UNC Football: The 70 Points That Changed Everything

Some uniformed voices in the college football media will eventually argue that North Carolina should have simply held onto Mack Brown. It is an easy position to take if Bill Belichick ultimately fails, because hindsight allows every unsuccessful coaching change to become evidence that the previous coach should have stayed. But that is not how serious evaluations of a football program should work. Belichick may not work at North Carolina, and he could conceivably make the situation worse, but the problems that led to Brown’s departure were already forming long before Belichick ever arrived in Chapel Hill.

The clearest evidence came on September 21, 2024, when James Madison walked into Kenan Stadium and beat North Carolina 70–50. The Tar Heels surrendered a school-record 53 points in the first half and committed four turnovers, while JMU led for all but less than a minute of the game. That was not simply an embarrassing loss to a Group of Five opponent. It was the kind of performance that forces a program to confront whether the problems are isolated or systemic.

And the context makes that performance even more difficult to dismiss. Curt Cignetti had already left James Madison for Indiana, and 13 JMU players followed him to Bloomington. Indiana was effectively rebuilding its roster around Cignetti and a significant group of players who had already bought into his program. JMU was therefore dealing with the departure of its head coach and a substantial portion of its personnel, yet the Dukes still came into Chapel Hill and put 70 points on North Carolina. That should have been a five-alarm fire for the Tar Heels, not something explained away as one bad afternoon.

The more uncomfortable truth was that North Carolina had become increasingly dependent on exceptional quarterback play to cover for other deficiencies. Sam Howell did it. Drake Maye did it even better. When you have a quarterback capable of creating explosive plays, extending possessions and turning broken situations into positive plays, you can conceal problems elsewhere on the roster for a surprisingly long time. When that quarterback leaves, however, those problems do not leave with him. They become visible.

That is what happened at North Carolina.

Brown's teams had talent, and nobody should confuse the argument about the state of the program with an argument about Brown's ability to coach football. The issue was whether the overall operation was consistently developing into the kind of disciplined, fundamentally sound program capable of competing at the highest level of the ACC. By the end, there were too many examples suggesting that it was not. The defense was inconsistent, protection could break down, explosive plays were not created consistently enough, and the Tar Heels too often needed an exceptional individual performance to rescue an otherwise ordinary afternoon.

Omarion Hampton was perhaps the clearest example. Hampton was good enough to change games by himself, and there were contests in 2024 when his production was the difference between winning and losing. His ability to create yards after contact and turn ordinary runs into explosive plays gave North Carolina a margin it did not always create through collective execution. Without Hampton, there is a legitimate argument that the 6–6 regular-season record could have been considerably worse.

The same applies to the issue of discipline. One play rarely explains an entire season, but an interception against James Madison became representative of what was happening around the program. The larger issue was not one player or one mistake. When the receiver watched the JMU defender intercept and run to the end zone he just slowly walked up the field. I can get over that play. What lost me was the same receiver was put back in on the next series offense.  North Carolina simply did not look like a team playing with the level of discipline necessary to consistently win football games.

That is why the “UNC should have kept Mack” argument is so incomplete.

It treats the coaching change as if North Carolina had a healthy program, made an impulsive decision, hired a famous name and suddenly created a problem that did not previously exist. The reality was almost the opposite. The coaching change was an attempt to address problems that had become increasingly difficult to ignore.

Now comes the important distinction: Belichick's success or failure does not determine whether firing Brown was the correct decision.

Those are two separate evaluations.

If Belichick fails at North Carolina, then North Carolina will have made a bad hire. It does not automatically mean it made a bad decision to move on from Brown. If Belichick succeeds, that does not prove every criticism of Brown was correct, either. The two decisions have to be judged on their own merits and against the circumstances that existed when each decision was made.

And Belichick has plenty to prove.

The modern college game bears little resemblance to the NFL environment in which he established his reputation. Recruiting, NIL, the transfer portal, roster management and player retention require an entirely different set of skills, and there is no guarantee that a coach who mastered professional football will master this version of college football. Belichick could absolutely fail.

But that possibility cannot be used to rewrite the condition of the program when Brown left.

North Carolina did not become a troubled football program because Bill Belichick walked through the door. The warning signs were already there. James Madison simply made them impossible to ignore.

The 70 points were not Belichick's defense. The four turnovers were not Belichick's offense. The missed assignments, inconsistent execution and dependence on individual stars were not created by the new coaching staff.Those problems were already sitting in Chapel Hill.

So if someone wants to argue that North Carolina should have hired someone other than Belichick, there is a legitimate conversation to have. If someone wants to argue that Belichick was the wrong person to rebuild the program, make the case. If someone believes Mack Brown could have gotten another year or two out of the roster, explain why.

But simply saying North Carolina should have kept Mack because Belichick might fail is not analysis. It is hindsight.

And the better question is not whether the next coach succeeded immediately. The better question is whether the previous coach had the program moving in the direction North Carolina needed it to go.

By the time James Madison put 70 points on the scoreboard at Kenan Stadium, there was more than enough evidence to believe the answer was no.