CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Mack Brown met with the media Monday via zoom for his weekly in-season press conference ahead of the Tar Heels’ home game Saturday versus Virginia Tech.

UNC is 2-0, coming off a 26-22 win at Boston College, and is ranked in the top 10 at No. 8 for the first time since 2015. The Hokies are also 2-0 and ranked No. 19.

Here is Brown’s full press conference and some notes and quotes pulled from it:

*As noted, the Tar Heels are No. 8 in the AP poll this week and No. 9 in the Coaches’ poll. It’s the first time Carolina has been in the top 10 since the week of the ACC championship game in 2015, when the Heels were No. 8 before falling that weekend to Clemson. The players are excited, but Brown warns the hard part is staying there.

“Happy that we’re in the top 10, (though) understanding that early rankings don’t make any difference, and I told them that,” Brown said. “I said, ‘The good thing for you is people have given you the respect they feel like you should be there, the tough thing is you’ve got to earn it to stay.' And that’s very, very important going forward.”

*The Players of the Game from BC as decided by the staff:

-Michael Carter on offense (16 carries, 121 yards): “He just had an amazing day,” Brown said. “He’s got such great vision, took care of the ball, so he’s the offensive player.”

-Trey Morrison on defense (6 tackles, interception return for two points to seal the game): “Trey Morrison made the play to win the game, without question, at the end.”

-Jonathan Kim on special teams (Kickoff specialist is regularly getting touchbacks this season): “He’s 11-for-11 kicking it out of the end zone, so he’s taken away the threat of a kickoff return and he’s a real weapon for us.”

*Now that the Tar Heels have essentially had two openers, Brown is calling this week’s game the team’s “second” of the season. This will be the first time since UNC played Mercer at home and at NC State the following weekend in which it will play on consecutive weekends. The NC State game was Nov. 30 last year, which is 309 days and 44 weeks ago.

“Usually, we improve the most from our first week to our second week, (so) this should be like our second week,” Brown said.

*The fair catch ruling on Michael Carter’s kickoff return that ended up with UNC starting that possession at its own 4-yard-line, and after Sam Howell was intercepted two plays later, led to a 5-yard Eagles’ touchdown drive. The fair catch rule exists allowing teams to take the ball at the 25 and was put in to limit concussions. On punts, if you signal a fair catch and the ball hits the ground, a team starts its possession where the ball stops or is touched by someone from the punting team. On kickoffs, if the ball touches the ground and you touch it, that’s where you get it. But if you let it go into the end zone it’s a touchback, but it’s a live ball until it gets there, so the return man has to touch it to make the ball dead.

“It’s a live ball, so what happened with Michael; their kicker held the ball up four seconds a lot, they had a really good coverage team and we decided on the deep kicks we were going to catch the ball,” Brown said. “Michael’s one of our smartest players, he sees the kick, it’s coming at him, it’s high, he’s got the fair catch signal up and all of a sudden it fishtails and dies and he can’t get to it. And it rolls back and he touches the ball and that’s where they get the ball.

“Which I thought changed the whole momentum of the ballgame. It gave them some hope, it gave them some excitement. They’d had trouble scoring and it gave them a short field. But that’s a rule to me that should be changed.”

*UNC was flagged for 10 penalties for 96 yards Saturday after nine penalties for 91 yards versus Syracuse. What happened?

“As a team we had entirely too many penalties,” Brown said. “They’re a well-coached, disciplined team, they had 12, we had 10. Some officials call more penalties than others in a game, and this was one where a lot were called.

“And the procedure, so you will know, we look at all of the penalties and we decide what we think is a fair call and we try to teach the players not to do it anymore based on that call. And the second part of that is if we see one we think should not have been called we send that to the conference office because we want to know if they feel like it was a penalty then we’ve got to start coaching things differently. They will get back to us on Tuesday or Wednesday on whether they think the calls were fair or not.”

*The Tar Heels are minus 4-1 in turnovers, which doesn’t include Morrison’s two-point conversion pick. Statistically, that does not count as a interception because it technically does not count as a play.

So, one turnover forced by the defense in two games isn’t ideal for Brown.

“I thought we’ve really got to do a better job of, and it’s a continuation of last year, is we’ve got to do a better job of forcing turnovers on defense,” Brown said. “We’re protecting the ball pretty well on offense but we’re not forcing turnovers… That’s an area we can improve.”

*Previously, UNC made announcements about injuries before Brown’s pressers each Monday, but the staff isn't risky giving opponents an advantage by offering up the information when others aren't.

Storm Duck, who went down on the last series of the BC game and was replaced by Obi Egbuna, who was flagged for a pass interference on third-and-32 to keep that drive alive, and who was also targeted for BC’s touchdown at the end of the drive. Brown was asked if the game went into overtime if Duck would have been able to play.

“You heard Jeremy before the press conference, he will update you on all injuries every Saturday,” Brown said. “It seems to be what’s happening across the country right now. If we’re not going to know who our opponents are going to play, then we’ve got to be smarter with what we’re doing.”

*Virginia Tech is 2-0 after routing NC State, 45-24, at home two weeks ago and winning at Duke this past weekend, 38-31. The Hokies are averaging 319 yards rushing per game, but maybe more impressive is they’re averaging 7.0 per attempt. Furthermore, Tech has been without 23 and 22 players the last two games, respectively, and should have many of those players back this weekend. Brown says Justin Fuente’s team is vastly underrated.

“They should be a top-10 team,” Brown said about the Hokies. “They’re really good. They’re 2-0 and they’ve had a lot of people out. They are really underrated, and that shows you the fallacy of early season rantings in my estimation.”

*So, the Hokies are one of the top rushing teams in the nation and a year ago ran for 254 yards in a six-overtime win over the Tar Heels in Blacksburg. Carolina, however, is No. 1 in the nation against the run so far allowing opponents just 54 yards per game. UNC is also No. 3 in the nation allowing just 2 yard per rush. But, those stats are a bit misleading, Brown says.

“The first two opponents we’ve had, Syracuse had a rebuilt offensive line and two backs opted out…,” Brown said. “And secondly, Boston College didn’t try to run it. I think they had nine rushes and we had some sacks.

“So, I think our big test against the run is going to be Saturday for the first time… I think it’s obvious what Virginia Tech’s gonna do. For two weeks, they’ve rushed for over 300 yards, (and) if you rush for over 300 yards, you’re usually going to win the game.”