The Tar Heel football program may be taking the field with a new coach next week against Duke.
According to a report from Inside Carolina, an emotional Mack Brown told his team after a 70-50 loss to James Madison that he would step down as head coach if he was the problem with the team. The players reportedly rallied around the head coach with vocal support for him, taking the blame themselves and encouraging him to at least coach out the remainder of the season.
The players have said that if Brown is to step down, they want run game coordinator/tight ends coach Freddie Kitchens to be the interim head coach. Kitchens was previously a head coach for the Cleveland Browns in the NFL, coaching them to a 6-10 record.
In the hours since that moment in the locker room, a program has told Inside Carolina that Brown isn’t retiring, saying that Brown will be “in the office” Sunday.
ESPN’s Chris Low has since reported that Brown confirmed to ESPN that he will not be stepping down, but will return to the program.
Regardless of his decision, today is an extremely damaging day for the program. The loss on the field was bad, but survivable. These reports that are coming from the locker room are not. Most of the team’s 2025 and 2026 commits are likely concerned about their commitments with the head coach that they committed to and even more damaging could be what the current members of the team are thinking with this being the fourth game of the season where transfer portal decisions will start to be made. This is definitely not a spot that anyone could have envisioned this program being in just a few weeks ago after a season opening road victory over Minnesota.
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