Mack Brown
Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 14-12 · won 1 of 2 national title games
Tulane’87LNorth Carolina’92W’93L’94L’95W’96W’19W’20L’21L’22L’23LTexas’98W’99L’00L’01W’02W’03L’04W’05W★’06W’07W’08W’09L’11W’12W’13L
Show all 26 games
1987Independence BowlL 12-24
North Carolina
1992Peach BowlW 21-17
1993Gator BowlL 10-24
1994Sun BowlL 31-35
1995Carquest BowlW 20-10
1996Gator BowlW 20-13
2019Military BowlW 55-13
2020Orange BowlL 27-41
2021Duke's Mayo BowlL 21-38
2022Holiday BowlL 27-28
2023Duke's Mayo BowlL 10-30
Texas
1998Cotton Bowl ClassicW 38-11
1999Cotton Bowl ClassicL 6-27
2000Holiday BowlL 30-352001Holiday BowlW 47-43
2002Cotton Bowl ClassicW 35-20
2003Holiday BowlL 20-28
2004Rose BowlW 38-37
2005 ★Rose BowlW 41-38
2006Alamo BowlW 26-24
2007Holiday BowlW 52-34
2008Fiesta BowlW 24-21
2009BCS title gameL 21-37
2011Holiday BowlW 21-10
2012Alamo BowlW 31-27
2013Alamo BowlL 7-30Report card
Top-quarter offense — 77th percentile.
Texas, every completed season graded against the whole field, then averaged.
Offense
Each season is his team’s percentile among every team with that stat (the share it beat), averaged over his completed seasons here; a mid-season takeover year and the season in progress aren’t graded. Letters: A+ 90th percentile and up, A 80, B+ 70, B 60, B− 50, C+ 45, C 40, C− 30, D 15, F below.
Fans
No fan talk about him on our list yet. His record is on Career.
Stats
Big games
Pick a job to see its years on their own.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
0-3 against his rivals at Tulane. Winless in 3 tries against Bobby Bowden.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
13-7 against his rivals at North Carolina. Winless in 5 tries against Dick Sheridan.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
30-16 against his rivals at Texas. Just 1-2 against Houston Nutt.
Signature games
These losses tie at the model's current max -- an editorial pick among a real tie, not a clean ranking.
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
7-5 against his rivals at North Carolina. Winless in 3 tries against Brent Key.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
50-31 against his rivals. Winless in 5 tries against Dick Sheridan.
Signature games
These losses tie at the model's current max -- an editorial pick among a real tie, not a clean ranking.
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Called about what the situation called for.
6,131 run and pass snaps at Texas, 2004–2013, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points. Play-by-play starts in 2004, so his earlier seasons there aren’t in it.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Season-to-season pass-rate range for all 449 FBS coaching stints with at least three covered seasons, 2004–2025.
Building the roster
Six numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
His recruiting, really
His 6 ranked North Carolina classes of his own have averaged #22 nationally — best #11, worst #30.
His class — he had the full signing cycle
Rank is each signing class’s national recruiting rank (#1 is best). Only a class he had a full signing cycle to build counts as his.
Followed him here
Tulane→
North Carolina1988Players who transferred from his old program to his new one through the portal in the same year he made the move. Name-matching across data sources misses some, so every count is a floor, not an exact number.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2013 roster arrived on his watch — 120 of 120 players. Nobody is left from before he was hired.
This coach's entire tenure (1998-2013) predates 2021, when transfer-portal tracking begins in this database. Portal usage cannot be measured for this tenure at all -- this is not the same as '0% portal'.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Size up front
Size up front
Offensive linemen on his North Carolina rosters have averaged 6 lb heavier than the FBS average (2019–2024 rosters on record) — heavier than 82% of FBS coaching runs since 2010.
Average listed weight of every offensive lineman on each season’s roster, holdovers included, against every FBS roster that season (2010 on; a program needs 3+ seasons under him to appear). Weights are the ones programs publish, and programs list differently. This describes size only — not scheme, and not quality.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 179 of 198 signees (90%) across his 2000–2013 classes on record (his tenure ran 1998–2013), drawn from 12 states in all. Next: OK (4).
