CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Mack Brown met with the media following his team’s practice Wednesday morning to discuss how they have handled moving on from what happened last weekend in Atlanta, the Victory Bell, and taking on Duke this weekend at Kenan Stadium.
Above is video of Brown’s full Q&A session and below are some notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:
*The Tar Heels are coming off a 45-22 loss at Georgia Tech that was the clear low point since Brown returned nearly three years ago. So how has the team responded in practice this week?
“Practice has been really good,” Brown said. “The guys are focused. They understand that we haven’t met our expectations. We have better players than record. We’ve got a lot of young players that are making mistakes; that’s coaching we’ve got to get it fixed. We’ve recruited really, really well, but we’ve got to get back on track.
“There’s a transition between being good and being great. And all of us were hoping in preseason – fans, media, our expectations – that we would have taken that step right now and we haven’t. And we need to. That’s the next step.”
*Carolina lost just 13 turnovers last season and just 12 in 2019, but it has also turned it over eight times in four games this season, so the Heels are on pace to give the ball away 24 times in the regular season.
“The reason we’ve had the two losses are turnovers,” Brown said. “We’ve had eight turnovers this year that we’ve lost. We’ve only forced five, and both of those are concerns… We’ve got to take care of the ball better.”
*What is clearly eating at Brown is the fact that his club hasn’t put together even a consistent half yet, much less a consistent game. When the offense is up, the defense is down. When the defense is playing well, the offense can’t get out of its own way.
“You’ve got to consistently run the ball better, we know that,” Brown said. “I see sparks on defense where we look great, then I saw us look as good as we’ve ever looked on offense against Virginia. But we’re so inconsistent, and that’s what we’ve got to change.
“I told our coaches, ‘That’s on us.’ Players get ready to play, get ready to go, but we’ve got to coach up, and we can’t have the mental mistakes that we’ve had in the games that we haven’t done well.”
*UNC missed 13 tackles in the loss to the Yellow Jackets. Was that an anomaly, and how can a team go about fixing that problem during the week while also preparing for an opponent?
“Part of the tackling problems on Saturday night with Georgia Tech were (Jeff) Sims and Jahmyr) Gibbs. They’re really good and gonna make a lot of people miss, and we needed to have more people there to do it,” Brown said. “And then we had some structural things that we didn’t do. We’re still making too many mistakes.
“We’re making five mistakes on defense, and it seems like all five are really, really costing us. But we work on tackling every day, so it’s no different than the first day of spring practice. It is harder to tackle as much now with the rules like they are, but everybody’s got the same issues. Everybody’s got the same rules.”
*Duke enters the game at 3-1 overall having won three consecutive games over N.C. A&T, Northwestern, and Kansas. Northwestern played for the Big Ten championship last December, so the Blue Devils are riding a wave of confidence regained after suffering a puzzling season-opening loss at Charlotte.
“They’re well coached,” Brown said. “They’re running the ball really, really well. They’re balanced in their offense, they’re taking care of the ball much better than they did last year.
“Gunnar Holmberg is playing really, really well. He’s accurate, he’s running his team well, he’s taking care of the ball, he can run, which we haven’t done a good job with running quarterbacks. But he’s also got (Mataeo) Durant, who’s one of the best (running) backs in the country, and one of the leaders in this league in rushing yards. He can also catch the ball out of the backfield.
“(Jake) Bobo, but 6-5 guy, he’s caught 34 balls and they get it to him when they need it. He’s their go-to guy, and he’s done a tremendous job with that.
“Defensively, they’re led by DeWayne Carter up front. They’re defensive line is probably the strength of their team, even though they’ve got an older secondary that’s playing really well. That’s led by Leonard Johnson. They’re giving a lot of different looks and coming after you.”
