CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Mack Brown met with the media for his weekly Monday press conference via zoom to discuss more about UNC’s loss at Virginia this past Saturday night, some elements of his team that are struggling and to look ahead to this weekend’s game at Duke.
The Tar Heels (4-2) fell 44-41 at the Wahoos in spite of career nights from quarterback Sam Howell and wide receiver Dyami Brown. UNC’s special teams had some issues again and the defense allowed UVA 418 total yards, including 210 on the ground.
Above is the video of Brown’s entire presser and below are some notes and pulled quotes from what Brown had to say:
*So, regarding UNC’s run defense at UVA, Brown said it reminded him of two weeks ago when the Seminoles racked up 241 yards on the Tar Heels.
“We couldn't stop the run,” Brown said. “It was a repeat of Florida State. I thought they blocked us better than we blocked them and that's a credit to Virginia. It was a very, very physical game.”
*And as for the talk about special teams, one noteworthy play came late in the game when Virginia faked a punt on fourth-and-3 at its own 42-yard-line. UVA set up to punt, but a direct snap went to backup quarterback Keytaon Thompson, who was positioned as a punt protetor, and he ran five yards for a first down effectively ending the game, as 1:51 remained on the clock and UNC had just one timeout remaining.
UNC’s defense was not in the game even though the Tar Heels knew the fake was coming. Instead, the punt return unit was on the field, as Brown explained.
“We thought we did exactly what we should have done,” Brown said. “We were prepared for it. I loved the preparation, I love that our kids knew it was going to be a fake, I love the fact they called it out. We have to do a better job teaching a freshman to contain the backside. And, if they had punted it with nobody back there and they down it at the one, then it puts you in a difficult spot too.
“But we also felt like they might even pooch it if they had come out and then that would have been a very difficult situation, too. So, you had to look at the regular punt with the fake and, with the tackle eligible, you had to be ready for the pass off of it. Then you had to be ready for the run off of it, then you had to be ready for them to punt it. Or, if they would have left their offense out there, are they gonna go for it or are they gonna try to pooch out of it?
“So, there are about five different scenarios there we were looking at. But, all of us talked about it yesterday. If we had to do it over, we'd do exactly the same thing because, if we contain the backside, we hit them for a loss, we go down and possibly win the game and we're not having the same questions today.”
*Just before that UVA possession started, UNC scored but its kickoff went out of bounds giving the Hoos the ball at their own 35. Why didn’t Carolina try an onside kick?
“We decided not to onside kick because we felt like let's put the ball back in the hands of our defense,” Brown explained. “We had a poor kickoff. We wanted to kick it deep and over his head and hopefully get them pinned way back because we knew we had to have a field goal to tie the thing and a score wins it.
“We had three timeouts in our pocket, so we felt like that was the thing to do. It worked, we stopped them on three downs.”
*Brown brought up an interesting topic to perhaps hammer home the reality that he speaks openly about his program, unlike the perception that’s out there regarding most coaches.
“When I was with ESPN for five years, it was interesting that a lot of questions coaches would answer and my friends in the media would say that's coach speak. 'That's just coach speak, they never tell us anything. They just won't tell us the truth,'” he said. “The truth is, you've got to get lower pads, you've got to do a better job with gap control and you've got to have better run fits from your secondary and you've just gotta keep doing it until you get better and better and better. And that sounds like coach speak, but it's what you have to do."
*Brown also offered a reminder about what they’ve done since he returned, which is now 19 games into his second stint. UNC is 11-8, including 6-3 at home, 2-0 at neutral sites and 3-5 on the road.
“So, we’ve got to play much better on the road,” he said. “We’ve talked about that (and) we’ve got another one coming up this weekend… The eight losses have been (by) seven points or less and five of those eight have been five points or less. And for some reason, when we lose we dig ourselves a hole in the second quarter and then have to fight back out of it in the third and fourth quarter. We’ve got to quit doing that. We seem to when it starts rolling sometimes in the second quarter we shoot ourselves in the foot.
“Seven-to-10 plays make the difference in close ball games. We played hard, we played good, but those seven or 10 mistakes from a guy who says, ‘My bad, coach, but I only had one.’ Well, 10 of them get you beat, and that’s what we’ve got to do, we’ve got to start making fewer mistakes by player.”
*The Tar Heels visit Duke this weekend and the challenges facing the Heels is that the Blue Devils do some things well that UNC has struggled with all season. Duke runs the ball fairly well, averaging 167 yards a game on the ground, it has blocked a couple of punts this season and is 10th in the nation averaging four sacks a game. In fact, the only teams in the nation with more than Duke’s 26 sacks are Pittsburgh (31) and Clemson (28).
“Everybody knows David Cutcliffe is a great coach,” Brown said. “They can run the ball well and we haven’t stopped the run, they can block punts and we’ve had blocked punts, they’ve got to really good pass rushers and we’ve had trouble protecting the passer. So, we’ve got our hands full this weekend.”
