Note: Above is Mack Brown’s full post-practice interview following Friday morning first workout of the 2019 fall camp)

CHAPEL HILL – Mack Brown knows Friday was just one practice and it won’t be until sometime next week, at the earliest, before he and his staff understand what kind of team they have, but he was still quite pleased following the Tar Heels’ workout kicking off fall camp.

The Heels will be in full pads Tuesday, so that’s when everything amps up, but there’s still plenty to glean from what the team did in the first of 21 practices before launching into game-work preparation for the opener versus South Carolina on Aug. 31 in Charlotte.

“When you look at the first practice, my thought has always been to learn to swim you’ve got to have a pool and when you learn to play football you’ve got to have pads,” Brown said. “So, the first two days you’re trying to get organized, trying to see who’s in condition, you’re tying to look at your new guys and see what they look like because you haven’t been out there with them.

“All of that looked good. We’re a much better team now than we were the day that we left after the spring game. We’re deeper, the guys are in better shape, they’re stronger… and I’ve told them – always worry about confidence, ‘if you’re stronger and you’re heathier you’ll be more confident. And then what you’ve got to do is play game speed every play in practice against other good players on your team, and then you become a more confident football team.’

“By and large, you should be pleased with the first day (and) we were.”

Here are some a couple more notes about what Brown had to say Friday morning:

*Brown said leadership last spring still needed some work. Those who needed to lead weren’t as demanding as they’ve become, and that was one of the positive signs he saw on the first day Friday.

*He said the team is in much better condition than it was in the spring, noting as an example senior RB Antonio Williams told him after practice he was always sinded following spring practices but wasn’t Friday morning.

*Regarding the quarterbacks, Brown will answer questions about them, but he maintained what he’s said for a while now, the battle is ongoing, Jace Ruder, Cade Fortin and Sam Howell are each getting the same number of reps and at some point they will separate themselves based on their play. There’s no timetable in place for when he plans on it happening because Brown believes this will naturally take care of itself. As for how the trio looked Friday, Brown was happy to discuss it.

“I thought that they did a good job,” he said. “They’re probably, with new receivers in some cases, it probably takes them longer on a day like today to get settled because they have more to do. Just watching them, they’re all three very talented, they’re all three good enough.”

Brown did say the team was told not to worry about reps because jockeying won’t really take place until they are on full pads (starting Tuesday) and the staff can really find out what it has. He did, however, offer a clear example the QBs are in full competition mode after not being in one during the spring.

“We’ve told the quarterbacks, ‘Every pass is either getting you closer to moving up or down,’” he said. “So they have more pressure than anybody else right now to get it fixed.”

*The kicking game is also a giant question mark right now. It was inconsistent in the spring and Brown said it was again Friday. This appears to be a serious area of concern for the Hall of Fame coach, all three phases, but more notably placekicking.

“I didn’t get to watch the punting enough today because we did so many drills,” Brown said. “The kicking was inconsistent today, which worried me a little bit. The kickoffs were good, but we missed a couple of field goals and that’s unacceptable.”

All three phases of the kicking element of the kicking game will have to work itself out, the coach said.

“Yes, it’s kind of like the quarterbacks,” he said. “You bring in a young walk on from Virginia (Jonathan Kim), and you’ve got (Michael) Rubino from Appalachian State along with Ruggles, so we’ve really got to look at all three of those guys.”