Note: The Brown video works, but YouTube is having issues right now not allowing photos uploaded to accompany videos.

CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Mack Brown met with the media following practice Wednesday morning to field questions about his team’s preparation for Virginia, which visits Kenan Stadium on Saturday night, and much more.

Above is video of Brown’s full Q&A session, and below are some notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:

*The Tar Heels need to improve in a lot of areas, that has been the narrative coming from the program this week, and it’s certainly on point. Virginia is a big game Saturday, and the Cavaliers do a lot of unique things, but Brown wants his team more focused on themselves and simply getting better.

“They know the importance of this game as far as the Coastal is concerned,” Brown said. “I told them it’s important to our program, but at the same time, it’s about us. It’s not about who we play, we’ve got to play better.

“And when we get people hurt, we can’t have an excuse for who’s hurt. We’ve had two full recruiting classes, we’ve got to start being able to have people to step in and play. I talked to the coaches and players at length yesterday about, ‘It’s your opportunity. If somebody’s out, you’ve got an opportunity to step up, it’s your turn to play.’”

*The Tar Heels have dropped four straight games to UVA, so is this something the staff has brought up this week or is it more about just focusing on this year?

“It’s both,” Brown replied. “Everybody brings it up, they’re on social media. They read. They know. The guys on this team are aware they haven’t beaten Virginia, and we haven’t beaten them the last two years since we’ve been here. But it has nothing to do with the game. You go back and play the best you can play, and you prepare for you.

“I asked (legendary Texas) coach Darrell Royal one time, Oklahoma had beaten us four in a row, ‘Coach, how do you flip it? What do you do when you’ve lost to a team and you’re on a streak?’ Obviously, that team gets more confidence, and your team starts tightening up trying to win because it’s talked about year-round.

“And he said, ‘When you’re tired of hearing it (and) you’re good enough, you’ll fix it.’ And really, that’s true.”

*UVA does a lot of unique stuff in pre-snap on both sides of the ball, particularly on offense. The intent, as Virginia Coach Bronco Mendenhall said earlier this week, is to throw teams off and get them to prepare for stuff the Wahoos won’t run much. Opponents, especially on defense, must exercise tremendous discipline. So what is the challenge for the coaching staff to teach them to be disciplined with so much of the pre-snap temptation UVA throws at teams?

“You’ve got to be really, really careful not to use it as eye candy and get off your fundamentals,” Brown said. “You’ve got to still line up and play when the ball is snapped. So don’t get yourself in a position where you’re confused and you’re looking for this and that. There’s still going to be a run or a pass and you still gotta block and you still gotta tackle.

“Don’t let all the window dressing and the eye candy screw with your mind. Just line up and play, and that’s the most important thing.”

*The added depth on defense has been noticeable along with the fact that so many players, especially up front, can be used situationally. With that, Brown said the staff tracks snaps during games so they know who has played how much.

“I think (Jason) Strowbridge played 98 plays against Virginia Tech two years ago, and Aaron Crawford played maybe 89-90,” Brown said. “And we go to six overtimes, and it’s very unfair to ask those young guys to do that and hustle and play hard every play. And then we come back and play the next week and play another 80 or 90 plays.

“Number one, we’re fresher, and we can play a guy 60 plays instead of 98. We can play a guy 25 plays and get full speed 25 plays. So, you’re less likely to get hurt, you should have more production in fewer plays because you’re fresher.”

Brown then went on to talk about the different packages of players defensive coordinator Jay Bateman has used and will continue to use. It necessitates they track snaps, as well.

“It also allows you to play some young guys more where you just have one thing they do instead of just trying to teach them the whole defense… The other part of that is we have to do a better job of making sure that we know how many plays each guy plays on the sidelines, so we’re not looking up after the game and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, he only played five plays, he should have been in there 15.’

“So, we’re being more conscious of exactly how many plays guys are in there.”

*For the first time in 22 months, UNC hosted recruits and committed prospects for a home game. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down all gameday recruiting a year ago, so having kids and their families on the field before games and checking out the facilities was a pretty big deal this past weekend.

“It was great, it was different,” Brown said. “Last year, you were walking around there wasn’t anybody in the stadium. No band, no cheerleaders, nobody to see. So you talked to the officials and walked out into the middle of the stadium like it was a scrimmage.

“Then Saturday, we’ve got recruits everywhere, families everywhere. I’m sorry we still can’t do our Bell Tower walk, because guys would be touching a lot of people, hugging people. There’s still so much COVID out there, we’ve got to be really, really careful and smart with our guys…

“It was so much fun to have the recruits back on campus. And our coaches going out on Thursday and Friday night to see high school coaches and to see games. That’s just what we’ve done our whole lives.”