94% of his signees come from TX and its 4 border states (OK 4, LA 3, AR 1).
Off this map: 3 signees to the west (CA 2, AZ) and 3 to the east (AL, OH, others).
- median hometown distance
- 168 mi
- within 100 mi
- 24%
- within 500 mi
- 94%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 2%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
The NFL pipeline
The NFL pipeline
players drafted into the NFL off his teams here. He brought in 1 of them himself. 57 more can’t be traced to who brought them in (no roster record). 16 went in the first round.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | R1.15 | Kenny Vaccaro | Safety |  New Orleans Saints | Estimated |
| 2013 | R3.16 | Marquise Goodwin | Wide Receiver |  Buffalo Bills | Estimated |
| 2013 | R4.06 | Alex Okafor | Defensive End |  Arizona Cardinals | |
| 2012 | R4.24 | Keenan Robinson | Outside Linebacker |  Washington Redskins | Estimated |
| 2012 | R6.34 | Emmanuel Acho | Inside Linebacker |  Cleveland Browns | Estimated |
| 2012 | R7.08 | Kheeston Randall | Defensive Tackle |  Miami Dolphins | Estimated |
| 2011 | R2.02 | Aaron Williams | Cornerback | Buffalo Bills | Estimated |
| 2011 | R3.31 | Curtis Brown | Cornerback |  Pittsburgh Steelers | Estimated |
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | R4.06 | Sam Acho | Defensive End | Arizona Cardinals | Estimated |
| 2011 | R5.33 | Chykie Brown | Cornerback |  Baltimore Ravens | Estimated |
| 2010 | R1.14 | Earl Thomas | Safety |  Seattle Seahawks | Estimated |
| 2010 | R2.11 | Sergio Kindle | Outside Linebacker | Baltimore Ravens | Estimated |
| 2010 | R2.12 | Lamarr Houston | Defensive Tackle |  Oakland Raiders | Estimated |
| 2010 | R3.20 | Jordan Shipley | Wide Receiver |  Cincinnati Bengals | Estimated |
| 2010 | R3.21 | Colt McCoy | Quarterback | Cleveland Browns | Estimated |
| 2010 | R4.33 | Roddrick Muckelroy | Inside Linebacker | Cincinnati Bengals | Estimated |
| 2009 | R1.13 | Brian Orakpo | Defensive End | Washington Redskins | Estimated |
| 2009 | R3.17 | Roy Miller | Defensive Tackle |  Tampa Bay Buccaneers | Estimated |
| 2009 | R4.05 | Henry Melton | Defensive End |  Chicago Bears | Estimated |
| 2009 | R7.02 | Chris Ogbonnaya | Running Back |  St. Louis Rams | Estimated |
| 2008 | R2.22 | Limas Sweed | Wide Receiver | Pittsburgh Steelers | Estimated |
| 2008 | R3.10 | Jamaal Charles | Running Back |  Kansas City Chiefs | Estimated |
| 2008 | R3.28 | Jermichael Finley | Tight End |  Green Bay Packers | Estimated |
| 2008 | R4.31 | Tony Hills | Offensive Tackle | Pittsburgh Steelers | Estimated |
| 2008 | R5.16 | Frank Okam | Defensive Tackle |  Houston Texans | Estimated |
| 2007 | R1.19 | Michael Griffin | Defensive Back |  Tennessee Titans | Estimated |
| 2007 | R1.20 | Aaron Ross | Defensive Back |  New York Giants | Estimated |
| 2007 | R2.07 | Justin Blalock | Offensive Guard |  Atlanta Falcons | Estimated |
| 2007 | R2.24 | Tim Crowder | Defensive End |  Denver Broncos | Estimated |
