CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina is just a few days away from concluding its first spring practice period under Mack Brown in his second stint as the Tar Heels’ coach, and Tuesday they practiced in full pads for the final time.

The Tar Heels will practice in shorts Thursday, which will be a “review of the spring and preparation for the spring game,” Brown said following Tuesday’s workout at the new indoor practice facility, and Saturday will be the spring game at Kenan Stadium. It will kickoff at 5 pm.

Here are some other notes and quotes from Brown from Tuesday’s post-practice interview:

*The team held its final scrimmage this past Saturday, which Brown said was “by far the best we’ve had.” Born out of that, and really throughout spring, is the need for consistency.

“I’ve told them they need to give each other the gift of consistency,” Brown said. “Play at a very high level like we did Saturday and do it every day because we’re still too up and down. We’ll come out one day and have too many penalties or not be quite as sharp, and we’re not a team that can win unless we play with high energy and give it all we’ve got every day.”

*The kicking game has been a concern of Brown’s since spring practice began five weeks ago. At place kicker, Noah Ruggles has had some very good stretches but maintaining that has been a bit of a challenge.

“Ruggles did a great job early, he slipped and was inconsistent about three or four practices ago, Saturday and today he made every kick,” Brown said. “He’s just got to be consistent and we told him that the most important thing is every time you make a kick it’s to win a game, ‘and then when you’ve come to make that kick you’ve already done it. You’ve done it every time and you’ve made it every time. And by going through that mental process, it makes that kick easy for you, it shouldn’t be any different than an extra point.’”

As for punting, Brown said the players competing for that job are “talented, but they’ve been too inconsistent.”

*Dazz Newsome has nailed down though the staff is also looking at Toe Groves and Corey Bell, plus all three are the only names Brown mentioned regarding kickoff returns, too.

*Brown’s biggest concern right now is the front seven of the defense.

“We are really in the defensive line and we’re thin at linebacker. I told the coaches ‘we’ve got to coach ‘em up, it doesn’t matter whether they think they’re experienced or even talented. Get the guys playing hard, get them in the right place and they’ll play better than they have in their past and think they can play.’

What Brown is discussing doesn’t technically include the guys that are out with injuries right now because, as he noted, “We haven’t seen them.”

They will be back in August, and some new players will also be on board, but until the staff sees everyone that will be available, they’re thin, period.

“All of those guys are going to have to earn their way. You’ve got (Jason) Strowbridge and (Myles) Dorn and (Myles) Wolfolk and (Allen) Cater and (Tyrone) Hopper, all of those guys, they haven’t taken a snap all spring. So, you add the incoming guys to that group and we’ll definitely be a better team when we start August 1 than we will on Saturday.”

*Now that Brown has had nearly a full spring to get an idea of what he has, is there an element of the team that has exceeded what he thought he had before practice started?

“Yes, I like the team. I like who they are,” he said. “They’ve tried to do everything we’ve asked them to do. And one of the toughest things is to build trust when you come in, and we always said ‘you’ve got to learn to communicate before you can get trusted and respect, and then we’ve got a common purpose. And I think all of that is pulling together, all that’s working with this team really well. So I like where we are with the team. We don’t have a split of old and young, we don’t have guys that hate their coach, so I think for the first four months it’s been about as good as it can be.”

*The spring game Saturday will not include live kicking other than extra points and field goals because of a lack of depth and they just haven’t worked on all of those areas as much this spring. Brown says they will, obviously, in August.