CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina football coach Mack Brown met with the media following Thursday morning’s practice, which was the third for the Tar Heels this spring.

Brown hit on numerous topics, including fund raising for renovations to the locker room and weight room, Marian Taylor talking to the players about dealing with the media, some former Heels visiting practice, the kicking game and some stuff about the first day in pads.

*Brown noted he, AD Bubba Cunningham, the chancellor and a few others flew to Palm Beach and met with about 100 of the program’s top supporters

“They were great. They’re all excited and some of them have been to practice and it’s a wonderful time for them to be down there. They’ve given us so much of their time, energy and their money and it’s just an outstanding group…

“It’s fun to see the enthusiasm right now for football at the University of North Carolina.”

*Brown is also look for the Ram’s Club to help pay for new lockers for the players and an overhaul of the weight room.

“I’m talking with the Ram’s Club board (Friday) at 1:30 and asking them for money. And what we’re wanting to do is we’re wanting to redo all the lockers, we’re wanting to change up a lot of things and replenish the weight room, basically, and let (strength and conditioning coach) Brian (Hess) take out what he isn’t going to use and put in the things he is going to use and give us a lot more space because space has been an issue.”

Interestingly, the players gave some input as to what changes they wanted in the locker room.

“We’ve got to be the cool place to be in recruiting. The lockers are old and they’re outdated and they don’t have a cooling system to dry all the shoulder pads and the knee braces and helmets when they’re in there, so kids would actually have to lay stuff on the floor… We need to help them have a place to plug in their ipads, their phones, you all know how drastic that is for young people right now. We had to bring in some charging poles, and we want it to be in their locker, so we’ve gone out and checking with people who have made the best lockers in the country and that’s what we want to give our guys.”

*ESPN sideline reporter Maria Taylor is in town preparing for UNC’s basketball game Saturday with Duke, which ESPN is airing and also here for GameDay. Brown knows her from his time at ESPN and has invited her to speak with the team.

“We’ve got Maria Taylor, who came out today for practice, she’s going to talk to our guys about social media and handling the media this afternoon with media training. She’s the best at what she does. She’s here for the Duke game, she’s a friend of ours, she’ll do a great job with them.”

*Two other former Tar Heels were also on hand, one a recent football player and one a well-known basketball player.

“It was fun to have Malik Carney back out, I wish he could play, and Rasheed Wallace. We’d put him at wide receiver – he might be a tight end, could be a defensive end or maybe just a jumper in the middle to bat balls down. Rasheed was in school when we were here before and it was great to see him.”

*As far as practice goes, this was the third practice of the spring and the first in pads. With that, players have to get used to wearing pads after not having them on for a few months.

“First time in pads, it’s always a little bit rough because they’re just not used to them, they hadn’t been in pads for a long time. Energy was good, enthusiasm was good, I thought t5hey really tried, so the effort was good.

“Still too many penalties. We’ve got ACC officials out here every day (and) we’re going to make a huge to-do out of who had the penalties, why they had them, and some of them were frustration penalties when you push afterward. We’ve got to quit all that stuff.”

*Brown also noted there weren’t many turnovers by the offense, though he also said there won’t be many turnovers when the defense is in “thud,” which means not talking. So, three days in, what are Brown’s general thoughts?

“We felt like overall it’s a good three days and it will give us a lot better feel for who we are and what kind of team we have, because two days in shorts and one day in pads and then you’ve got a week off to really study the guys and see exactly who they are and have a little better idea of when we come back of who to work more or less or what we do with them. And I think that’ll help us.”

*Brown was asked if he can learn much about players individually one day in and if anything/anyone jumped out at him.

“No, what well do is really look at this video hard and we’ll look at this one more than the two days in shorts. But, we’ve got a full week now just to evaluate every little detail, and what we will do is we will take all of our coaches that are here and they will all look at it separately and then come together and collectively we’ll figure out – everybody will vote and figure out who needs more reps and who needs less, and it helps us separate.

“This gives us an idea going in to the second part of practice when we get back, and I really like the fact that we got three days and then time off, because we need a lot of film study on all of these guys and now we can do that.”

*Brown has spoken about the kicking game after the two practices he’s been available, and while there were questions in both spots going into Sunday’s workout, the Hall of Fame coach was pleased with half of the kicking game Thursday.

“Noah Ruggles, for one, has been a plus as a kicker. He hasn’t missed a field goal or extra point in three days, so that’s really good, a positive in our kicking game. Punting has been a little inconsistent. We still have got to figure out which one of those guys can do it. We have a punter coming in in the fall, as well.”