Mack Brown loves his bowl match-up but doesn’t know the half of it.
Let’s talk about the North Carolina-South Carolina rivalry that Brown came to in the late 1980s; he should have seen it in the ‘60s and ‘70s in both football and basketball, when the schools were ACC arch enemies.
“It’s a border rivalry and that matters,” Brown said. “We both call each other ‘Carolina’ and we both laugh at it.”
Brown began his career at the “real” Carolina against the Gamecocks in 1988 when the depleted Tar Heels he inherited lost in Columbia, 31-10, which was the first of what would be 10 losses against 1 win.
“I called down there to talk to Coach (Joe) Morrison,” Brown recalled, “and the woman answered the phone ‘Carolina Football.’ I said that was wrong, WE are Carolina Football and we got into an argument about that.”
Thirty years later, Brown returned to Chapel Hill and his first game was against South Carolina where the Mayo Bowl is Thursday, at the Panthers’ Stadium in Charlotte. The Heels won dramatically, 24-20, in Sam Howell’s first college game. The bowl will likely be Howell’s last.
But so much had changed with the rivalry.
(AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
South Carolina bolted the ACC after the 1970-71 school year, which is another incredible story involving their Athletic Director and football coach Paul Dietzel and basketball coach Frank McGuire, the man who had brought Dean Smith to UNC. So, hoops were in the middle of that storm.
Dietzel had won the 1958 national championship at LSU behind eventual Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon and coached at Army against Roger Staubach and Navy; he was as big time as it gets.
There were some great ACC games between the two Carolinas, especially in 1970, when South Carolina roared back from a big deficit to deal Don McCauley and the Tar Heels a stunning defeat at Kenan Stadium.
After the ‘Cocks left the ACC, the teams still played occasionally over the years when we had Dooley, Crum, Brown, Torbush, Davis, Fedora and Brown again. They have had 10 head coaches since, including Steve Spurrier.
While winning at Duke, Spurrier sarcastically called the talkative Brown “Mr. Football.” Well, Mr. Football is still ticking with 265 college wins to the retired “Ol’ Ball Coach” with 228.
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