Mack Brown was fired as North Carolina’s coach on Tuesday morning. The Hall of Fame head coach, who is finishing his second stint leading the Tar Heels, won 58-percent of his games since his return to Chapel Hill ahead of the 2019 season.
The state of North Carolina is loaded with highly-ranked college football prospects year in and year out. Brown’s staff signed some but clearly not enough. Here is a look at five prospects that doom Mack Brown’s program.
CHANGE AT CAROLINA: Mack Brown fired | Recruits the next coach should target | Five programs that will benefit
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If the Tar Heels were looking for an explosive receiving threat, they didn’t have to look far to find Concepcion. The former four-star from Charlotte ultimately chose rival NC State over North Carolina and he has become one of the most dynamic playmakers in the ACC. As a freshman in the 2023 season, Concepcion posted 845 receiving yards on 72 catches and caught 10 touchdown passes. That’s more than any Tar Heel receiver in each category.
The Carolinas are known for producing elite defensive line prospects and Evans looked like he would be the next one up. The top 100 in-state prospect wanted to stay close to home for college, showing the most interest in the Tar Heels along with South Carolina, Virginia Tech and Florida. Keeping him from leaving the state was big for North Carolina but he hasn’t lived up to his potential. Evans is in his fifth and final season of eligibility and has not made the type of impact coaches and NFL scouts had hoped.
Adding Greene in the 2022 class was a huge win for North Carolina. The Tar Heels beat Clemson for his commitment and the team was expecting him to arrive on campus and be an immediate difference-maker on the outside. That ended up not being the case. In two seasons with North Carolina Greene was only targeted nine times. He transferred to Virginia after the 2023 season but still hasn’t lived up to the initial hype.
Simply put, there may not have been a bigger bust than Rice during Brown’s entire tenure. The only five-star offensive lineman to ever sign with the Tar Heels, Rice has played a total of 44 snaps in three years. He has more arrests (one) than starts (zero) during his college career.
Shaw is the second-highest ranked prospect North Carolina has ever signed but his impact has been minimal during his time in Chapel Hill. He is credited with 50 tackles, four and a half tackles for a loss, four pass deflections and zero sacks during his college career. On top of that lack of production, Shaw was already arrested and charged earlier this year in connection with a deadly alcohol-related car crash.
