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MIAMI GARDENS, FL – As North Carolina Coach Mack Brown was walking away from the locker room for his postgame press conference, his high talented near-flawless quarterback went up to him and delivered a message.

Maye was excited the Tar Heels had just beaten Miami, 27-24, at Hard Rock Stadium, but he also knew it wasn’t his best game. In a way, it was the first time he had encountered some performance adversity in the midst of a game. So, Maye wanted to be accountable.

“I told him to keep his head up,” Brown said, not long after. “He’s one of the best players in the country, everyone’s going to have a bad throw every now and then. After the game, I was walking out to come to (the press conference), and he’s such an unbelievable young man, he goes, ‘(pounding chest) I’ve got to get better. I had some bad throws tonight.’

“So, he knows it.”

Maye entered the game having thrown 19 touchdown passes on the season against just a single interception. That came in a win at Georgia State last month and on a play the UNC staff flagged and sent to the ACC officials’ office. The league agreed a penalty should have been called on the Panthers, nullifying the pick.

That was Maye’s only blemish until he threw an interception late in the first half with the Tar Heels (5-1, 2-0 ACC) in their one-minute offense. Miami gained possession with 22 seconds left, and quickly got into field goal position, converting a kick as the half expired.

Then, on Carolina’s first series of the second half, Maye was picked off again. One pick in his first 183 attempts on the season, then suddenly, two in as many throws.

“I try to be hard on myself, the offense starts with me,” Maye said. “I have the ball in my hands every time, so how the offense plays is basically on me.”

Maye finished the game 19-for-28 with 309 yards, two touchdowns and those two interceptions. He engineered scoring drives of 95 and 99 yards in the first half, and when the Tar Heels needed to drain some clock and get points, he directed an 18-play, 81-yard drive that consumed 8:20 from the clock and concluded with Noah Burnette converting a 19-yard field goal for a 27-17 lead with 4:31 remaining.

The redshirt freshman said part of the lesson from this performance is dealing with in-game adversity brought on by his own mistakes. It is part of the growing process, he recognizes.

“I’ve got to do a better job of just washing it out,” he said. “I think back on plays, and on the sideline, I’m asking what I could have done better. The one to J.J. (Jones), I think it was match coverage, just gotta put it over the top. I left it inside. It was a bad decision.”

Yet, an uber self-critic, Maye didn’t allow the mistakes to fester, at least in his postgame interview. He said the right things that should allow him to move on continuing a season that has seen his national profile sky rocket.

“At the end of the day, it’s hard to be perfect,” Maye said. “This sport’s tough, and I try to do my best out there on every play. But some plays are not going to go how you want them.”