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Mack Brown is preaching ‘complementary football’ in the post-Drake Maye era
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A year ago at this time, North Carolina had big plans — and expectations — for the 2023 season.
Drake Maye was set to return, and the Tar Heels were considered amongst the favorites to get back to the ACC Championship Game.
Instead, the Tar Heels were disappointing again. Carolina went just 8-4 during the regular season, squandering what would ultimately be Maye’s final collegiate season. Despite having an elite quarterback over the past 2 seasons, the Tar Heels went just 10-6 in ACC play.
Things were especially bad late in both of Maye’s seasons in Chapel Hill. From Oct. 20 onward in each of the past 2 campaigns, Carolina posted a combined record of 5-9. That includes a pair of losses to rival NC State.
Now without Maye under center, head coach Mack Brown is acknowledging that Carolina will have to be better in other areas to make up for his absence. He spoke a lot about playing more “complementary football” in 2024.
“I expect us to play better complementary football,” Brown said Thursday at ACC Media Days. “That’s what I’m excited about. I think we can have a good team. I don’t want to talk about it. Everybody said, You’re not talking about your team. If you talk about them, they’re not any good, then you’re stupid. There’s not a coach up here that knows how good his team is going to be.”
What does complementary football mean for Carolina? Well, a lot of things.
Offensively, it means being better on the offensive line and it means running the ball more often. Carolina was 3rd best in the ACC at preventing sacks last season and had one of the nation’s best running backs in Omarion Hampton. Brown said at ACC Media Days that he expects Carolina’s offensive line to be improved in 2024, giving credit to second-year OL coach Randy Clements.
There’s also the matter of the 3-way quarterback competition to replace Maye. The contenders are Texas A&M transfer Max Johnson, Arkansas transfer (and two-time Tar Heel) Jacolby Criswell and redshirt sophomore Conner Harrell.
The elephant in the room, of course, is on defense. Carolina will have a new defensive coordinator in place this season as former Georgia Tech head coach Geoff Collins was hired to replace Gene Chizik. Carolina’s defense has in the bottom half of the ACC in yards-per-play allowed in each of the last 3 seasons.
Brown succinctly described how all of those areas — the running game, the passing game and the defense — need to come together to be a better team than they were with Maye (and previously Sam Howell) under center.
“I do think what will happen is our defense is going to be better,” Brown said. “Last year we ran the ball more like we did when Michael Carter and Javonte Williams were here. We’re going to help the defense more with our offense. These guys have to step up and they can’t be Drake, they can’t be Sam, but we can be a better team.”
To put it more simply: Carolina has to be more than the sum of its parts in order to achieve its highest goals in 2024. That’s something UNC has failed to do in recent years, but it does have the requisite talent to be a serious contender in the ACC.
Carolina has recruited as well as anyone in the ACC over the past 4 years, with the possible exceptions of Clemson and Florida State. From 2021-24, North Carolina signed a total of 35 blue-chip prospects. Some of those elite talents — like Maye — have moved on, but others are still in Chapel Hill and will be asked to fill big roles this fall.
Brown did share some tangible things Carolina is going to do differently in 2024 in an attempt to avoid the late-season collapses that have come the past couple of years. He said the program — especially the defense — is committed to playing more players throughout the year, which would theoretically help keep UNC’s top players well-rested through a demanding 12-game schedule.
“We’ve played some really good teams at the end, but we’ve lost to our rival three years in a row, one of our rivals. You can’t do that,” Brown said. “At the end of the year, we’ve lost to Clemson in a title game. We lost to Oregon. These are all good teams, but to be where we want to go, we have to win those games.”
“Our whole focus since the end of last season is why are we not finishing right?” Brown said. “Coach Bowden had a quote that kind of said, ‘If you keep making the same mistakes, you’re going to have the same results’. That’s true. Why not change? We’re going to play more people. We have to play more people and create more depth. We’ve said it for five years, haven’t done it. Geoff Collins is committed to doing that, and we’ll do it on offense as well.”
There’s a lot of boxes that still need to be checked, but so far, Carolina is saying all the right things. Even more a program that has earned more than its fair share of skepticism over the past couple of years, there appears to be legitimate reason for hope in Chapel Hill — even in the post-Drake Maye era.
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Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
