Ex Texas Coach Mack Brown Sheds Light on North Carolina & Bill Belichick

Mack Brown believes his successor at North Carolina will accomplish great things, despite all the drama.

UNC Tar Heels head coach Mack Brown speaks to the media during the ACC Kickoff. | Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images

The Texas Longhorns may be one of the national championship favorites, if not the favorites, but there's almost no comparing the amount of coverage they've received against college football's newest soap opera.

The North Carolina Tar Heels have become the media darling of the college football world this offseason for all the wrong reasons. The saga surrounding new head coach Bill Belichick, who won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots, and his girlfriend Jordon Hudson has become so prominent that it's hard to focus on anything the actual team is doing.

Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson on the red carpet before the NFL Honors. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Despite all the drama, Mack Brown, who coached at North Carolina for the past six seasons and won a national championship at Texas in 2005, believes Belichick will find success at the collegiate level, largely due to the school backing him wholeheartedly.

“As far as North Carolina and Bill Belichick now, he’s arguably the best coach ever,” Brown told Dusty Dvoracek and Danny Kanell on SiriusXM College Sports Radio. “They’ve committed money to it, they’ve helped him with academics. They’ve lowered those standards some. So there’s absolutely no reason they shouldn’t be successful.

“And anymore, they’ve changed the roster. … So you’ve got a chance to succeed at the highest level, and I expect him to do that and I’m proud for him.”

Mack Brown opens up on leaving UNC and shares with @DustyDvoracek & @dannykanell why UNC has a chance to be successful quickly with Bill Belichick. pic.twitter.com/Mj9yE3poOk

— College Sports on SiriusXM (@SXMCollege) May 20, 2025

Brown, 73, went 6-6 (3-5 in ACC play) in his final season at North Carolina. He went 113-79-1 (67-58-1 ACC) in 16 seasons with the Tar Heels across two stints. In between those two stints, he went 158-48 (98-33 Big 12) with the Longhorns.

While his final season wasn't his best, Brown felt it was the right time for him to walk away.

“It was time for me,” Brown said. “North Carolina didn’t have NIL money and I said we were kind of a slow bleed. We weren’t able to recruit the top kids like we were when we first got there. So it was time for them and it was time for me. It’s kind of like a divorce. Everybody was ready, it’s just who and how and how you split at the end. So it was best for me to get out. We always built programs on fit, and our last couple years there, we were having to get parents with money. We were trying to get kids over a 3.0. That’s who we could get.

“We signed 26 players at North Carolina our next-to-last year – high school players – and didn’t pay them a penny. So those kids, we even had Omarion Hampton, he got offered $1 million-plus to leave and he stayed for $300,000. I told him he should leave, because it was just crazy as you were looking at those things.”