**************************************************************************************
CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Mack Brown met with the media following practice Wednesday morning to discuss his team’s preparation for Miami’s visit Saturday, fixing some things that haven’t gone well for his team, and much more.
Above is the video of Brown’s Q&A session and below are notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:
*Harris Barton started on the offensive line all four seasons he played at UNC from 1983-1986, including the last three at tackle. He was an All-America and first-round pick by the San Francisco 49ers. There, he won three Super Bowls and was an All-Pro. He will be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame later this season and will be honored during the game Saturday versus Miami.
“We are really excited for him,” Brown said. “He will be honored with his own campus salute this weekend, so there will be some functions leading into it (and) he will be honored at the game on Saturday.”
*Brown is pleased with how practice has gone this week, though he still emphasized the Tar Heels’ issues with inconsistency and being grounded by adversity.
“The kids continue to work and compete and they’re disappointed, like all the rest of us,” Brown said. “But they know we’ve got to keep working, we’ve got to get better. And the biggest issues seem to be the inconsistency and we haven’t handled adversity as well this year as we have in the last two.
“We didn’t have a lot of issues come up. We didn’t have a lot of expectations. It seems like the bigger the expectations – we’re about where we were last year; we were 4-2 at this time, first year we were 3-3, so it’s not that much different, really. But the expectations were, and that makes us all feel differently about it than we should.
“And really and truly we’re still in a process of building that culture and learning how to handle adversity and having leadership within the team, because leadership changes every year, and we’ve just got to keep getting better. But they are working and they do realize that they haven’t played as a team and haven’t played up to our potential, and that’s something we’ve got to do.”
*In discussing the Hurricanes, Brown said right now it’s not about Miami, it’s about the Tar Heels fixing what needs work. It’s about them, but where exactly does that start?
“It begins with us not making as many mistakes,” Brown said. “It’s too many penalties. In two of the three losses it’s too many turnovers. And in a couple of the losses too many missed tackles. So as I’ve said many, many times, this is a simple game played by complicated people, and that makes the game complicated.
“I told the guys today, everybody says, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen Saturday,’ well you do if you make it happen, and we’ve got to make it happen.”
*Communication issues in the back of the defense has been a topic here in recent weeks. Brown and senior linebacker and defensive captain Jeremiah Gemmel haven’t been shy noting the poor communication has really hurt the Heels at times. Gauging progress in that area can be tricky during the week, as the live fire of games are the real test.
“The thing that’s been so frustrating with this team and teams that don’t play consistently is we didn’t have any communication problems (versus) Duke, we didn’t have communication problems (against) Virginia, we didn’t have communication problems (versus) Georgia State. We did at Georgia Tech, we didn’t really at Virginia Tech – we played great defense up there. But we did last week.
“Again, if I got into what one of the communications was, you’d be absolutely shocked how simple it was. I’ve never seen it before, in my 47 years of coaching. But if I told you what it was, then you’d want to know who it was, then we’d be embarrassing the young guy, and I’m just not gonna do that.
“So, the good thing is it’s all fixable.”
*Miami heads to Kenan Stadium with a 2-3 overall record and 0-1 in ACC play, having lost to Virginia in its most recent game. And by the time the Hurricanes take the field Saturday, it will have been 16 days since they last played.
And they must do so without quarterback D’Eriq King, who is out for the season with a shoulder injury. His backup, redshirt freshman Tyler Van Dyke, started the UVA game and played for much of a win over Central Connecticut State.
Van Dyke is 25-for-41 with 473 yards, 4 touchdowns and no interceptions, and he has been sacked 6 times. Versus the Wahoos, Van Dyke was 15-for-29 with 203 yards, one TD and was sacked four times.
“I hate that D’Eriq King is hurt,” Brown said. “As a coach you hate that for young people. He’s one of the better quarterbacks in the country, a guy that was mentioned in the Heisman race in preseason. He hurt his knee last year in the bowl game and then comes back and has a shoulder this year. I really want to wish him good luck moving forward…
“Probably the big story for them is the freshman quarterback, who I thought gained so much confidence the last half against Virginia. Tyler Van Dyke is his name, and he came in and played really well. He’s big (6-foot-4, 224 pounds), he’s a pro style quarterback, he’s very, very accurate, but he can run for a big guy, too.”
Van Dyke had a 24-yard TD run versus UVA.
*Brown likes certain parts of the Hurricanes’ defense.
“Their defensive front is the most talented we will have played to this point,” Brown said. “They’re a multiple defense. Coach (Manny) Diaz is calling the defenses now. They’ve got three sure-shot NFL guys and a lot more, but Bubba Bolden, the safety (and number) 21 is a great player. Big tall guy that can run and makes plays all over the field. (Neste Jade) Silvera, number one, the defensive tackle is just hard to handle on the inside, but they’ve got a lot of big bodies.
“They’ve got a Georgia transfer, (cornerback) Tyrique Stevenson, that looks like a number one draft pick as well. He can really cover, and he can hit you.”
*As for some of Miami’s strengths on offense, Brown says the Canes have some major talent.
“They’ve got two NFL receivers,” Brown said. “You start looking at (Charleston) Rambo, who transferred in from Oklahoma, and (Mike) Harley, number three, who we’ve played against for the previous two years. And they return four of their five offensive linemen. We’ve got our hands full from that standpoint.”
