What should be the plan if the 2023 UNC football season is a disappointment?

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NCAA. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in North Carolina Tar Heels fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.

Earlier this week, we asked all of you if Mack Brown should be on the hot seat if UNC didn’t meet expectations for the 2023 season. Thank you to everyone who responded, and now the poll results are in! Take a look:

The voting wasn’t very lopsided, but 61% of you thought that the Heels should consider moving on from Brown if things fell apart this season. 39% of fans believing they should keep him seems like a smaller number, but honestly that is impressive considering the state of Carolina football since Brown’s first stretch as head coach. The Hall of Fame coach has truly done a lot for the program, and it’s hard to take anything away from the success that he’s had on and off of the field. However, it’s also hard to ignore some of the mistakes that he’s made so far in the Mack Brown 2.0 era, which while that sounds harsh, these mistakes kept the Heels from thriving during Sam Howell’s entire UNC career, and also blemished Drake Maye’s first season as a starter.

The obvious question that should be asked if the Heels do move on from Browns is who would even take his place? Did he help build the program enough to where Bubba Cunningham would be able to lure high-profile coaches to Chapel Hill? I personally feel like he probably would have an easier time drawing some bigger names out of the hat, and ironically Cunningham would have Brown to thank for that. UNC poured a bunch of money into the football program since Brown came back, and what he’s been able to do with recruiting proves that Clemson, NC State, and Virginia Tech don’t own the state of North Carolina like they did when Larry Fedora had the job. He has done an excellent job of proving that things can work out in the next guy’s favor, which might be enough to avoid (respectfully) scraping at the bottom of the barrel moving forward.

Anyways, I think we all can agree that the preferred outcome of the 2023 season is that they are very successful and that we don’t have to even think about this conversation in January. Nobody likes having to look for another head coach, even though there’s a lot of people online that would say otherwise. But what do all of you think of the Reacts results? Let us know in the comments below.

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