown said he talked with Cunningham and John Preyer, the chairman of the UNC Board of Trustees. He said he did not speak with Roberts.

Preyer has been critical of the way Brown’s status was handled. He was again Saturday.

“Mack had communicated to me on numerous occasions that at the end of the season he was going to do whatever the university wanted him to do,” Preyer said after the game. “If the university wanted him to resign, retire, at the end of the season, he was going to do what was in the best interest of the university. I have no doubt that is 100% the case.”

Brown never told Cunningham or Roberts that he would resign or retire, a university spokesperson told WRAL on Saturday night.

Brown told local reporters Monday that his intention was to come back for a seventh season.

“What he said on Monday, giving the indication that he might want to come back?” Preyer said. “Big rival game on Saturday, wanting to dispel any hint of whatever, provide continuity for the game, provide continuity for recruits, I mean, that’s only natural.”

Discussions about the direction of the program have been happening since the Tar Heels’ embarrassing 70-50 loss to James Madison on Sept. 21. Brown’s locker room comments after the game were interpreted by some as quitting.

He clarified the remarks later.

But Brown said Saturday that he’d heard North Carolina was doing due diligence on other coaches after that game.

“And they should,” Brown said. “I felt like we probably couldn’t overcome that.”

Source: wralsportsfan.com