003: 🏈 Carolina and State since '88
NC State and Carolina play Friday at 3:30 pm.
Mack Brown has won 99 games as the head coach of North Carolina. 30 of those 99 wins have come in his second stint as the Tar Heels head coach.
Brown won 158 games and a National Championship as the head coach of Texas. If Carolina beats NC State on Friday, Mack Brown will have 100 wins as a head coach at two different schools.
Carolina is 68-37-6 all time against NC State. The Heels are 16-18 over the past three decades and change.
This time frame of Carolina football is bookended by the Mack 1.0 and Mack 2.0 eras.
Brown lost his first five games as Carolina head coach against State. And not by close margins. A combined scored of 151 to 45 from 1988 to 1992.
The Heels won its next seven meetings against the Wolfpack. Brown left for Texas, while Chuck Amato and his puffed chest were leading the Wolfpack in 2000.
John Bunting took over as the Heels head coach in 2001. Despite only winning ~38 percent of his games, Bunting owned a 4-2 record against the `Pack that included the dramatic goal line stand against T.A. McLendon.
Tom O’Brien took over for Amato in 2007, and the Wolfpack won five straight against Carolina from 2007 to 2011. Butch Davis and Everett Withers did not win a game against NC State.
This stretch included the 2008 game in Chapel Hill where Russell Wilson and State beat Carolina by 31 points. The Heels were an 11-point favorite in that one. Sound familiar?
The Tar Heels became smart, fast, and physical in 2012. Carolina snapped the five-game skid because O’Brien elected to punt to Gio (Benard).
Since 2013, Dave Doeren and the Wolfpack own a 5-4 record against Carolina. A 2018 overtime win in Chapel Hill found Fedora fired hours later.
Mack 2.0 picked up where Mack 1.0 left off. Carolina handled State in 2019 and 2020 before the debacle in Raleigh a year ago.
Since 1988, there have been six different Tar Heel head coaches and five different Wolfpack head coaches. 16 wins. 18 losses. Dramatic and mind-numbing endings. Two programs that often can’t seem to get out of their own way.
What’s in store for Friday?
Who the hell knows.