Fedora’s unusually mixed tenure could end shortly after the Heels play NC State on Saturday. One of his Heels predecessors is already generating real discussion in UNC corners.
There’s a strong chance North Carolina will fire head coach Larry Fedora shortly after its Week 13 game at NC State, which will probably be a loss.
That’s partly informed opinion based on what usually happens to coaches who have two horrible seasons in a row in their sixth and seventh years on a job. And it’s party because SB Nation’s Steven Godfrey reported earlier this month that the coaching industry thinks the school will fire Fedora if it can swallow his buyout.
That’d be a bit more than $12 million, according to USA Today. That’s a lot, but it could well be within UNC’s means. Louisville just agreed to pay more than that to fire Bobby Petrino. Would the Heels really be able to justify that being the decisive factor?
If Fedora gets fired, former UNC and Texas coach Mack Brown’s name will get mentioned. It won’t be just him, but that’s a real thing.
The current ESPN studio analyst is already coming up in public rumors. He’s also being bandied about in UNC booster circles, per Godfrey and Richard Johnson:
UNC has a lot of upside and a lot of names attached. Georgia defensive coordinator Mel Tucker and App State head coach Scott Satterfield are two to watch. There’s no reason a Mark Stoops-style slow build couldn’t work here.
But Brown? Yeah, the 67-year-old national title winner at Texas, retired since 2013, is a name floating around boosters at UNC. Given that Brown is second all-time in program wins at North Carolina (he coached the Heels from 1988-’97), this isn’t quite as strange as Les Miles to Kansas, but the style (and age) of Brown is at odds with the desire among UNC insiders to get “younger and cooler,” per one source.
Current recruits were like 5 when Brown won his national title at Texas, but HELL YEAH. Let’s rev it up. Watch this video about the Vince Young Rose Bowl and dream of Brown finding some kid from Charlotte and doing what he did with mega-recruit Young 13 years ago:
Fedora’s job appears in danger because his program has moved in exactly the wrong direction.
The former Southern Miss head coach and Oklahoma State offensive coordinator has been in charge since 2012. But let’s jump to a few years ago.
In 2015, UNC went 11-3, winning the ACC Coastal and giving Clemson a pretty decent scare in the conference championship game. That record included an 11-1 regular season.
In 2016, UNC went 8-5 — worse, but fine, with some regression expected after the loss of star quarterback Marquise Williams.
In 2017, UNC went 3-9, another expected regression after losing No. 2 overall pick Mitchell Trubisky, but a steeper decline than what most projected.
In 2018, with some key players suspended for parts of the early season, UNC’s been terrible, failing to bounce back at all.
Recruiting’s also dipped this year, though the Early Signing Period’s still yet to come. The Heels are accustomed to finishing around 30th in the national recruiting rankings, but for the class of 2019, they’re tracking to finish around 60th and near the bottom of the ACC.
None of that’s good, but this could still be a somewhat hard call. There are fair reasons to let go of Fedora, but also fair ones to keep him.
A more detailed list of pros and cons is here, but some key points:
- Fedora’s failed to compete even in the most limp version of the Coastal in 2018. Miami and Virginia Tech have been mediocre, and UNC still didn’t contend (thought it was the first and maybe the only ACC team to beat eventual Coastal champ Pitt).
- Fedora said some embarrassing stuff before the season that raised legitimate questions about his commitment to player safety, even though it wasn’t all incorrect.
- But that $12 million-plus buyout’s still there.
- While he’s led UNC to its worst record since 2006, he’s also led UNC to its best record since 1997. Few coaches have ever offered more of a mixed bag of results.
- Fedora has, all in all, a good track record of coaching offense, though things have gotten a lot worse on that side of the ball the last two years.
- And other coaches in the industry thought he had fair explanations for struggling, Godfrey reported:
The Heels hired Fedora after firing Butch Davis in 2011. He took the job without knowing the eventual NCAA punishment (one-year bowl ban in 2012, 15 scholarships over three years). Fedora was also unaware that the NCAA would keep haunting campus for years, investigating claims of academic fraud across multiple sports from before Fedora’s time.
Throughout the saga, Fedora was courted by other programs with inarguably more football tradition and deeper pockets than UNC (he could’ve replaced Derek Dooley at Tennessee), yet he elected to stay in Chapel Hill.
“He stuck around when I wouldn’t have. He put up with a whole, whole lot. I think it was because he knew he could eventually build something and he’d earn their respect to get the benefit of the doubt,” an ACC head coach told SB Nation.
Earlier in November, Tar Heel Blog fleshed out detailed reasons to both fire and not fire the coach. It’s not a no-brainer, despite the usual indicators pointing against Fedora and the reporting that indicates a firing is very much on the table.
This should be an attractive job, especially in the current market.
There aren’t a lot of Power 5 openings. If UNC decides Fedora’s not the guy, the school should draw plenty of strong non-Brown candidates.