In a media event leading up to the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, North Carolina linebacker Power Echols described Wednesday’s game against West Virginia as an opportunity “to showcase the future that Carolina football holds and showcase what fans will see in the future.”

If that is, in fact, the case, then the future doesn’t look a lot different than the recent past.

It’s not necessarily that the Tar Heels lost 30-10, sparing coach Mack Brown from having a vat of tangy mayonnaise emptied over his head for the 2nd time in the past 3 years.

You knew they were going to be at a decided disadvantage without star quarterback Drake Maye and other key players who decided to opt out in preparation for the NFL Draft.

More telling than the result or the final margin was the way the Tar Heels’ 3rd straight loss to end another season of “what might have been” came about.

Many of the names and faces may have changed. But the problems remained the same.

An inability to protect the quarterback, which manifested itself against WVU in the form of 7 sacks of 1st-time starting quarterback Conner Harrell.

Careless mistakes and special teams breakdowns, including a 78-yard punt return for a touchdown by the Mountaineers’ Beanie Bishop.

And most of all, a defense that usually seems to be a step behind the opposition and has a penchant for giving up big plays.

Big plays like the slow-developing 75-yard touchdown pass from Garrett Greene to Traylon Ray that got WVU off and running on the first play from scrimmage. And that was only the beginning. The Mountaineers averaged better than 18 yards a completion and had 6 runs of 10-plus yards.

The performance reinforced Brown’s pregame assessment that “we’d be a 12-win, a 10-win team if we’d played better on defense.”

The frustrating thing about the defensive performance throughout Brown’s 4-season return to Chapel Hill is that there are times in which it has shown flashes of competence.

There was that 9-sack masterpiece in the opener against South Carolina, also at Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium, and a near-shutout of Syracuse in a 40-7 rout that was a highlight of UNC’s 6-0 start.

But just when it appeared as though the Tar Heels had turned a corner and were on the verge of something special, the defense reverted to the norm spectacularly with back-to-back 4th quarter implosions against Virginia and Georgia Tech.

“We’ve got to figure out who we are and I’ve got to figure out what we can do better and try to do that,” Brown said after the game. “That’s my job.”

Identifying the problem is the easy part of the equation. Finding a solution is a much trickier proposition. Especially since Brown has been here before.

The fact that he won’t have an elite quarterback talent such as Maye – or even his predecessor Sam Howell, for that matter – to help cover up some of the defensive deficiencies with big offensive numbers only complicates the situation.

It’s going to take a major effort on the transfer portal this offseason to deepen the talent pool and keep history from repeating itself yet again.

But that’s only the start.

Brown also needs to make some difficult decisions about his staff. He’s hinted that changes might be on the way, though he hedged his bets by saying that whatever he does it will be in the best interest of the program and not an attempt to appease a segment of the fan base on social media.

The 72-year-old Hall of Famer has already announced his intention to return in 2024, ending any speculation that he might be ready to declare his mission of restoring UNC back to respectability accomplished and fade off into retirement.

What he has planned for his trusted friend and defensive coordinator Gene Chizik isn’t as certain.

Their relationship began at Texas, when Chizik served as defensive coordinator for Brown’s national championship team in 2005. Chizik also served a successful tenure at UNC under Larry Fedora before stepping away for 5 years to spend more time with his family.

His return to Chapel Hill hasn’t gone nearly as well.

Even though the Tar Heels won 9 games and the ACC’s Coastal Division title last season, they finished dead last in the conference in scoring defense and total defense while allowing 30.8 points and 436.5 yards per game. They were only slightly better this year, surrendering an average of 27.1 points and 405.4 yards on the way to an 8-5 record.

Chizik has gone on the record saying he would like to return in 2024. But in the immortal words of Albert Einstein, it’s insanity to keep doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

At a certain point, Brown is going to have to decide which is more important, friendship or making sure that Wednesday’s loss isn’t a showcase of what fans will see in the future by taking the steps necessary to get his program off the treadmill of what might have been.