Mack Brown's firing may have just cost North Carolina a star quarterback recruit

Firing a coach in college football always impacts a program more than it was expecting. Players transfer, recruits leave the program, assistant coaches dart for other opportunities.

After North Carolina fired Mack Brown on Tuesday, it might experience all of those; and the recruits might be the first to go. According to On3, North Carolina 4-star quarterback commit Bryce Baker might be weighing other options, and that other teams will "circle back" on Baker to see if he may flip his commitment.

Baker has been committed to UNC since June, originally picking the Tar Heels over Duke, Louisville, NC State and others.

Baker is the No. 192 overall player in the Class of 2025 on ESPN, and the No. 10 ranked quarterback in the class according to On3. He's from North Carolina so becoming a Tar Heel made sense, but was recruited by Mack Brown, so a flip now seems likely.

Baker wouldn't be the first highly-ranked quarterback in the class of 2025 to flip commits, as Bryce Underwood — the top recruit in the country — recently flipped from LSU to Michigan. Husan Longstreet also flipped, changing his future school from Texas A&M to join Lincoln Riley at USC.

The Mack Brown era is coming to an end

Brown never turned North Carolina football around like Tar Heels fans thought (and hoped) he would. The team finished a season in the AP top 25 just once in Brown's return to the school, and lost 4 straight bowl games in the past 4 years.

Brown only finished with a losing record one time, but never exceeded 10 wins at UNC, and the program clearly doesn't want to stay on the path of medicrity it has been on since Brown took over. Baker was the best recruit North Carolina had coming in next season, and while he might still remain a Tar Heel, the departure of Mack Brown might also mean the departure of the potential quarterback of the future for UNC.