| 2007 | R4.03 | Brian Robison | Defensive End |  Minnesota Vikings | Estimated |
| 2007 | R5.10 | Tarell Brown | Defensive Back |  San Francisco 49ers | Estimated |
| 2007 | R6.09 | Kasey Studdard | Offensive Guard | Houston Texans | Estimated |
| 2006 | R1.03 | Vince Young | Quarterback | Tennessee Titans | Estimated |
| 2006 | R1.07 | Michael Huff | Defensive Back | Oakland Raiders | Estimated |
| 2006 | R2.16 | Cedric Griffin | Defensive Back | Minnesota Vikings | Estimated |
| 2006 | R3.22 | Dave Thomas | Tight End |  New England Patriots | Estimated |
| 2006 | R5.08 | Jonathan Scott | Offensive Tackle |  Detroit Lions | Estimated |
| 2006 | R7.18 | Rodrique Wright | Defensive Tackle | Miami Dolphins | Estimated |
| 2005 | R1.04 | Cedric Benson | Running Back | Chicago Bears | Estimated |
| 2005 | R1.15 | Derrick Johnson | Linebacker | Kansas City Chiefs | Estimated |
| 2005 | R6.05 | Bo Scaife | Tight End | Tennessee Titans | Estimated |
| 2004 | R1.07 | Roy Williams | Wide Receiver | Detroit Lions | Estimated |
| 2004 | R1.23 | Marcus Tubbs | Defensive Tackle |  Seattle Seahawks | Estimated |
| 2004 | R4.14 | Nathan Vasher | Defensive Back | Chicago Bears | Estimated |
| 2004 | R7.10 | Sloan Thomas | Wide Receiver | Houston Texans | Estimated |
| 2003 | R3.02 | Cory Redding | Defensive End | Detroit Lions | Estimated |
| 2003 | R3.17 | Derrick Dockery | Offensive Guard | Washington Redskins | Estimated |
| 2003 | R3.33 | Chris Simms | Quarterback | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | Estimated |
| 2003 | R4.26 | Rod Babers | Defensive Back | New York Giants | Estimated |
| 2002 | R1.04 | Mike Williams | Offensive Tackle | Buffalo Bills | Estimated |
| 2002 | R1.05 | Quentin Jammer | Defensive Back |  San Diego Chargers | Estimated |
| 2001 | R1.02 | Leonard Davis | Offensive Tackle |  Arizona Cardinals | Estimated |
| 2001 | R1.19 | Casey Hampton | Defensive Tackle |  Pittsburgh Steelers | Estimated |
| 2001 | R2.30 | Shaun Rogers | Defensive Tackle |  Detroit Lions | Estimated |
| 2000 | R6.25 | Cedric Woodard | Defensive Tackle | Baltimore Ravens | Estimated |
| 1999 | R1.05 | Ricky Williams | Running Back |  New Orleans Saints | Estimated |
| 1999 | R4.23 | Wane McGarity | Wide Receiver |  Dallas Cowboys | Estimated |
| 1999 | R4.30 | Jay Humphrey | Offensive Tackle |  Minnesota Vikings | Estimated |
A pick counts toward his tenure when the player’s final college season was one he coached, a checkable rule rather than a claim about who developed the player. A blank note means the player is on a verified roster and arrived on his watch. “Estimated” means no roster record, so the final season is assumed to be the year before the draft.
News
No outlet on our list has written about him by name yet. His record is on Career.
Career
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Builder meaningfully raised a program that wasn't one · Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
2nd-best Texas tenure of 12 by the numbers.
