As many of you may have seen, this past weekend was not kind to College Football teams in the state of North Carolina (Thanks Kamala).
Overall, it was a brutal week for the Old North State but the game I want to highlight in this article is the absolute beatdown James Madison gave to UNC, at home no less, on Saturday. The Tar Heels came into the game 3-0 and an 11.5-point favorite over the Dukes but on Saturday it seemed like the Tar Heels defense never even showed up for the game.
JMU came out swinging, leading after the first quarter 25-14 and scoring 53 points… by halftime. This comes just a week after the Dukes barely scraped by lowly Gardner-Webb, winning by a score of 13-6.
The offense seemed to take the previous week's performance personally, as quarterback Alonza Barnett III threw for 388 yards and a whopping 7 total touchdowns. Despite a final score of 70-50, JMU’s defense played particularly well in situational football, forcing a game-high 5 turnovers including 4 in the first half on their way to an insurmountable lead.
You'd think getting 70 dropped on your head by a Group of 5 team would be the headliner after the game but no, the drama continues. As initially reported by 247Sports’ Adam Smith, following the game UNC Head Coach Mack Brown was so disgusted by the game he reportedly quit.
As the rumors go, Brown reportedly said in his post-game address to the team that they didn't respond to his coaching and embarrassed the program.
These rumors persisted for a couple of hours on Saturday before clarification was offered by the UNC coach himself. As reported to ESPN, Brown initially met with the team and offered his resignation to the team if they couldn't straighten things out to which the team denied, and took responsibility for the loss.
Brown later stressed to ESPN that he had not resigned but described the post-game conversations as “emotional” and said, “he told the team that he blamed himself for the loss and would step away if he couldn't get things straightened out.”
At 73 years old, the glory days seem to be behind Mack Brown and this latest embarrassment would typically result in 9 out of 10 coaches getting a pink slip. But this is Mack Brown, the glorified grandpa of College Football. UNC won't ever take the drastic step of firing Brown but now the question is will this performance happen again?
JMU certainly won't be the best team the Tar Heels play this year, especially with a red-hot Clemson team bearing down on the schedule.
My advice to Mack Brown and the Tar Heels is if little old JMU can whoop on you to the point where you're considering retirement, something isn't going right. Batten down the hatches, it's gonna get rough in Chapel Hill.
