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CHAPEL HILL – Mack Brown’s team needed more of an edge, so the North Carolina coach decided to make practice and everything his club does more of a competition.
Competition breeds excellence, right? Then, that’s the intent at UNC, in addition to creating more of an edge.
It might not be popular to say winning is everything in every day life, but in sports, especially the major college level, it is pretty much everything. Those who perform play. The coaches who win keep their jobs or move up to better gigs. The nicest, most decent coach alive won’t keep his job if his squad doesn’t win enough.
So, yes, winning is just about everything at North Carolina and every other football program with ambitious goals at claiming championships. And that is among UNC’s stated missions.
“I thought it was really good, and we’ve done it at times throughout my career,” Brown said, about the broad competitions put in place this offseason within the program. “I thought this spring was the most competitive practices we’ve had, and I really liked it. And we’re going to continue to look at what we can do to expand in that area.”
Brown has been open about how last year’s team didn’t consistently have the right mojo to meet its own expectations. Up one week, down the next, and sometimes ebbing and flowing in the same game or even practice.
He says they participated in practice, but the teams that contend for championships compete in practice, and he saw that his program needed that edge. So, a scoring system was incorporated into just about everything that they do, beginning with every rep in practice.
“We’ve always said you have to compete with everything you do every day in practice,” Brown said. “If you don’t have a score and you say offense got one, defense got one, it’s not real. We give the winners a reward after every game.
“It’s ice cream, popsicles, cookies. And as simple as it seems, all these guys love to compete.”
It may seem funny to the outside world, and perhaps even a bit silly, a bunch of 20-year-olds battling it out for some oatmeal raisin cookies or chocolate ice cream bars. But the method in the madness is the effect on each individuals’ pursuit of excellence. And that directly affects how their position group grows, which impacts that side of the ball.
There is a degree of genius to this idea. Imagine: A 310-pound defensive lineman taunting a 190-pound wide receiver dangling a cherry popsicle in front of him as a signal the D just beat the O. Or a quarterback holding out a chocolate chip cookie, a big one of course, teasing a 235-pound linebacker because the offense got the better of the defense that morning.
“Every day, we’ve been tallying points every play from first downs, tackles for losses, sacks,” junior linebacker Cedric Gray said. “They all mean something throughout this spring, and it really brought the best out of everybody. It made everybody compete day in and day out. So, I really enjoyed that aspect of it.”
Football practice isn’t always fun. Workouts when nobody is looking aren’t either. Teams workout 46 weeks a year but play 12 or 13 games, so maintaining an edge is paramount for a team’s growth.
It allows for groups to win a lot, and lose a lot. But when they’re losing to teammates who are clearly improving, it enhances the vibe across the board.
“It boosts our confidence,” junior defensive lineman Myles Murphy said. “Everybody wants to make a play. So, when he says stuff like that everybody has to get out there. Plus, we take points, competition points.
“We got a spring production king, all of that makes everybody want to get after it.”
And again, it creates an edge. Nobody wants to lose. If the reward that day is a creamsicle, a jelly donut, or even a peanut butter parfait after a scrimmage, guys are gonna go after it because they want to win. And that is the point of the daily everything-is-a-competition approach.
“You know every day and (you can’t) take any plays off,” Gray said. “Really learning how to compete you know against teams in the heat of the battle.”
Hence, the Heels are developing an edge.
