We live in a society that struggles with the concept of age. People are living longer, working longer and resisting the notion that they have to fade into the background and pass the torch to a new generation.
In some ways, it’s aspiration. We all want to be active and productive in our 70s and 80s. At the same time, relying on power looks like selfishness and self-delusion when the results are no longer there.
North Carolina coach Mack Brown, now 73, has had a remarkable career in college football. He started as a head coach in 1983 when Appalachian State made him the head coach at the age of 32. It brought him to Tulane, which is North Carolina, which is Texas where he won the championship country and had a decade of success that was once successful. wait.
Brown finally made it to television when he ran south in Texas, but he always wanted another shot on the sidelines. North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham gave it to him in 2019, when Brown vowed that his goal was to win a national title in the area that means so much in his life and career.
At that time it seemed very romantic. Now, it seems like nonsense.
Brown would never win another national title. Will you be able to finish this season?
After North Carolina’s embarrassing 70-50 loss to James Madison on Saturday, Inside Carolina reported that Brown’s emotional speech in the locker room hinted at his departure. . But after taking a break, Brown told ESPN he will return to work on Sunday.
This is not sustainable.
Here are the details. In his second season at North Carolina, Brown’s record is 41-28. In his first four years, the Tar Heels were ranked at the end of the season just once: No. 17 in the final round of 2020. That’s a shame when he’s had elite quarterbacks like Sam Howell and Drake Maye on his roster. until this year. Losing James Madison highlights the problems Brown has had with his defensive coordinators, from Jay Bateman to Gene Chizik and now Geoff Collins, the former Georgia Tech coach.
Was it a disaster in the big picture? No, not North Carolina, which has always been one of the most underrated in college football. But is Mack’s second location in Chapel Hill a success? It would be hypocritical to say yes.
At a time when all his contemporaries have left the stage, does it make sense for Brown to hang? Not if the goal is for North Carolina to have a football program that contends for ACC and national titles.
It’s sad and uncomfortable and frankly unnecessary, but even a beloved Hall of Famer like Brown is getting to the point where it’s no longer reasonable to run a college football program that’s trying to win. above.
Losing James Madison in such a bad way will further that conversation. That’s why North Carolina is No. 1 on the Misery Index, a weekly measure of how miserable fans feel.
The other four are suffering
TCU: Ever since his appearance in the College Football Playoff national championship game — and yes, that meant showing up rather than playing because the Horned Frogs didn’t play much football that night against Georgia — TCU has lost nine of its last 16 games. And the frustration of that fate showed on Saturday when Sonny Dykes lost his cool several times and was ejected early in the second half of a 66-42 loss to SMU.
When was the last time you saw a college football coach get ejected from the game for two foul play penalties? Then again, when was the last time you saw a program approach the pinnacle of play and then completely regress to a status quo that seems forever more than the success they’ve had in the past two years? Let’s face the facts. TCU’s 2022 season has been a bleak one. Perhaps one of the biggest turnovers in college football history. And now, TCU is not the best program in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, especially the state of Texas, especially the Central region, especially the Big 12, especially the country.
Virginia Tech: In mid-October last season, the Hokies were 2-4 and going nowhere. Brent Pry, a second-year coach, was headed for the hot seat. Whit Babcock, the longtime athletic director, faced criticism for the second disappointing football hire.
But then Virginia Tech turned it around, winning five of its seven games to get to 7-6. Hokie Nation suddenly felt good. With more starters returning than anyone else in the ACC, expectations rose. Pry was the toast of the town. The Hokies were back!
In fact, it was before any games were played. And now that we’re a month into the season, we can safely say that the Hokies are not coming back. If anything, they are back to irrelevance. They smell.
Virginia Tech’s 26-23 loss at home to Rutgers leaves them 2-2 (they lost their opener at Vanderbilt), and now we have to revisit last year’s run to a winning record. The Hokies’ finish included wins over Wake Forest, Syracuse, Boston College, Virginia and Tulane. Not exactly Assassin’s Row. Maybe this year’s schedule will seem less than that, but no one will be fooled. The Hokies have big problems.
Auburn: The reason you want Hugh Freeze to coach your program is to get points. That’s why you ignore the NCAA violations at Ole Miss, the incorrect calls that got him fired and the general sense of weakness that made him the Jimmy Swaggart version of college football a decade ago. .
