North Carolina coach Mack Brown made his feelings known about what NC State coach Dave Doeren said after the Wolfpack ended the regular season with a win over the Tar Heels.

As NC State was celebrating a third consecutive win over North Carolina, Doeren called the Tar Heels “pieces of sh**” in the locker room. The remarks quickly became public as ACC Network cameras were rolling while Doeren and the Wolfpack were enjoying their ninth win of the season.

“It’s been 1,460 days since those pieces of sh** beat us,” Doeren told his team after its 39-20 win on Nov. 25.

On Wednesday, Brown used his National Signing Day news conference to call out Doeren for what Brown said were “classless” comments.

"Secondly, in our last ballgame with a rival school the head coach of that school called our players a piece of sh**," Brown said. "And I apologize for that language but I've never heard something like that before. I'm disappointed. I thought it was classless. It's not truth. Number one, we didn't play well in the game, we didn't coach well in the game, that's been very well-documented, I got that.

"But you don't call kids a piece of sh**. And I've addressed it with our team, I've apologized to them. These kids are one of the top academic groups in America, they got an award for AFCA's top 13, they've won a Coastal Division, they've won a bunch of games. They've been to an Orange Bowl, been to five straight bowls. They represent us well. And from me speaking for them and their parents they really didn't appreciate being called a piece of sh**."

As you can imagine, there is very little love lost between the two in-state rivals. And while you can also understand why Brown feels the way he does about what Doeren said, college football is better when in-state rivals are both good. Though UNC’s last win over NC State came in 2020 — the year the Tar Heels went to the Orange Bowl — the rivalry is spicier because both teams have been making regular top-25 appearances recently.

Though NC State is looking for its first 10-win season since 2002, the Wolfpack have won at least eight games seven times since Doeren took over in 2012. And North Carolina has posted four winning seasons in the five years since Mack Brown returned to the school. UNC had won just five games combined over the 2017 and 2018 seasons before Brown came back for his second stint.

Both teams are recruiting well off the back of that success too. North Carolina's 27-member recruiting class ranks 22nd in Rivals' 2024 rankings while NC State is just four spots below in 26th.