Shortly after Mack Brown was hired at the University of Texas, he was saved from the first controversy of his young Longhorns career by the most unlikely allies.
In 1998, Brown and former Texas A&M coach RC Slocum were invited to a public event in San Antonio along with former Texas A&M and Alabama coach Gene Stallings.
Both Slocum and Stallings were well aware of the importance of hand signs in Texas college football. Brown, a native of Tennessee who had just arrived from North Carolina, received a quick lesson.
I didn’t know much about the history of the two places, and a fan walked in and stood between us and said, ‘Let’s take a picture,’ Brown reminded ESPN recently. they did. So I grabbed mine. RC grabbed him, I pulled him down and he said to me, “Boy, you’ll be fired before you train any game if you throw. That has to happen. You have to learn very quickly to stick them, not to make them.”
For Brown, it was the beginning of what would be a very cordial relationship with a hostile neighbor. So when North Carolina faces Texas A&M in its first appearance at the Capital One Orange Bowl on Saturday (at 8 p.m., ESPN / ESPN app), Brown won’t see red when he looks at the field and sees brown. In a sport where fans often wish the worst for their girls, Brown always kindly killed them.
“I’ve never been a guy who hated our rivals,” Brown said. “I’ve always liked our rivals. They’re two great shows in a state that cares about football, maybe more than any other state in the country. It’s because it’s like a religion there and both shows are so good. I would never say anything bad about Texas A&M. “
Brown announced his arrival in the rivalry with a 26-24 Aggies No. 6 upset in 1998. For the past 14 years of the series before Texas A&M left for the SEC, Brown defeated the Aggies 10 times, going 4- 1 against Slocum, 3-2 against Dennis Franchione and 3-1 against Mike Sherman, including the final 27-25 victory in 2011.
“Mack saw the rivalries as pride,” said Ricky Williams, who won the Heisman Trophy in Brown’s first season in Austin after rushing 259 yards in that annoying win over A&M. “So the idea of beating the Aggies was to prove we’re the best team in Texas. He saw those great games as great opportunities for us.”
Brown never fired, insulted or posed tricks to refer to A&M. His magnetic charm that remade the recruiting landscape in Texas also often sounded like it was rooted in the Aggies, aside from a game, of course.
“We don’t need A&M to have a bad team,” Brown told Kirk Bohls of the Austin American-Statesman before his first clash with the Aggies in 1998. “If we both go 6-4 in this game, that I would not help any of us. “
Brown insists none of this is a replacement, another recruiting camp for a shrewd coach. He and Slocum were good friends from when he was an assistant to one of Slocum’s good friends, Donnie Duncan, in the state of Iowa from 1979 to ’81. Brown’s offensive coordinator Greg Davis, who worked at Brown in Tulane and Texas, got his first college job at Texas A&M at the urging of Slocum.
“I was with [Brown] “18 years, and it was never him or RC or him or anyone,” Davis said. “” Obviously it was an important ball game. But it was never a personal deal with him. “
Brown even allowed Slocum to organize a tour of Texas facilities for A&M officials when Slocum felt the Aggies were lagging behind in the arms race. There was always mutual respect for others and for programs.
“It was very different from the Oklahoma rivalry,” Brown said last week. “Oklahoma’s rivalry had been state-by-state. The A&M rivalry was family-to-family. They were all jeans, and even in the game there were scattered fans of different colors and family sitting together. I used to sit like a child and watch Texas. and Texas A&M [on TV]. He highlighted the high school and high school football coaches in the state of Texas to everyone in the country. “
Dave South named Texas A&M football, basketball and baseball games for 33 years and was awarded the National Football Foundation’s Chris Schenkel Award in 2018 for excellence in outreach. While in New York for his incorporation, he met Brown, who was admitted to the NFF Hall of Fame the same year, and was surprised by Brown’s revelation when he presented himself.
“I know who you are,” Brown told South. “When I was traveling, many times when we didn’t have a game or we played in the afternoon and you played at night, I would listen to you.”
South said Brown had nothing but kind words for his old enemy.
“When the game was over, the game was over,” South said. “It was very complementary to A&M and the rivalry.”
But nothing proved Brown’s true respect for the Aggies, such as his final press conference when he resigned in Texas in December 2013, when Brown took a long time to remember the collapse of Aggie’s bonfire in 1999 that killed 12 students.
After Brown’s initial statement, a reporter asked if anything had changed during his 16 years in Austin. He first said he would give anything to recover Cole Pittman, referring to the UT defensive attack that killed him in a 2001 car accident. Then came an extraordinary moment for a Texas coach who passed away. for one of the worst professional days of his career.
“And I would like the bonfire [collapse] “Not having moved to A&M,” he said. “These are two horrible things in my life that I will never forget. Playing A&M on Thanksgiving, I thought about families. … When you lose your children, there is nothing worse than that in the world. I think about that every Action of thanksgiving because there are 12 families who don’t have a good Thanksgiving. That will never go away. “
At the Orange Bowl press conference, he vividly recalled the week of tragedy.
“I thought we probably shouldn’t play,” he said. “I told RC: we will do whatever you want. Not only did we play the game, but I think we had advanced 16-0 at the break, [and] they came back and beat us 21-16 right at the end. I’m not sure it wasn’t the best for them to have won this game. “
Davis recalls that Brown was deeply affected.
“He was shaken by the bonfire,” Davis said. “In fact, we did a blood drive in Austin at the football office and most of the coaches donated blood.”
For Brown, tragedy was the prospect of what a rivalry really meant.
“I thought RC handled this situation better than anyone could,” he told ESPN last week. “We had the memorial with many Texas A&M students and fans, which was a night I will remember for the rest of my life. Even the game, our band playing ‘Amazing Grace’ and everyone in mourning the stadium for those families …. It’s when you know it’s a lot bigger than a football game. “
There is no doubt that Brown wants to beat A&M to put an end to a remarkable shift season in North Carolina, which is 8-3 after going 2-9 two years before Brown’s arrival.
Williams said Brown will sell it as one more step for North Carolina, “because of the success that A&M has had, because they are from the powerful SEC,” he said. “When it’s a first-rate ball game, you know it’s a great opportunity for your program to move to the next level.”
“I’m sure he’s excited because he knows what kind of program [A&M has] had historically and the job that Jimbo [Fisher] he’s doing, “Davis added.” But it’s an emotion. It is by no means a revenge deal or anything like that. I certainly don’t think he’ll approach it any differently than if he were playing anyone else in terms of aggies or whatever. “
And no matter how many words Brown says about the Aggies, there’s no doubt they want to win him too. But the absence of rivalry may have even shone through Brown’s brilliant words. Good luck to say anything else.
“Texas A&M is one of the best shows in the country and I always love going to play them at College Station,” he said. “These fans are amazing. The place is as strong as anywhere I’ve been coaching. The loyalty of these fans is amazing to me.”