Fisher, Brown have more than title roles in common
COLLEGE STATION — Two national championship coaches, two of college football’s most engaging and vivacious characters, will meet in the Orange Bowl in Miami on Jan. 2.
Neither coach won his title at his current employer, but Texas A&M fans believe it’s only a matter of time for Jimbo Fisher, considering he had the Aggies on the cusp of the College Football Playoff in his third season.
As for North Carolina’s Mack Brown? The Tar Heels’ hire of the former Texas boss two years ago was regarded as fun and nostalgic and a final hurrah for one of the sport’s
good guys. Within one year, however, there was nothing fun about playing Brown’s North Carolina squad.
“The opening statement is we got our ass kicked,” Miami coach Manny Diaz said when asked for that after the Tar Heels wrecked the Hurricanes 62-26 on Dec. 12 in, of all places, the home of the Orange Bowl. “It was a humiliating performance.
Give credit to North Carolina — they were phenomenal.”
No. 5 Texas A&M (8-1) against No. 13 North Carolina (8-3) pits a program justifiably mad it didn’t make the four-team College Football Playoff against a basketball school playing in its first “major” bowl since 1950. Brown, 69, coached North Carolina from 1988-97 before
taking the Texas job.
“I remember being disappointed our last year here (in 1997) when we were 10-1 and we didn’t have a chance to go to what would be considered a major bowl at that time,” Brown recalled. “So this is a huge accomplishment for our program and our team. Now we’ve got to play well because … we want this to be every year, and not something that’s so unique for us.”
Brown left for UT in 1998 and led the Longhorns to the program’s last national title in 2005. Brown, 10-4 against A&M from 1998-2011, was forced to resign following the 2013 season, an 8-5 finish and the fourth straight year of at least four losses. UT has not come close to a national title since.
“He’s one of the great coaches in college football,” Fisher said of Brown, whom he considers a casual friend. “To get (North Carolina) in the Orange Bowl
after where that program was when he took over, it’s an amazing accomplishment. But it doesn’t surprise you. Everywhere Mack goes, he wins.
“We’re going to have our hands full.”
Fisher, 55, won a national title at Florida State in 2013, and Brown began working as an ESPN analyst in the years after he left Texas. That’s when the two men with gifts for gab on top of gab began crossing paths. It helped, too, that Brown had played running back at FSU in the early 1970s.
“I got to spend some real quality time with Jimbo talking about game plans … and got to call maybe three of his games in three years,” Brown said of Fisher’s FSU tenure. “It was a lot of fun to be able to visit with him. He’s tough and he’s smart, and they’re a very physical team. It’ll be a great learning experience for us to play a team that physical.
“I really admire and respect what Jimbo has done, everywhere he’s been.”
Fisher typically tolerates the talking heads who visit with him the day before broadcasting one of his games, but he said sitting down with ESPN employee Brown was different.
“It was fun, because you had an ex-coach who really understood what you’re going through and what’s going on,” Fisher said. “No offense to anybody in the
media, but you understand you can have some deep conversations and really understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing things.
“He did a great job as an analyst, and Mack is a very intelligent guy. … I got to have some deep conversations about ball, and you don’t always get to go into that kind of detail.”
Brown left ESPN and rejoined North Carolina in 2019, taking over a program that had been 5-18 in its two prior seasons under then-coach Larry Fedora. The Aggies and Tar Heels have never played in football, and Fisher and Brown have never coached against each other — so at least the Orange Bowl has those unique angles to pitch.
North Carolina ironically could have helped out the Aggies’ playoff cause, but the Tar Heels lost at home to Notre Dame 31-17 on Nov. 27. The Fighting Irish finished just ahead of A&M in the CFP, therefore making the fourteam playoff.
“Jimbo has gotten (A&M) to this point much quicker than I thought he could,” Brown said. “To be in that division in the SEC, and to be able to compete like he has and put his team in a position that arguably should be in the final four — it’s amazing what he’s been able to accomplish in such a short time.”