CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina is in the midst of an open week right now, though the Tar Heels would rather be preparing for an opponent for this weekend.
That isn’t the case, though, as UNC Coach Mack Brown discussed Tuesday morning following Carolina’s practice. In addition to how things played out on his end with respect to Charlotte cancelling last weekend’s game, Brown discussed how the team has adjusted, getting in needed reps for the younger players, staying sharp, plus he updated some health news about Joshua Ezeudu and Desmond Evans, discussed Myles Wolfolk’s academic ineligibility, its effect on the depth chart and much more.
Here is the video of Brown’s interview along with some notes and quotes about what he discussed:
*The team learned after last Thursday’s practice that Charlotte had cancelled Saturday’s scheduled game. Brown said it was an excellent practice, which was a change from the day before, when last Wednesday he was a bit critical of how his team prepared that morning. So, instead of the day-before walkthrough on Friday, the Tar Heels did extensive weight lifting work.
*Now that the Tar Heels will go three weeks in between games in the regular season for the first time since 1952 and the first time in Brown’s career as a head coach, he told the staff and players to view this scenario as effectively hitting the rest button on the season.
“What we told our players and coaches, ‘Let’s just start the season over. Syracuse was a game, it’s done, so we’re two weeks out from the opener. So let’s just go back and restart,’” Brown said. “And that’s what we’re trying to get their mentality to be.”
*So, now the Heels will go into October having played just one game for the first time since 1961.
“The negative is we’ll go to Boston College with a bunch of practice and one game,” Brown said. “The positive is you get EZ (Ezeudu) back, you’ll have Des Evans back, we should be healthy, we should be fresh, and the guys will be excited about playing, and it gives us two weeks to prepare for Boston College.’
*UNC announced late last week senior safety Myles Wolfolk, the leader of the Tar Heels’ secondary, is academically ineligible and will miss the rest of the season. As a graduate student who has earned two degrees already from Carolina, Wolfolk’s career in Chapel Hill has come to an end.
“We’re disappointed that Myles will not continue to be with us but he does have his degree,” Brown said. “He did so many great things for us and we’re proud of him and happy for him.”
*So, who steps in at strong safety now?
“We’re so lucky that we have great depth at that position, so we’ll move Trey Morrison back to safety from nickel,” Brown said. “You’ve got Trey Morrison, Don Chapman, Cam Kelly and Gio Biggers, so you’ve got a lot of guys. Still, you’re in good shape with two deep. We feel like we’re still okay there.”
Note: UNC has now lost five defensive backs in the last five weeks, as D.J. Ford, Javon Terry and Bryce Watts decided to opt out, Bryson Richardson entered the transfer portal and now Wolfolk is gone.
*To compensate for Wolfolk being gone, Trey Morrison has moved from the starting nickel spot to starting in Wolfolk’s place at safety. He got plenty of reps there and at corner during fall camp and even the buildup to the start of camp, so Morrison is no stranger to playing in the back of the defense.
In his place, true freshman Ja’Qurious Conley slides into Morrison’s former starting spot at nickel and behind him is Welton Spottsville, a sophomore who played sparingly at wide receiver a year ago before moving to nickel in the offseason.
Conley played 23 snaps at nickel registering a pair of tackles in the season-opening win over Syracuse. He also was in for 22 special teams plays, so he was on the field for 45 plays in the opener. Brown is confident in the 6-foot-1, 210-pounder.
“Ja’Qurious is one of the best athletes on our team,” Brown said. “So a lot of those freshmen are getting more looks now that we’ve been practicing eight or nine weeks – we’ve been practicing a long time. So hopefully, they’ll know what to do, but those are guys we’re just going to throw out there and let them play.”
Spottsville played two plays on special teams and not at all on defense versus the Orange.
*Brown said he expects Josua Ezeudu, perhaps the team’s best offensive lineman and certainly its most versatile, and true freshman hybrid OLB Desmond Evans to play Oct. 3 at Boston College, which is the next time the Tar Heels will suit up.
If the Tar Heels found a game for this coming weekend, however, it’s uncertain if Ezeudu would have played.
“I don’t think so,” Brown replied. “He’s not doing a lot of drills and things, so it would have been very questionable.”
