CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Mack Brown met with the media via zoom following practice Wednesday morning to discuss his team’s week preparing to face Miami on the road Saturday, tight end success, defensive improvement, Drake Maye, and so much more.
UNC (4-1, 1-0 ACC) visits Miami (2-2, 0-0) for a 4 PM kickoff at Hard Rock Stadium.
Above is video of Brown’s Q&A session, and below are some notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:
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*Ja’Qurious Conley tore his knee in the win over Wofford last November and has been out ever since. He returned to the practice field this week, but in a very limited role. He has done some things on the side, but was involved in some more activity Wednesday morning, Brown said.
“He is practicing mostly with the show team, which shows Miami’s defense against our offense,” he said. “After yesterday’s practice, and I just talked to him again a few minutes ago, I said, ‘Have you got any soreness?’ And he said, ‘No.’
“He seemed to be getting his confidence back. He didn’t hit, obviously, but he ran routes, and he did run into somebody in pass scale yesterday, and he did do some live pass scale without tackling, and got knocked down and jumped right back up.
“I don’t know if it’s next week or after the open week of practice, but it looks like he will be starting to work back into the lineup. He will not travel or play this weekend.”
*Miami has a new staff and employs a different offensive approach than last year. It brought in Josh Gattis, who was the offensive coordinator at Michigan last season, so how different are the Hurricanes on offense than a year ago, based on what Brown has seen?
“Any time you’ve got this many new coaches coming together, there’s always different pieces of philosophy,” Brown said. “And Coach Gattis took Michigan last year to the playoffs. So it was a Jim Harbough pro-style, very physical balanced play-action, very, very good offense.
“And I’m sure after the (former Miami OC) Rhett Lashlee offense from last year, which was up-tempo, probably a lot like we are on offense, they’re trying to figure out what they want to do, and at the same time, figure out what their players can do best…
“I would think that the open date for them came at a perfect time, because they can look at those first four ballgames and say, ‘Okay, we liked this here; maybe this worked at Michigan and isn’t as good here for us; here’s what the quarterback does best. So we’ll have to start over and see what they came up with with their self-evaluation after the first four weeks.”
Note: Miami is No. 37 nationally in total offense (448.8 yards per game), No. 47 in rushing (178.5), No. 41 in passing (270.2), No. 38 in scoring (35.0), No. 27 in third-down conversions (48.3 percent), and No. 73 in red zone offense (82.6 percent).
*Brown says they are going to play a lot of guys to stay fresh since it’s supposed to very warm Saturday.
“It’s going to 83 degrees, but with the humidity, it’s gonna feel like 88,” he said. “And here we were, it was 48 this morning when we came out for practice. So, our guys are going to have to handle the heat, and we’re going to have to also substitute more than we would on a normal weekend.”
*The staff’s quest to pare down the running backs room remains a process, but Brown said Caleb Hood is likely to start for the second consecutive game this weekend.
“I think so, (though) it’s still not very clear,” Brown said. “We’re still trying to figure it out because we haven’t made enough yards. And two of the three big runs we had Saturday were options and we didn’t block anybody. So, we’ve got to be real honest and real clear, and we keep telling the backs, ‘If you’re in there and you’re making yards, you’re going to stay. And if you’re not, we’ve got enough talent we’re going to rotate backs.’
“We’d rather find two guys right now that can take over, and we still haven’t declared that.”
*Drake Maye is second on the team in rushing attempts, but Brown would like to see that change. He’d rather Maye not get hit as often as he has. Maye has run the ball 52 times for 255 yards. True freshman running back Omarion Hampton has the most attempts at 56. He has gained 293 yards on the season.
“I’d rather not have many designed runs for him,” Brown said about Maye. “And if they are, I’d rather them be options where he can get down. But I don’t want him running into a bunch of people.
“He’s going to have a certain number of scrambles. There’s going to be a quarterback draw that’s necessary to really help recruiting. But I do feel like the fewer times he can have designed runs the better off we are because we’ve got to keep him healthy. And that’s the other reason we’ve got to have some running backs step up and make some plays.”