Not a bad business, in theory. If you believe that the whole game is a cesspool, then Freeze should be given a bad publicity – as long as he wins.
But in two years at Auburn, the cost-benefit analysis on Freeze has come to a screeching halt. His team doesn’t win. It doesn’t get data. It’s not fun for anyone, unless hitting and making an odd number of finishes (14 games to four) is your idea of a good time.
Auburn’s 24-14 loss to Arkansas, which dropped the Tigers to 2-2, should put Freeze on a short leash. If you’re going to be an offensive player, you have to do better than 14 points, which Auburn has done against the only power conference teams in its schedule so far in California and Arkansas.
Freeze version 2.0 does not work in SEC. And if you want to blame the quarterback position — even though Payton Thorne or Hank Brown didn’t look the part — then you have to blame Freeze, too. He has two years to improve the situation, and so far there is no promise of a better future.
Oklahoma: Jackson Arnold was one of the best linebackers in the country, and it was a huge coup in January 2022 when Brent Venables got the Denton, Texas, native to commit to the Sooners. But recruiting rankings don’t mean guaranteed success in college, and they soon went through some serious growing pains with Arnold.
Although the story of Tennessee’s 25-15 victory in Norman will focus more on Vols coach Josh Heupel, who won a national title as a player at Oklahoma in 2000 and was the coordinator of Bob Stoops’ offense in four years before he was fired, this is the true story. Arnold.
He completed 7-of-16 passes for 54 yards, threw a touchdown pass and fumbled in the first half as the Sooners neared the end zone. He was withdrawn for Michael Hawkins, who was unspectacular but looked more settled and confident in the second half. If Oklahoma had gotten good quarterback play for 60 minutes, they might have had a chance to upset the Vols. Instead, the Sooners look a step or two below where they should be in the SEC. The quarterback position will be a key point of contention for Oklahoma in the second half of the season as they assess what it takes to compete at the position.
Suffering but not suffering enough
Nebraska: Stop us if you’ve heard this before. The Huskers found a way to lose a game they had to win. It’s not as bad this time because Nebraska is clearly on the right track under Matt Rhule, and quarterback Dylan Raiola is a freshman who should finally get the Huskers in the College Football Playoff mix. However, Nebraska missed a 39-yard field goal with 3 minutes left and lost 31-24 in overtime to Illinois. That dropped the Huskers to 17-43 in one-score games since the start of the 2015 season.
Vanderbilt: No program in this country is as reliable in crunch time as the Commodores. Year after year, coach after coach, recruiting class after recruiting class, Vanderbilt’s ability to lose games won’t be the same as the sun rises. The Commodores had their chances to seal a big win at Missouri on Saturday, but quarterback Brock Taylor missed a 50-yarder with 3:06 left for the lead and a 31-yarder to extend the lead. game to a third overtime when Vanderbilt lost. of Missouri, 30-27. And it’s not like Taylor’s kick was bad: He made a 57-yarder earlier in the game but couldn’t connect when the pressure was on. This is exactly what is happening at Vanderbilt, where head coach Clark Lea is now 2-23 in the SEC.
Northern Illinois: The Huskies had two weeks to bask in the glory of upsetting Notre Dame on Sept. 7, and they took full advantage of the media appeals and social media cachet that came their way. But the party ended on Saturday when they lost at home to Buffalo, 23-20, in two overtimes. Somehow, Northern Illinois’ defense gave up just 184 yards but lost when Upton Bellenfant – perhaps the best name in college football – made his 37th field goal of the season. more for the Bulls.
Mississippi State: The Bulldogs are facing their worst season in nearly two decades. Under Sylvester Croom in 2006, Mississippi State finished 3-9 and fired him two years later. That led to a long streak of success under Dan Mullen, who raised expectations for one of the toughest programs in the SEC. Jeff Lebby will undoubtedly struggle to live up to those expectations. Mississippi State is 1-3 in Lebby’s first season after a 45-28 loss to Florida at home, which came just one week after a 24-point loss to Toledo. To be fair to Lebby, most of Mississippi State’s team hit the transfer portal after last season when Zach Arnott was fired. But now it is clear that this will be a painful and long rebuild.
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