By Rock Westfall
College football coaching, like politics, often ends in sadness, heartbreak, and tears for the participants. This week, that was proven to be the case yet again
Mack Brown was fired as head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels on Tuesday. However, he will coach his team in the regular season finale against the NC State Wolfpack on what will be a bittersweet home finale and Senior Day at Kenan Memorial Stadium for the winningest coach in Tar Heel history.
Brown wanted to go out on his terms and planned to return for the 2025 season. Instead, he is another of a long line of coaches who held on too long and were forced to leave against their will.
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Brown, age 73, was in his second tour of duty with the Tar Heels, having returned in 2019. He is 44-32 with five bowl appearances and a division championship. Brown’s teams lost at least five games in five of his six seasons with the exception being an 8-4 campaign in 2020. He posted only two winning ACC records during his current tenure. His teams were notorious for being wildly inconsistent and with poor defenses.
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Brown worked as a college football TV analyst from 2014 through 2018 after resigning under heavy fire as head coach of the Texas Longhorns. There, he went 154-48 and won a national championship, with a run of nine consecutive double-digit win seasons and two Big 12 titles.
Brown got the Texas job in 1998 because of his success at North Carolina, where he went 20-3 in his final two seasons.
Brown also led the Longhorns to the 2009 national championship game, losing to Alabama and Nick Saban when starting quarterback Colt McCoy had to leave the game early with an injury. Brown believes had McCoy not gotten hurt, Texas would have won.
Unfortunately, Mack Brown defied the deadliest number in college football coaching and lost.
https://twitter.com/TexasEXinCA/status/1861438383857578377
There is a Clue As to Know When to Say When
When a head coach of a major college football program is nearing or just past age 60, it is a smart time to say goodbye. And when a coach is around 70 years of age, he is playing with fire—or, better yet, getting fired.
Two Nebraska legends had perfect curtain calls for their coaching careers. Bob Devaney retired at age 57 after going 9-2-1 and winning the Orange Bowl the season after back-to-back national championships. His successor, Tom Osborne, retired at age 60 after winning his third national championship in four years.
Notre Dame GOAT Ara Parseghian called it quits at age 51 after going 10-2 with an Orange Bowl title in his final season. That was following a natty in the previous campaign. Parseghian always said a Notre Dame head coach should never stay more than a decade, and heeded his advice.
There are additional coaching success stories of smart timing.
Texas GOAT Darrell Royal got out at age 52 and had the stadium named after him.
Barry Alvarez is the Godfather and GOAT of Wisconsin football. He retired at age 59 as a revered savior of the program.
Bo Schembechler retired as Michigan’s head coach at age 60 after going 10-2 with a trip to the Rose Bowl. He never won a natty but remains the GOAT of the Maize and Blue in the eyes of most Michigan fans.
Steve Spurrier retired at age 70 after a 2-4 start to the 2015 season at South Carolina, but not before leading the Gamecocks to the greatest era in school history.
And Bear Bryant left the game with his head held high at age 69 after an 8-4 season capped off by a Liberty Bowl win. He died a few weeks later after retiring on his terms.
https://twitter.com/msouthern17/status/1829127469313466515
Super 70’s Success is Rare
Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno are warnings from history for coaching far beyond age 70. Bowden could have retired at age 70 after leading Florida State to the 1999 national title. Instead, he was dragged off the stage a decade later after not knowing when to leave with dignity.
Paterno kept things respectable at Penn State until he reached age 74. From there, he became a befuddled figurehead, utter embarrassment and a shameless fraud. Only the disgrace of the Jerry Sandusky scandal gave Penn State the courage to pull the plug.
Two coaches defied the Super 70s for success. Bill Snyder coached at Kansas State until retiring at age 79, having twice resurrected the program from irrelevance into national prominence.
And, of course, the GOAT of college football coaching, Nick Saban, retired at age 72 after having missed the national championship game only by an overtime loss to Michigan in the Rose Bowl.
Starting in 2010, at age 59, Mack Brown lost his ability to dominate. From that point, he never posted a double-digit win season, never lost less than four games in a season, and posted only two Top 20 campaigns with a highest ranking of 18th in 2020 at age 69.
Now more than ever, college football is a young man’s game. Age 60 is the perfect time to get out while the getting is good. Coaching past age 70 is an almost certain date with disaster.
Sadly, Mack Brown, a truly good and classy man, and a winner, got what was coming to him.
https://twitter.com/DustinJAllman/status/1861171030934630726
