CHAPEL HILL – The Tar Heels will be back at Kenan Stadium this Saturday for the first time in a month and the players are plenty excited, head coach Mack Brown said following Wednesday’s practice. Plus, it’s Homecoming and North Carolina’s opponent is Duke.

UNC has lost three straight games to the Blue Devils and five of the last seven meetings, so changing that course is important as is winning back the Victory Bell. This is a rivalry, but Brown laid it on his kids this week using recent history as a means to motivate them to a level necessary for a true backyard brawl.

“I told them, ‘That’s not a rival until we get better, and it’s time for us to stand up,’” he said.

Brown’s Heels won their last eight games against Duke while he was a the helm in the 1990s in part because keeping the Victory Bell was important to the program. The game is still of paramount importance, as is getting possession of that bell, but there’s more to it.

“I think you go back and look at the history Duke is the rival game,” Brown said. “It was the last game (each season) when I was here, and because the basketball game being the biggest rivalry in maybe sports, the football game’s important, too. It’s really important.

“Over time here, we don’t have many North Carolina guys starting, I told the guys that yesterday, ‘this needs to eb really important for you and this university. We didn’t play very well at Wake Forest, we didn’t play well (versus) Appalachian (State), those are two instate games, you need to start understanding that regardless of where you’re from this game is important to this university. And so is Wake Forest, and so is N.C. State, and so is Appalachian State.’ We need to step up because it’s important to our fans and they need to understand that.”

The Heels lost earlier this season to Wake and App State but also have the ugly distinction of losing the last times they’ve played Duke, N.C. State and East Carolina.

In fact, Carolina's streak of three consecutive losses to the Blue Devils is the same versus the Wolfpack and Pirates, too. So, there’s a lot of fixing needed in Brown’s quest to own the state of North Carolina as he did for much of the 1990s when he was last in Chapel Hill.

“I told them when we got here, the first thing we said is we’re going to recruit instate first,” he said. “If it’s a great player we’ll take him out of state, but if there’s a player as good in state and out of state we’re going to go in state and we want to win all of the instate games and dominate the state in recruiting. And so far, we’re 0-for-2.”

The Tar Heels and Blue Devils kick off Saturday at 4 pm.

*The home crowds (all sellouts) have been very helpful to recruiting so far, Brown said, and he figures a full, boisterous house this weekend will continue that trend.

“It’s made a huge difference,” Brown said. “We’ll have probably nearly 100 recruits again this weekend in for the game, we’ve got a couple of guys coming in officially, and then we’ve got a whole bunch of guys that are going to come in an even spend the night. So, it’s important.”

*Coaches are often asked questions about how they evaluate players, be it drills, scrimmages in the fall, how they prepare, and so on, but how does a head coach evaluate his assistants? And more specifically, how does Brown do so?

“You always look at your coaches to see what they’re putting on film,” Brown replied. “I don’t want to hear them talk I want to see it. I told them that yesterday. I said, ‘If your guys are doing what you say they’re doing on film then it’s real, you’re coaching them. If you’re saying you’re doing it then they’re not doing it, that’s not coaching them, that’s talking. So they have to be productive with the guys on video.”

*More than halfway into the season, eight true freshmen have played in every game while three others have played more than four games, thus they’re not longer eligible to redshirt. Wide receiver Emery Simmons played in his fifth game this past weekend in Blacksburg, meaning 11 true freshmen Tar Heels cannot redshirt this season.

Three Heels have now played in three games while four have played in just one game, including walk-on placekicker Jonathan Kim, whose debut was at Virginia Tech.

So are any freshmen that haven’t been out there each week close to being able to help the team?

“I think the ones that are playing have played enough now, because they’re on special teams, that they’re going to be beyond and will play. The ones that haven’t played very much still have four games in them, the problem is we haven’t been in a game where we can put them in. We’d love to have a game where we’d have a little room in there to play somebody but we just haven’t been able to do that.”

Freshmen participation by games:

7 games - Sam Howell, Don Chapman, Obi Egbuna, Storm Duck, Tomari Fox, Drew Little, Khadry Jackson and Ben Kiernan.

6 games - Eugene Asante.

5 games - Cam’Ron Kelly (out for the season) and Emery Simmons.

3 games - Asim Richards, Welton Spottsville and Josh Henderson.

1 game - Khafre Brown, Giovanni Biggers, Komari Morales and Jonathan Kim.

Scholarship true freshmen who have not yet played in a game: Wyatt Tunall; Ty Murray; Triston Miller; Justin Olsen; Kristian Varner; Wisdom Asaboro and Brant Lawless-Sherrill.