Mack Brown Admits He 'Got Tired' With Texas Longhorns

“We got tired at Texas," Brown said. "Sixteen years is a long time at a place like Texas, Sally always said it’s four presidential terms. So that’s a long time to be at the University of Texas, so it was probably time for me to leave there and for them to get somebody else new, because you get worn down.”

So Brown left and took a step back from football, leaving the Longhorns to fill a void in a coaching position that had been consistent for nearly two decades. The Longhorns would struggle to return to the national spotlight and string together winning seasons, with only two in the next five seasons.

At the same time, the Longhorns would find their footing back at the top of college football, and Brown would re-enter college football, taking on the head coaching position at North Carolina in 2019 after having previously coached at UNC from 1988 to 1997. When asked what led to his return and why he chose somewhere other than Texas, Brown said his history in Chapel Hill made the decision a "natural" one.

“What I learned was I was tired, I wasn’t really ready to be through with coaching, so a lot of people would call and ask if you would coach in this place or this place," Brown said. "Sally and I thought we’ll only go to a place where we would want to live and we would only go back to a place where we thought we could win within the rules. And North Carolina, we got married there, our kids grew up there. They went to school at North Carolina, some of them. So it was a natural when they called us and asked us to come back.”

Brown spent five seasons with the Tar Heels before getting fired, and at the same time, the Longhorns have found their new leader in Steve Sarkisian, leading them to back-to-back playoff appearances. The program's second-winningest coach in program history is seemingly done coaching for now.

The Longhorns are back to where they were under Brown, but for him every step was a valuable life lesson.