CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Mack Brown met with the media via zoom following practice Wednesday morning to discuss how his team has practiced this week in advance of its game at Appalachian State on Saturday, plus plenty of other things about his club, his time at App as a head coach, and much, much more.

Carolina defeated Florida A&M, 56-24, to open the season this past Saturday, but the quality in competition and environmental challenges soar with the game this weekend, which will be UNC’s first ever visit to Kidd Brewer Stadium.

Above is the video of Brown’s lengthy Q&A session, and below are some tidbits and excepts from what he had to say:

*Brown said cornerback Lejond Cavazos is practicing this week and is ready to go. He dressed for the FAMU game but did not play. Cavazos transferred to UNC this past offseason from Ohio State.

Also, Brown said senior WR Antoine Green got in some work at practice and even caught some passes Wednesday morning. Green suffered an upper body injury early in the second week of fall camp and was ruled out 6-10 weeks, so with him getting an increase workload, Brown is optimistic he might be back closer to the six-week mark than not.

*Brown said practice “has been good this week.” He said too often last year’s team would play well and then not practice well the following week, so Brown is encouraged that wasn’t the case this week with his offense.

*The defense “has picked it up” in practice this week, in part because it was aided by playing a game and having some things exposed. A staff won’t see everything in practice, so the FAMU game gave them an opportunity to see what needed fixing and refining. They have done that.

“You may not realize you’re not tackling as well as you want to because you’re having so much thud in practice.”

Furthermore, Brown said, “The advantage for us in playing a game is that we’ve been exposed. We know all the problems we’ve got, App State knows all the problems we’ve got, and we’ve got to fix them.”

*That said, UNC is at a distinct disadvantage, Brown said. “We don’t know who they’re going to play for sure. They’ve got some new faces on defense, they’ve got a new offensive coordinator, so it’s definitely a second opener for us. And openers are tough.”

*Brown dismissed the talk about UNC not winning on the road. It was 0-5 last year in true road games plus lost its bowl. But it was 3-3 in 2020, plus the bowl loss to Texas A&M, and in 219 they were 4-3 on the road.

In addition, Carolina’s coach noted his team is 7-3 versus in-state opponents since his return.

*Five ACC teams are starting transfers at quarterback, but not UNC. Brown heaped some praise on Phil Longo for maintaining that room and not having to go into the portal for a signal caller.

*The earlier the kickoff time the better for Brown. He says he gets antsy having to wait around for games, so he prefers early ones, and wouldn’t even mind kicking off at 8 AM, which is when the Tar Heels practice during the week. Saturday’s game at The Rock kicks at noon.

*Brown spent a lot of time discussing his year as App State’s head coach in 1983, and even told a fun story about recruiting John Settle to App, a rare time heavy snow on the mountain helped him get a player.

*So, a conversation piece among the media that covers UNC the past few days made it to Brown this morning, and it was comparing the common appearance of going to Boone this weekend to opening last season in Blacksburg in a game the highly ranked Tar Heels lost to Virginia Tech. That defeat took the air out of the Heels, and they never really regained it.

Are there many similarities, especially given the wild atmosphere UNC will encounter Saturday? Or maybe Brown sees a distinct difference, in Carolina’s favor.

“I would think the biggest difference is last year,” he said. “It was a teachable moment for us. We didn’t handle it well. We were 2-for-10 on third downs, we gave up six sacks, we had three turnovers. So, offensively, we just didn’t handle it well at all.

“We played well enough to win on defense. But our offense was just atrocious. So you go back and talk to the guys about last year’s opener, you go back and talk about last year’s first road game, and most of these guys were at that game.

“You tell them, ‘You’ve got to embrace the environment, you’ve got to love the fact that App State has a tremendous fan base and they’re all going to be there, and excited and they’re going to be loud. That’s great. That should be fun for you. And embrace it.’ And if you don’t like playing in front of big crowds, you shouldn’t have come here, because this is big-time football.”

*Why has App State been one of the most successful programs in the nation going back to 2014 when it became a full-fledged member of the FBS, and it has been one of the top programs at home at any level. Brown offered a few reasons why.

“They have a tremendous amount of pride in their football program,” he said. “It’s the most important thing in sports at that university. And those fans are passionate, they love their team. And the players feel that way, so they play hard, and they play with confidence.”

*The mindset of the UNC players heading into the App State game this week is much different than it was three years ago when the Tar Heels lost at home to the Mountaineers 34-31.

“They’ve seen App State beat a bunch of teams that are really good,” Brown said. “They saw them go and beat South Carolina at night at South Carolina. I think the mindset is very different now than it was three years ago.”