CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina kicks off fall football camp Friday at its new practice facility, and on Wednesday head coach Mack Brown held a pre-cam presser conference to discuss the team before leading the assembled media on a tour of the program’s many other new facilities.

Brown hit on multiple issues regarding his team, including quarterback, the offensive line, catching up the players who missed spring with the new schemes, and a variety of other topics.

Here are some nuggets from what Brown had to say:

*The Tar Heels open practice Friday at 10:20 am and it will be the first time the staff has seen the entire team on the field at the same time. Quite a few key players, especially on defense (Jason Strowbridge, Allen Cater, Tyrone Hopper, Myles Dorn, Myles Wolfolk) either didn’t participate at all in the spring or were very limited.

*The team will be in shorts the first two days, shells for the third and fourth days and they will be in full pads for the fifth day of camp.

*The coaching staff and players will stay at the Hyatt for 16 nights during fall camp. The dorms are being renovated and the players who live off campus voted to stay with the rest of the team at the hotel. The team will practice, eat and have its meetings at the football facility but everything else will be at the hotel.

*Among the most obvious questions for Brown was if he believes he got as much done as he could in eight months since being hired without yet getting into fall camp and the games starting, which will be Aug. 31 versus South Carolina in Charlotte.

“Yes, we feel like we’re in a much better place right now than we were when we got here at the end of November,” Brown replied. “Our job now is we’ve got to start coaching them up. It’s no more learning the system and getting to know each other and building trust, we’ve got to coach.

“And to do that you’ve got to evaluate. Players will decide who plays and who plays where. We’ve got a number of young guys (and) we’re not sure where they’re going to play yet, especially on defense. We’re not looking at starting to redshirt anybody as we go into the season, we’re going to play everybody we need to to win.”

*With respect to Strowbridge, Hopper, Cater, Dorn and Myles, Brown addressed the need for them to get up to speed, though they’ve had a lot of mental reps and have summer workouts.

“We do expect them to practice Friday, they’re released now,” Brown said. “So now, anytime you’ve got someone like Cater’s knee if it swells or will it slow him down, we’re not sure… The front (line) guys are more behind the back end (secondary) guys because, especially Myles Wolfolk practiced a lot in the spring, he just couldn’t do it full speed.

“But he knew the system, Myles Dorn was out there a lot, he didn’t get to practice because of his hernia but Strowbridge and the two outside guys didn’t do anything. They’ll be more behind than the other guys.”

*Brown said he has no timetable for when he wants to name a starter at quarterback. The staff is going to split up the reps evenly between Jace Ruder, Cade Fortin and Sam Howell until one or more of the players begins to distinguish themselves.

“The biggest thing for us is getting the right guys, and they’re all young (and) two of the got hurt last year so there’s some history of injuries there. So we’ve got to make sure we’ve got at least two guys to be prepared to play and hopefully a third one.”

As far as wanting to trim the competition to at least two players at some point, Brown said he doesn’t have a set date for that either, noting “it usually works itself out.” Injuries (even soreness here and there) might force one player to step back some while the other two step up.

“We’re going into it just wide open and with no expectations of a timetable and we’re just going to let it work itself out.”

So on Friday, each of the three QBs will get the same number of reps and the staff isn’t all that sure how things will play out.

*The Tar Heels will practice late morning during fall camp and then usually 8-10 am once classes begin and they get into the season. That’s a departure from how it’s been done at UNC dating back to Brown’s first tour as UNC’s coach. But with the opener versus South Carolina kicking off at 3:30, the team will hold four practices in August that begin at 3 pm.

Also, the second game of the season is at home versus Miami and kicks at 8 pm, so Brown said they will practice at night at least once. He didn’t specify if that will be in August or during the week of the game. At this time, there are no night practices scheduled, but it’s possible they move one of the practices after camp starts.

*One of the interesting and refreshing things Brown has consistently discussed is the honesty the staff has with the players, they don’t mislead them. Example? Brown gave one responding to a question about how he’s different than when he was previously at UNC.

“I’m older, we have a better staff that fits us now… You take better care of kids now because the system puts you in that position. When you’re a young coach you just want to work hard, prove to everybody you’re smart, and I don’t need any of that anymore, I just want to win.

“So I can sit down and I think I can put our coaches in a better position to take care of the players and coach them and I can put our players in a better position just by being honest with them. Some of the guys that didn’t play well this spring, we’re going to tell them ‘We’re going to look at the younger guys before you.’ We told them that in the spring. ‘That’s totally up to you, but you’ve got to manage, you’ve got to handle it.”

*Senior Nick Polino worked at center almost all spring but will begin practice at left guard, Ed Montilus at right guard and Brian Anderson at center. With UNC having a lot of talented kids capable of competing for the two guard spots, it sort of made sense for Polino to start at center and then the two guard spots battle it out. But at the same time, Polino is a natural guard and Anderson is a natural center.

That said, Polino will get some work at center because there could be a time he’s needed there. Brown also said true freshman Ty Murray, who is 6-foot-2 and 332 pounds, will get a look there as well.