CHAPEL HILL – Mack Brown stood before his team Tuesday morning and delivered words of encouragement.

He is a football coach and that is what they do, no matter the circumstance.

Coming off an awful season: inspire, motivate, and fuel with confidence. Coming off a national championship: inspire, motivate, and fuel with confidence.

An important distinction in Brown’s message to the Tar Heels at the outset of spring practice is that his words really weren’t much different from when he took over following five wins in two seasons that led to Larry Fedora’s termination in November of 2018.

Brown returned to Chapel Hill to win. He didn’t come back to earn a paycheck because he didn’t need the cash. He didn’t come back to secure his place in history, because Brown is a Hall of Famer, his legacy is set and he will always have a spot in the sport’s lore.

He came back to win games and restore UNC’s football program into the position it was when he left for Texas following the 1997 regular season, which concluded with the Tar Heels finishing 11-1 and ranked No. 6 in the nation.

Brown inherited a club that won three games in 2017 and two in 2018. This past season, the Tar Heels went 8-4, finished ranked No. 19 in the final AP poll, and played in the Orange Bowl, the program’s first major bowl game in 71 years.

So, about that message.

“I don’t think I deliver the message differently; I think they listen differently,” Brown said following Tuesday’s practice, which was the Tar Heels' first this spring. “When I walked in here and they’d won two games, I said our goal’s to win every game and I think they looked at me like, ‘Well, wait ‘til you see us. We’re not very good.’ And now, they feel like they are good… I think their mentality is different.”

UNC quarterback Sam Howell, one of the leading contenders for the Heisman Trophy this coming season, agrees with Brown. He said this is all on the players, how they receive the staff’s words and use them for fuel.

“I wouldn’t say the message has really changed,” Howell said. “I don’t think the standard has been set any higher, he set a very high standard when he came in. I think it’s more of we’re just so close at this point, we just have to do whatever it takes to take that next step.

“So, I think from a players’ standpoint, we’re definitely holding each other more than we have in the past couple of years just because of how close we know we really are. So, I would say that’s probably the biggest difference.”

And for them to enter a place where accountability matters as much as it does within the walls of Carolina’s locker room and wherever their lives extend, that culture must be fully in place. Teams do not start winning and then adopt a culture, the foundational stuff must come first, or the winning will not happen. Or at least if it flares up, it won’t be sustained.

With UNC now diving into spring practice, as the Tar Heels prepare for a season in which they likely will start out ranked among the top 10, the players can realize greater fruits for their efforts. They know what it looks like up close.

North Carolina was that kind of team during a 62-24 demolition of Miami in December, but it wasn't in losses to Notre Dame the day after Thanksgiving and in the bowl game versus Texas A&M. But the Fighting Irish and Aggies were, so the Heels saw what was missing firsthand.

To climb into the top-10 and stay there, the Heels must understand the extra layer it requires. Routing the Hurricanes was impressive, but teams must play at that level just about every week to comfortably find a home among the more esteemed programs in the nation, which is Carolina’s stated mission.

“I’ve told them, ‘We’re sniffing around being a top-10 team, but we’ve got to do it consistently,” Brown said.

Yet, two years-plus ago, Brown told the players they would win if they did what the staff asked. He demanded the same attention to detail, the same standards for inner program directives, whether it is being on time or any other codes that may appear minor to the outside world but are very telling to coaches and veteran team leaders.

Encouragement is fine, it certainly can’t hurt. But until the encouraged believes it, the message won’t be fully realized. When the message meets belief, the result can be powerful.

“His message hasn’t changed,” Howell said. “He came in here with a championship standard and championship mindset and that’s how he’s coached this team the past two years, so he’s going to continue to do that.”

The difference is, the ears taking in Brown’s words now believe it so they’ve embraced it. And with that, Brown’s message is starting to become their reality.