Mack Brown has been a college football coach for 35 years and knows what a bad performance looks like.
North Carolina’s 70-50 defeat to James Madison on Saturday was something he said should never happen.
“Embarrassing day, shocking day,” Brown said. “You shouldn’t be at North Carolina and lose to a Group of Five team, period. There are no excuses. Our defense looked awful. We had communication problems, we had missed tackles. We had guys wide open for a touchdown.”
Alonza Barnett III threw five touchdown passes in the Dukes’ fast-paced offense, giving first-year coach Bob Chesney a big win over an Atlantic Coast Conference team.
“It can only come back to one person and that’s me,” said the 73-year-old Brown, who won a national title at Texas and is back for his second term at UNC. “I’ve hired everybody on this staff and signed every player on this team. I am at fault 100 percent.
I’ve got big shoulders, and I’m embarrassed for our whole program that we would put a product like that on the field.”
Barnett passed for 388 yards with no interceptions and also ran for 99 yards and two touchdowns for the Dukes (3-0), who had five touchdown drives in the first half—four of which took five plays or less, and three that took under 35 seconds.
James Madison scored touchdowns on offense, defense, and special teams in its first win against North Carolina in four meetings. The 70 points matched the most ever allowed by the Tar Heels (3-1) in any game and was also the most for JMU against a Bowl Subdivision opponent.
The Dukes, who completed their transition to FBS in 2022 and were picked second in their Sun Belt Conference division this season, broke their previous best against a power-conference team (36 against Virginia last year) midway through the second quarter.
This came on a 39-yard touchdown pass to Taylor Thompson from Barnett, whose seven total touchdowns set a school record.
