**************************************************************************************
**************************************************************************************
CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Mack Brown met with the media Monday morning for his weekly press conference as the Tar Heels prepare to take on Notre Dame on Saturday night in South Bend, IN.
Among the things Brown hit on were what the team accomplished during its bye week, the difficulty of the remaining part of the schedule, three players entering the transfer portal, young players getting closer to playing more, the Fighting Irish, and much more.
Above is a video of Brown’s full presser and below are some notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:
*A couple of injury notes: Caleb Hood will be evaluated again during the week, but a UNC spokesperson said he is “still working back,” so it has not been determined if Hood can play this week. In addition, when speaking about balancing the four allowable games for true freshmen to play while also maintaining their redshirt year, Brown noted that Hood has played in four games, and if he’s not 100 percent a decision must be made on the value of playing him again and using up that year.
UNC also said Storm Duck remains in a “week-to-week” situation. So, no changes there.
*This was the first time Brown has met with the media since his postgame press conference following the win over Miami. The Tar Heels won, 45-42, but garnered a great deal of criticism in the process. To that, Brown said, “I’ll never apologize for a win because that’s what we’re supposed to do.”
He also noted that the Tar Heels scored 45 points versus the Hurricanes while Alabama had 44 in its win over Miami to open the season.
*Brown evaluated every element of the program during the bye week. He looked at what needed changing on both sides of the ball and with special teams, and concluded that special teams are in good shape and getting better, so don’t expect any changes there.
“You go back and look at everything that you’ve done negatively,” Brown said.
The things that were looked hard at on the defensive side: “We looked at every third-down-and-long that we didn’t stop. We looked at the fourth-down-and-longs that we didn’t stop. We looked the quarterbacks are scrambling and getting out, why don’t we have contain? We looked at our games up front and our blitzes; why aren’t we getting there?
“Because, you’ve either gotta get there or contain, one of the two. And in the cases we were unsuccessful, we didn’t do either.”
The things that were looked hard at on the offensive side: “We’re looking at sacks; we’ve had too many since we’ve been here, so why? And when do we have them, and is it holding the ball too long, is it somebody missing an assignment up front? Why do we have mistakes, why do we have long plays?
So, every negative thing that we’ve done in the first seven games of the season we pulled out and talked about individually each one of them, why, and what are we going to do to change that and be a better football team the last five games?”
Brown noted regarding the offense they must find ways to get the ball to the outside receivers more. Josh Downs, who plays slot receiver, has 60 receptions of the 129 completions Sam Howell has thrown. Starting wideouts Antoine Green and Emery Simmons each have just 11 receptions.
*The Tar Heels have had some highly productive stretches on both sides of the ball this season, but also some periods in which they struggled mightily. So, what does Brown view more important to take care of during a bye week, tweaking schemes or getting his players rested physically and mentally as much as they can for the stretch run?
“I think it’s really both,” Brown said. “When you start looking at open dates you have to be careful – I used to call them an ‘off week’ and the players said, ‘it’s not off,’ so they were right, I get that, so we call it a ‘bye’ or ‘open.’
“The studies say you have more injuries in preseason and your bye week than any other time of the year. So you have to be really, really smart during your bye week. And I think it’s because people hit more during that week because you’ve got more time before you play again. They’re looking at a lot of the young guys and are trying to be really physical, and some of the players probably aren’t as focused because they don’t have a game that weekend. Some are tired. So, we obviously take that into consideration, because you don’t want to lose some guys. So that’s number one, make sure we end up the week healthy.
“Number two, it’s a great time to re-evaluate all three of your phases. So you make a harsh evaluation of what you’re doing well and what you need to fix. And you even talk, sometimes, on opposite sides of the ball. (Offensive coordinator) Phil (Longo) may ask (defensive coordinator) Jay (Bateman), ‘What do you like what we’re doing, what’s tough for you when we do this? And vice versa, and the same thing in the kicking game.
“And the third part is re-evaluating some of your younger ones, and try to see now with roster management, if you’ve got four games that they can play in, and that counts a bowl game. So who plays in that fifth one now? Do you hold somebody? Is he talented enough that he’s going to try to go to the NFL in three years, anyway? So you’re looking at a lot of different scenarios with personnel.”
*Much of the bye week was about getting younger players the bulk of the reps. For example, Sam Howell got in some work at quarterback, but Jacolby Criswell and Drake Maye got the majority of the reps there. They worked Cayden Baker in at center quite a bit, the older regulars got a chance to rest some.
“A lot of great young players that we watched in the open date that were fun,” Brown said. “They competed against each other. The two young quarterbacks had pretty much the full week… Still worked on Notre Dame, but mostly worked a lot on the young guys, and the future looks great.”
*The Tar Heels visit Notre Dame on Saturday for the first time since 2014 and third time since 2006. This will actually be the sixth meeting between the programs in the last 16 years. The Fighting Irish are 6-1, ranked No. 11 in both major polls, and coming off a 31-16 victory at home over Southern Cal.
Notre Dame has won 37 consecutive games versus unranked opponents and is 27-1 in its last 28 home games. The loss came earlier this season when Cincinnati, which is now ranked No. 2, won 24-13 in South Bend.
Brown congratulated Notre Dame Coach Brian Kelly for passing legendary Knute Rockne on the school’s all-time wins list when the Irish beat Wisconsin last month. Kelly now has 109 victories at Notre Dame.
“That’s really special,” Brown said. “Brian does it right, he’s a tremendous coach, he’s not a guy that’s negative in recruiting. They go by the rules, they’ve got really bright kids, and they’re very well coached. They’re kind of the standard that we’d like to be…
“They’ve got an older team this year. They had an older team last year, and you think, ‘well, they’re gonna lose all these guys, and then they get the quarterback from Wisconsin and they just reload. It’s still a really good looking team with a lot of seniors and grad transfers on it.
“He’s done a tremendous job with that program for many, many years, and he’s been there a long time. It’s hard to stay places a long time, I know that for sure. But give Brian credit, and it will be a real challenge for us this weekend.”
**************************************************************************************
**************************************************************************************
