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CHAPEL HILL – Drake Maye’s joke about NC State late in his interview with the media Tuesday evening at the Kenan Football Center didn’t go over too well resulting in the redshirt freshman quarterback tweeting out an apology a couple of hours later.

The comment ruffled some feathers, ticked off some NC State people, and made Carolina fans laugh. Setting the scene: Maye was asked about flipping his commitment from Alabama to UNC, and seeing the success of then-quarterback Sam Howell, whom Maye has known for years.

Maye said that and being at UNC is why he made the decision. Nearing the end of his response, he joked about the Tar Heels’ primary football rival 25 miles down the road.

"I didn't want to miss out on the home state, seeing Sam being a hometown kid, too...,” Maye said. “Whether you want to admit it or not, growing up in Carolina, you're gonna be a Carolina fan… Some people may say State, but really people who go to State just can't get into Carolina."

What followed was a social media uproar that led to Maye issuing an apology via Twitter.

UNC Coach Mack Brown defended his player in an interview via zoom following practice Wednesday morning.

“You can’t be cute anymore,” Brown said. “He was trying to be funny. Drake is one of the nicest young people I’ve ever met in my life. He’s got great faith and he always wants to be classy and do things right. And he was cutting up with you all (media), and I said, ‘You can’t do it. I’m a smart aleck. I like to cut up, I like to laugh, I like to tell funny stories.’

“And that kind of dies now with social media and modern day. He was absolutely cutting up. Obviously, it wasn’t true.”

UNC practices at 8 AM each morning, so moments before meeting with the media, Brown offered some advice to his prolific quarterback.

“I talked to him after practice today a little bit, and he said, ‘Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be a distraction, I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. Just having fun,’” Brown said. “And I said, ‘I know. You’re 18-19 years old, have fun but always be very respectful of everybody, and especially your neighbors.’”

Brown said a casualty of the social media era is that joking about rivals and other things are no longer tolerated.

“I think we have,” he said. “We’ve got way too (many) serious opinions, and maybe it’s a product of social media. I mean, people pick at each other all the time. So, at lunch, the NC State and Carolina people can pick at each other and it’s okay, but for somebody to say something publicly that somebody wants to get mad; you’ve got a lot of people out there that are looking for something to get mad at.”

Maye’s apology was something the player and Jeremy Sharpe, UNC’s Assistant A.D./Football Communications and Branding, decided on doing. Brown had some input at well.

“I didn’t want Drake to be beaten up over it because he was cutting up, and I’ve done that my whole life,” Brown said. “I do it with you all (media) and ask you not to say it. And he’s young, and I didn’t want him to get burned so he didn’t want to talk to the media ever again.

“So, I just felt like modern-day, if something’s not what we want it to be as a family and North Carolina football, that’s not who we are, then let’s fix it.”

North Carolina (3-0) hosts Notre Dame on Saturday at Kenan Stadium for a game that kicks off at 3:30 PM.