Followed John Mackovic (1992–1997) · succeeded by Charlie Strong (2014–2016).
| Season | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||||||||||||
| Record | 9-3 | 9-5 | 9-3 | 11-2 | 11-2 | 10-3 | 11-1 | 13-0 | 10-3 | 10-3 | 12-1 | 13-1 | 5-7 | 8-5 | 9-4 | 8-5 | |
| Postseason | W bowl | L bowl | L bowl | W bowl | W bowl | L bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | Title game L | — | W bowl | W bowl | L bowl | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||||||||||||||
| Offense | — | — | — | — | — | — | 94 | 98 | 62 | 87 | 96 | 43 | 45 | 35 | 67 | 4 | |
| Defense | — | — | — | — | — | — | 78 | 58 | 54 | 63 | 41 | 99 | 90 | 99 | 36 | 49 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||||||||||||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | 28.2 | 44.9 | 46.2 | 46.9 | 54.3 | 52.4 | 48.1 | 29.2 | 37.9 | 35.8 | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | 13.2 | 25.8 | 36.0 | 28.7 | 40.5 | 38.3 | 35.7 | 22.1 | 26.7 | 23.2 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | — | — | — | 38.1 | 41.2 | 27.6 | 32.5 | 37.9 | 22.0 | 23.9 | 33.3 | 39.5 | 25.0 | |
1 player-season honored (All-America / national award): Jackson Jeffcoat (2013)
3rd-best North Carolina tenure of 17 by the numbers.
Followed Dick Crum (1978–1987) · succeeded by Carl Torbush (1998–2000) · returned in 2019, succeeding Larry Fedora (2012–2018) · succeeded by Bill Belichick (2025–now).
| Season | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||||||||||||
| Record | 1-10 | 1-10 | 6-4-1 | 7-4 | 9-3 | 10-3 | 8-4 | 7-5 | 10-2 | 10-1 | 7-6 | 8-4 | 6-7 | 9-5 | 8-5 | 6-6 | |
| Postseason | — | — | — | — | W bowl | L bowl | L bowl | W bowl | W bowl | — | W bowl | L bowl | L bowl | L bowl | L bowl | — | |
| Coordinators | |||||||||||||||||
| OC | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Phil Longo | Phil Longo | Phil Longo | Phil Longo | Chip Lindsey | Chip Lindsey | |
| DC | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Jay Bateman / Tommy Thigpen | Jay Bateman / Tommy Thigpen | Jay Bateman / Tommy Thigpen | Charlton Warren / Gene Chizik / Tommy Thigpen | Charlton Warren / Gene Chizik / Tommy Thigpen | Geoff Collins / Tommy Thigpen | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||||||||||||||
| Offense | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 93 | 98 | 80 | 84 | 76 | 44 | |
| Defense | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 75 | 11 | 9 | 5 | 28 | 35 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||||||||||||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 44.7 | 43.1 | 43.1 | 47.2 | 48.4 | 36.8 | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 50.8 | 32.3 | 42.0 | 54.7 | 39.2 | 27.9 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 33.3 | 40.5 | 24.2 | 56.6 | 32.4 | 51.2 | |
Outperforms his recruiting talent on offense and underperforms his recruiting talent on defense.
Barely touches the portal — recruits and develops his own.
Brings in bigger-than-position-typical players than most.
Recruits older, more experienced transfers than most.
51 NFL Draft picks: Darrell Hamilton (1989), Torin Dorn (1990), Kevin Donnalley (1991), Brian Bollinger (1992), Dwight Hollier (1992), Roy Barker (1992), Deems May (1992), Thomas Smith (1993) + 43 more
3 player-seasons honored (All-America / national award): Chazz Surratt (2020), Omarion Hampton (2023), Omarion Hampton (2024)
16th-best Tulane tenure of 23 by the numbers.
Followed Wally English (1983–1984) · succeeded by Greg Davis (1988–1991).
| Season | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||
| Record | 1-10 | 4-7 | 6-6 | |
| Postseason | — | — | L bowl | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||
| Offense | — | — | — | |
| Defense | — | — | — | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | ||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | — | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | — | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | |
2 NFL Draft picks: Burnell Dent (1986), Eric Thomas (1987)
All-time wins
Wins at programs this site tracks, 1936–present — one consistent count for every coach, not each program’s own historically reported total.
5th all-time in FBS wins
Was he good?
A mixed record — ahead of expectations by some measures here, behind by others. The honest read is that it depends which lens you use.
+21.4 pts at Texas · #57 of 1290 · top quarterModel fit as of 2026-09-04.