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2024 has been a disappointing season on all levels for North Carolina football. The Tar Heels announced that they were firing head coach Mack Brown before last week's rivalry game against NC State, even after Brown got them to bowl eligibility.
Brown's final game in Chapel Hill didn't end well. After a long Omarion Hampton touchdown run gave North Carolina a 30-29 lead, NC State drove right down the field and won the game 35-30 with a touchdown of its own.
Brown and North Carolina ended the regular season on a very sour note, but they are still 6-6 and will have a few weeks to get ready for a bowl game that can get them over .500 on the season. Brown will not coach in that bowl game, but North Carolina has now named his replacement for the postseason.
North Carolina tight ends coach and former Cleveland Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens will be the interim head coach and will coach the Tar Heels in the bowl game, according to Nicole Auerbach of NBC Sports.
Kitchens has done plenty of bouncing around in the coaching ranks in his career both before and after spending one season as the Browns head coach in 2019. Since then, he was the tight ends coach and interim offensive coordinator for the New York Giants in 2020-21 before spending 2022 at the college ranks with South Carolina as a senior analyst.
Kitchens came to Chapel Hill last season as the tight ends coach and run game coordinator, and now he will be the man in charge for North Carolina's bowl game as it looks for a new head coach.
North Carolina was put off the right track this season when transfer quarterback Max Johnson broke his leg in the season opener. Johnson has said that he plans to return to UNC next season and play another year, so whichever coach comes in will have a starting quarterback already in place.
