One of my favorite bits of comedy from the last 10 or so years is not from a high budget movie or a well-crafted sitcom, it’s a random five second long video. It’s fairly simple, and at least one participant in it found no part of what was happening to be funny.
In the video, a three-ish year old child is seen running around a backyard. A woman, presumably his mother, asks the child “Let me see what you have?” referring to an item the child has in his right hand. The child excitedly replies “A knife!”
In a voice that is both worried and angry, the mom replies “NO!” The video immediately ends there.
A talk about all that to say this, being a UNC football fan is often like being the mother in this video. You’re left helplessly — at least in the video, presumably after it cuts off, the knife is removed from the child’s grasp — as something/someone you love is doing something incredibly reckless. Sure, everything might end up fine, but you’re just watching them take a dumb risk for no real reason.
More than anything, more than any wish of conference and national championships is for UNC football just to be normal.
Bringing Mack Brown was not the “normal” move. He was at the tail end of his career, having spent the previous couple years in the broadcast booth. A coach having a second stint at a previous job isn’t unheard of, but it’s uncommon and it actually working is even rarer. The initial results and recruiting uptick make me understand why it happened, even if I spent large periods of Mack 2.0 deeply frustrated.
Getting rid of Brown when they did was the logically correct move, but Mack’s ability to become friendly with the right people led to some outrage, most notably from John Preyer. I don’t need to rehash what happened after that, but that led to the Bill Belichick hire.
Hiring Belichick was definitely not the “normal” move. Sure, it’s possible some higher status football schools might’ve gone after the six-time Super Bowl winner if they knew it was even a possibility that he’d some to college, but no one else did. That led to him coming to UNC. Not much of the coaching search that led up was “normal” and the summer afterwards, including Mike Lomardi, Jordon Hudson, and more felt deeply unserious at times.
Then the season played out, and while they were a fairly run of the mill below .500 team, they had a spotlight on them because of everything that had gone down with the hire. UNC football is not a powerhouse, we should not be getting the same spotlight and same schadenfreude from opposing non-rival fans as when a blueblood has a below .500 year. Yet, here we are, because some of the powers that be surrounding football — intentionally or not — refuse to let the program be normal.
Now, we have the reports that UNC is hiring Bobby Petrino to be the next offensive coordinator. That is just adding even more of a spotlight considering Petrino’s, uh, past. By all accounts, he’s an excellent offensive mind, and maybe this could work. However, what it will undoubtedly do is shine even more of a light on the program. I’m just one fan, but I, for one, would like less of that. Unless UNC is going to legitimately contend for ACC and national titles, I just want people to leave us alone, and that won’t be happening any time soon.
