CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Mack Brown met with the media via zoom following Wednesday morning’s practice as the Tar Heels continue preparation for Saturday’s game at Florida State.
Among the things Brown discussed during his 37-minute Q&A session is how his team is handling being ranked No. 5 in the nation, how seriously they’re taking the Seminoles, how Brown flipped Sam Howell from FSU, fixing the penalty issue, special teams improvement, needing more depth on defense and much, much more.
UNC’s game at FSU is Saturday at 7:30 and will air nationally on ABC.
Above is Brown’s entire post-practice interview and below are notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:
*Saturday night on ABC in primetime means this will be the third consecutive week the Tar Heels have been on exclusive national TV on ABC. The win at Boston College (3:30 kick) and last Saturday’s victory over Virginia Tech (Noon) were also exclusive ABC games. Brown obviously sees many benefits from his team getting on national network TV as much as they have so far.
“Third national ABC game in a row is great for our exposure, outstanding for recruiting,” Brown said. “It’s something we haven’t had happen in a while, I’m not sure how long. But, everybody gets a chance to see you play, so if you want to continue to be a top-10 team, a top-five team, then you’ve got to show it and you’ve got to show it every week.
“You can’t talk about it, it doesn’t matter. What did you put on video? What did you put on the field? And what’s everybody going to see, and that’s what makes the difference.”
*Brown was pleased with Wednesday’s practice and said the Tar Heels also practiced well Tuesday. He said the players have shown “great respect” for FSU in their preparations.
“It’s just one of those programs you know how great they are and you’ve followed them and they’ve won a national championship during these guys’ lives,” Brown said. “They’re excited about the trip and playing in front of some fans. I think they’re talking about 19,000 fans, that will be like a full house for us because we haven’t been around many fans to start the season.”
*No decisions have been made yet about the availability this weekend of DL Ray Vohasek, WR Emery Simons and nickel Ja’Qurious Conley, each of whom missed the Virginia Tech game last weekend with injuries.
*Brown singled out junior offensive lineman Joshua Ezeudu for his courage agreeing to be interviewed by the media following Tuesday’s practice. Ezeudu has a speech impediment (stutters) and has been self-conscious about it but wanted to take the questions and did quite well.
“This is a very important part of their growing process here,” Brown said, referring to the players doing interviews with the media. “Number one, thank you all for helping EZ yesterday. I thought that was really brave of him. And he asked Jeremy (Sharpe), ‘Can I do this?’ And I thought he did a tremendous job. He’s making progress.
“He’s so smart, he’s All-Academic ACC and he’s one of the best young people I’ve ever been around and (is) a tremendous player. That’s why you coach. That young man feels better about himself today.”
*The Tar Heels have been flagged for 29 penalties accumulating 274 yards through the first three games. Brown addressed how they’re going about fixing the problem once again Wednesday, noting many coaches have different methods in how they handle penalties with their players.
“Are we punishing them or are we doing anything for the penalties? A lot of the players on this team won two games two years ago,” Brown said. “We had a thing at Texas, ‘Not our standards,’ and I think Larry (Fedora) might have done something like that here. And every Sunday we had them all get in front of the team and do up-downs, the whole team had to.
“Here. We’re trying to correct them individually on video in front of the team to make sure that the team understands that we can’t do this. And then we tell them, ‘We can’t play you if you’re not doing well enough on the field to take up for the penalties that you’re making. So we need to stop the penalties,’ and we go over them every day.
“This team had been so beaten down with losses and negatives, we did not think it was a good thing to just beat them down in the first year we were here.”
*A change was made running special teams after last season because the Tar Heels had some issues there and just weren’t productive enough. So Brown brought in Jovan Dewitt, who has the unit playing more consistently than it did a year ago, though there’ve been a couple of miscues. But overall, Brown is pleased with how those units are taking shape.
“I see a lot of promise with what we’re doing now,” Brown said. “We’re covering punts really well. The fact that we’re kicking every kickoff out of the end zone, and when we didn’t we covered really well. We’ve missed one 55-yard field goal, something like that… Dazz had better punt returns in the Syracuse game than we had at any time last year, and that showed promise. Michael Carter we know is coming.
“What we’ve done is made one critical mistake three games in a row, and that’s what we can’t do. The good thing is, like the penalties, those can be corrected. We can change that. But the drills that we’re doing are in place, I like the progress that we’re making, the players are very confident on special teams.
“We’ve had some opt outs, we’ve had some injuries and that will thin out some on special teams, but we still have good players, probably better than last year at this point, even though we’ve got a lot of young guys still there. And again, Jovan didn’t have spring practice or any summer to work, and this is just like you’re starting out… I like the way he does it, I like the work that he’s putting in, and I think at some point we’ll be really, really good.”
*After so-so performances in beating Syracuse and Boston College, UNC’s offense exploded for 56 points on 656 yards versus Virginia Tech last Saturday. The offensive line was significantly better against the Hokies than it was in the first two games, and it wasn’t just having Ezeudu back that made the difference. Everyone played at a much higher level than they had been. So, Brown’s message to the group this week has been clear:
“I talked to them a long time today, ‘Can you do it twice, do it two weeks in a row?’ We haven’t played a full game yet as a team,” Brown said. “We had the defense played really well against Syracuse, (the) offense stood around most of a half and late third quarter, fourth quarter, they blew them out. But it wasn’t a full game.
“At Boston College, neither one played a full game. And then Saturday, our defense didn’t get done what they wanted to get done and our offense played as well as I’ve seen anybody play on offense in a long time.”
*COVID issues remain in the news in college football, as Florida halted practice this week and the Baylor-Oklahoma State game was postponed because of an outbreak. In fact, that was supposed to be the primetime ABC game and UNC-FSU was slated for 7 pm on ESPN, but was moved in place of the Bears-Cowboys slot.
UNC has not had a positive test since the second week of July, a span of three months. Brown says player accountability has been a big reason the program has been successful in keeping the virus away.
“They’re really trying hard,” Brown said. “It’s different because we see them with our early morning practices and then you see them if they come back over to watch video on their own. But then we don’t see them at night, so they’ve got to be handling the accountability for themselves and their teammates with each other. And they seem to be doing well.
“Just watching this virus and hearing our doctors, I know how quickly it can spread. We had our little flare up this summer, so I’m not one of those guys who’s going to say that we’re out of the woods by any means. We talk about COVID with our team and with our coaches every day.
“We talk about the guidelines and we talk about the things that are important, and we’ve said, ‘If you don’t care enough to do what you’re supposed to do, don’t play. Go do something else, don’t mess this team up. But if you’re going to be part of the family, part of the team, than do what you’re supposed to do.’ And that keeps the risk really low.”
