– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA — Leave it to a longtime rival to ruin a perfect sendoff, and that was the case once more as the University of North Carolina, after letting go of its greatest head coach in its program history earlier in the week, looked to give him one final victory before heading into the sunset.
Instead, it was North Carolina State who, literally, provided the Hollywood ending, all while making sure it gave itself one last chance to play football before thinking about the offseason.
Hollywood Smothers scored on a 2-yard touchdown run with 25 seconds remaining, the final push on the seesaw that lifted NC State to a 35-30 victory over rival North Carolina in the final game of Tar Heels’ head coach Mack Brown, whom the school fired as coach earlier in the week. The win was the sixth for the Wolfpack on the season, earning bowl eligibility after missing out on two prior opportunities for that elusive win in losses to Duke and Georgia Tech in their last two games.
“These kids just get up and fight — these grown men get up and fight, and I’m proud of them,” NC State coach Dave Doeren said. “Every time they made a play on their sideline, we responded with a play on our sideline.”
The Wolfpack responded after North Carolina’s Omarion Hampton scored on a 47-yard catch and run 1with 1:51 remaining to give the Tar Heels a 30-29 lead. Hampton ended the game with 263 total yards, including 185 on the ground, on 26 touches (22 carries, four receptions).
The key play of NC State’s game-winning drive was a 44-yard pass completion from quarterback CJ Bailey to wide receiver Noah Rogers in between a couple of defenders to set up the Wolfpack at the Tar Heels’ 17-yard line. Two plays later, Smothers set up first-and-goal with a 10-yard run to the 2, and then punched it in up the middle on the ensuing play.
Befitting of the emotions that run deep in the rivalry, both sets of players had to be separated at midfield soon after NC State players tried to plant a Wolfpack flag on the Tar Heels’ logo at midfield, a scene somewhat similar to what occurred earlier in the day in Columbus during Michigan’s upset at No. 2 Ohio State. While the dust-up was happening and players were slowly making their way to the locker rooms, the stadium video board flashed a thank you message to Mack and Sally Brown for their tenure in Chapel Hill. After the game, Brown, who stated his intention to come back to the school for 2025 on Monday before the school fired him one day later, shared that he wanted any decision on his coaching future to be made public only after Saturday’s contest.
“Sally and I both agree that it was time for a leadership change at the top. I was just disappointed in the way it was done,” Brown said. “We could’ve done a joint press conference, I could’ve stayed and we could’ve worked all of this out where I worked here for a while. But that didn’t happen.”
In two stints in Chapel Hill, Brown accumulated 113 victories, with his first tour of duty in Chapel Hill, from 1988 to 1997, being spent building the program into a Top 10 power. The 1997 team finished 11-1 and No. 4 in the Coaches Poll, and before the team played in the bowl victory over Virginia Tech, Brown left to take the head coaching job at the University of Texas, where he won a national championship in the 2005 season.
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Saturday afternoon’s game, with photos taken by North Carolina-based photographer William Anthony. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page, Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 11 pictures in total.
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