If Mack Brown thought JMU debacle was bad, UNC’s meltdown against Duke is somehow worse

That famous Mark Twain line, the one about reports of his death being greatly exaggerated, was itself an exaggeration. Twain never actually put it like that, not exactly. It was, in fact, a little more understated and direct: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

For long stretches Saturday — for most of UNC’s rivalry game against Duke, in fact — it looked like Mack Brown might be able to use that line himself. After a week in which he took a beating from North Carolina fans and critics alike, a week in which he toiled in the aftermath of one of the worst defeats of his career, it looked like Brown might have the last laugh.

At least for a little while, anyway.

It looked like he might be able to say — to quote another notable American wordsmith — “Not so fast, my friend.” For 2 1/2 quarters at Wallace Wade Stadium, it looked like he might be able to revel in the high of another victory against the Blue Devils; like he might even be able to gloat a little, after leading the Tar Heels out of the depths and then out of Durham, victorious.

Still got it, Brown could have said, even if it strained believability. Not bad for a 73-year-old man. How ‘bout that?

And then came the final 20 minutes of the game game at Wallace Wade, and a series of events that only added to UNC’s misery. A dreadful meltdown and squandering of a three-touchdown lead, and a dreadful 21-20 finish that will undoubtedly amplify the chorus of discontent that suddenly surrounds Brown, the oldest major-college head coach in the country.

Last week, he suffered one of the most — if not the most — humiliating defeats of his career, UNC’s 70-50 debacle against James Madison. The 70 points allowed (53 in the first half), the turnovers, the general dysfunction of it all — left Brown so flustered that when it ended he asked his already demoralized players whether he should just go ahead and retire.

Rumors swirled that Brown had resigned. At least one report emerged that suggested he had.

Two days later, Brown blamed his emotional meltdown on the circumstances of the moment. He’d been “very disappointed,” he said, and in a “dark place.” He’d been angry with himself at almost everything about that disaster of a loss, and said: “I have a really bad temper.”

“What I said,” Brown said Monday of his postgame comments after the James Madison defeat, “is if you all don’t feel like I’m the leader you need, then I’ll do something else.”

As Brown told it, his players basically told him to stop talking crazy. A nice gesture, but ultimately empty without some sort of reassurance that they’d actually perform for him —the kind of reassurance, it turned out, the Tar Heels provided through the first 2 1/2 quarters against Duke on Saturday. And, indeed, UNC dominated that stretch.

Its offense was plenty good enough. Its maligned defense looked A-OK.

And then, well? A nation of disillusioned Tar Heels supporters watched it. They saw.

No explanation needed.

UNC’s meltdown against James Madison was all of the adjectives for “bad” and more. It was the sort of thesaurus-testing performance that stretched the limits of description. Substandard, poor, inferior, dreadful, awful, grim. Yes. All of those. All of those and more.

No power-conference program should ever look that bad against a lower-level team with far fewer resources, let alone one that only began playing FBS football a few years ago. It was embarrassing.

Somehow, though, what happened on Saturday for UNC was worse. Not the fact that the Tar Heels merely lost, no, though a loss of any kind, in any fashion, would have been bad enough after last weekend. But it was the how of it all: That UNC surrendered a 20-point lead, for one.

That when the Tar Heels needed to be at their strongest, especially mentally, they were far from it. That the defense faded, and then folded, when times became tough. That UNC seemed to forget that it has Omarion Hampton. That it just needed to hold on for a quarter and a half and escape and that it could … not … do it.

And that the whole thing took on some dreadful sense of inevitability.

A sense of:

Of course UNC is letting Duke back in this. And then:

Of course the Tar Heels, who at one point faced a first-and-35 after two penalties, are doing all they can to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Of course.

That UNC created a late chance of its own (kind of, until Duke’s game-sealing interception) is admirable, but irrelevant. The Tar Heels never should have been in that position. Given the events of the first two quarters and 10 minutes or so, they should’ve walked out of Wallace Wade with, at worst, a too-close-for-comfort victory.

Instead, this was a worst-case scenario: A total meltdown. A collapse.

And if Brown thought it was bad last week, he learned Saturday that things can always get worse.