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CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Mack Brown met with the media following practice Wednesday to discuss the transfer portal, his thoughts on the CFP, and to look ahead to No. 9 Wake Forest’s visit this weekend.

Above is video of Brown’s full presser and below are some notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:

*UNC lost two more players to the transfer portal Tuesday, as junior wide receiver Emery Simmons and sophomore defensive lineman Kristian Varner decided to leave the program and look for new schools. In the last two weeks, Carolina has lost five players to the portal, something UNC Coach Mack Brown says will be the norm for pretty much every program. And, with respect to Simmons and Varner, they left in good standing.

“We had a couple of other young guys decide to leave, (and) people have asked me about it, and very honestly, we’re supposed to be doing what’s best for the players,” Brown said. “It’s our job on trying to educate them on who we are and what we are. But if a young man wants to opt out, whether people like it or not, that’s his choice.

“If a young man wants to decides he doesn’t want to play in a bowl game, if he decides he wants to come out early for the NFL, or if he decides he wants to transfer to another team, that’s his choice. And the NCAA’s made that an easy choice right now for players. I think you’re going to see a lot of that moving forward with a lot of different teams.”

*The Tar Heels face Wake Forest on Saturday in a game that does not count in the ACC standings. With the teams in different ACC divisions and not regularly slated to face each other very often, the old rivals decided to use a nonconference game slot to play each other in a home-and-home series, which is something for which Brown has pledged his support.

This is a rivalry, but not in the same sense that Duke, or for certain N.C. State are on the football front. So what is Brown’s best memory of a meaningful game against the Demon Deacons in either of his stints at Carolina’s head coach?

To set the scene: Brown’s first two teams at UNC each went 1-10, but his third team in 1990 was 3-1 when it went to Winston-Salem to take on the Demon Deacons, who at the time were coached by Bill Dooley, who built Carolina’s program into prominence in the 1970s.

“The one I remember the most is I was about to get fired when I first got here, and we were playing a Coach Bill Dooley Wake Forest team in Winston-Salem. We had just lost to NC State 12-9 on a last-second field goal, and we were down 24-10 at halftime. And I was trying to figure out what my next job was going to be, and Natrone Means came in and made a couple of big plays, and Bucky Brooks caught a huge touchdown. We ended up coming back and winning the game 31-24.

“That pretty much turned us around when we were here before. That’s a game I remember very, very well. I have respect for Wake Forest, but also tremendous respect for Coach Dooley. And coaching against him and what he meant to Carolina football was pretty special that day as well.”

*As for the 2021 Demon Deacons, they are ranked No. 10 in the AP poll but came in at No. 9 in the initial CFP poll that was released Tuesday night. This game comes a week after a competitive loss at Notre Dame, which is No. 10 this week in the new CFP poll. UNC heads to No. 25 Pittsburgh next Thursday and closes the season the day after Thanksgiving at NC State, which is ranked No. 22 in the Coaches’ poll.

This is a significant test for the Tar Heels, but just part of an extremely difficult stretch.

“This is, obviously, the best team that Wake Forest has ever had,” Brown said. “They’re rated in the top 10, they’ve earned that ranking. For us, it’s the first time we’ve played No. 11 and they’re No. 9 now, since 1943 (when) we played No. 10 Penn and No. 6 Duke back-to-back.

“So it doesn’t happen very often that you play two of the best teams in the country – Notre Dame’s in the top 10 with the College Football Playoff. And then you come back and play three ranked teams in 13 days, which is crazy, because you add Pittsburgh to that. And then four of your last five games are rated in the Top 25 in the College Football Playoff.

“What we’ve talked to our team about is this has been a year with adversity, it’s been a year with ups and downs, and the only way you get through adversity is go right through it. So we’ve got to compete, we’ve got to win against these really, really good teams at the end of the year, and it’s what it is. And that’ll help us grow up and help us get ready for spring and help us be better for next year.”

*Wake is No. 9 in the nation in total offense averaging 495 yards per game and are No. 5 in scoring offense at 43.4 points per contest. The Deacs are No. 5 in converting on third downs at 51.2 percent, No. 14 in red zone offense, and No. 4 in turnover margin.

Sam Hartman and the Demon Deacons scored 53 points while totaling 606 yards in last year’s game, in which UNC won 59-53. Wake led 45-24 with six minutes remaining in the third quarter before the Tar Heels exploded to win the game. Wake has most of last year’s club back, and Brown sees this as a massive for his club.

“Sam Hartman is fun to watch, he’s like our Sam (Howell),” Brown said. “For fans, it will be a real treat to see two of the best quarterbacks in college football on Saturday and watch them compete. They’re both very accurate, they both can run, they’re both leaders, they’re both great young people. So it’ll be fun to watch them. They’re friends.

“(Running back) Christian Beal-Smith played really well against us last year (120 yards rushing). He’s an outstanding running back. With the way they run the ball, with their slow-walking RPOs as such, it’s very, very difficult to stop. They’ve got four of their five offensive linemen back, but they’ve also made so many big plays with (Jaquarii) Roberson and (A.T.) Perry. Perry’s 6-5 and he’s just been an explosive playing machine.

“They hold the ball so long, they protect well with the offensive line, but they can definitely throw it to him deep and make a huge difference.”

Wake has 12 touchdown passes that have gone for 30 or more yards, nine that have gone for 40 or more yards, five for 50-plus yards, and four for 60-plus yards.

*As soon as the coaching staff combs over the film from the Wake game sometime Saturday evening, they will immediately turn their attention toward Pittsburgh, as the Tar Heels travel to the Steel City for a game next Thursday. They won’t then begin Pitt prep, as that has already taken place in two intervals. Staffs put together a chunk of their game prep for opponents in the offseason, but the open date was used for this as well.

“During the by week, we worked on our game plans for Pittsburgh,” Brown said. “And we had to. We did it this spring, we did it this summer, but we worked on, obviously, Notre Dame, but we knew that we wouldn’t have enough time to really prepare for Pittsburgh. So the only thing left in Pittsburgh preparation will be looking at the Duke video and assessing what they did.”