North Carolina football reportedly knows the direction the Tar Heels will go heading into 2025. Mack Brown will continue to roam the sidelines.

The 73-year-old head coach has told many around the Chapel Hill campus that he's returning, per CBS Sports college football insider Matt Zenitz Wednesday. Brown has told staff members, players, even recruits that he's coming back according to Zenitz.

Brown's name has sat in the hot seat this season. The Tar Heels were once 3-4 and staring at missing out on a bowl run. One of those losses was the embarrassing 70-50 debacle against James Madison, a Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) newcomer, at home.

However, UNC has rolled to a three-game winning streak, clinching bowl eligibility in the process. The Tar Heels have trounced Virginia (41-14), Florida State (35-11) and edged Wake Forest (31-24) to improve to 6-4.

By beating Boston College and North Carolina State next, Brown will produce his third straight eight-win regular season with the school. He's currently 282-148-1 overall as a head coach with one national championship. That title came in the 2006 season with the Texas Longhorns.

Brown is currently 113-77-1 at Chapel Hill. He previously coached the Heels from 1988-1997 and produced five bowl teams. That includes the 1992-1996 string of bowl appearances together. Brown left UNC in '97 at 10-1 to eventually take over the Texas opening.

Mack Brown addressed North Carolina coaching future before news

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Brown, again, had many believing his time was up. Fans and analyst started wondering if it was time for him to retire.

However, Brown told College Sports on Sirius XM what happened the last time the word “retirement” surfaced.

“What I did at Texas is I started planning on trying to retire. And it didn't work,” Brown explained.

Brown dove into analyst work at ABC and ESPN. But in his mind, he felt he wasn't good at what he was doing. Coaching was his true calling.

“My role is to help these young people,” he shared. “There'll be a day I wake up and say, ‘You know what? Somebody else needs to be doing this.' I haven't gotten to that yet.”