Midweek Offensive Player Interviews & Notes

Note: Player videos included

CHAPEL HILL – Tuesdays during the season are when North Carolina’s players are available for midweek interviews, so in this edition for the offense, two Tar Heels discussed putting to bed the win over South Carolina, their thoughts about the reaction to their victory, and about this weekend’s opponent, Miami.

Here are interviews with notes and parts transcribed with senior offensive tackle Charlie Heck and freshman quarterback Sam Howell:

*Mack Brown said before fall camp started he wanted the offensive line to be tougher and nastier. On Monday, Brown said the line showed some of that Saturday by paving the way to 238 yards on the ground they have gotten tougher. Heck echoed that.

“Absolutely,” he said. “All offseason that was a huge concern and something we were focusing on, and going out there and being able to run the ball like that – all the credit to our three running backs, they make our jobs easy – but just being able to stay on blocks and finishing like that, I was really proud of our guys.”

*The reverberation from the South Carolina game still resonates, and for good reason. The older players had a lot of interesting things to say about the win and their personal emotions. To his credit, Heck is very guarded when speaking about the previous staff, he doesn’t criticize them, but he did express something that had to feel awfully good for him given how the last couple of seasons have gone.

The reality is simple, the players saw all of the talk about how everything was improving, how they were more together and this was a different program since Brown took over became a reality during the course of Saturday’s game.

“The whole atmosphere on the sideline going into the fourth quarter was something I hadn’t experienced,” he said. “There was just a belief that we were going to get the job done. (That’s) something that wasn’t necessarily there last year with our team and I think that confidence helped us.”

*Heck, who was honored Tuesday as the ACC offensive lineman of the week, is playing left tackle now, and with it comes an opportunity to show NFL scouts his versatility since he’d played right tackle the last two seasons, and what he can do at what is considered the more demanding tackle position.

“I was lucky when I first got here, actually. I was doing a lot of cross-training, every other practice I was switching off with William Sweet before we both started to play and I started to lock in at right tackle. Just having the full spring to be confidence at left tackle I really don’t feel much of a difference but I do think showing you’re able to play both positions can be helpful later on.”

*Most every college football fan has seen Dyami Brown’s touchdown catch from Saturday and a lot have seen Beau Corrales’ TD reception. Both were terrific catches with Brown’s ending up as ESPN Sportscenter’s play of the day. It stands to reason that players making great catches can help a young quarterback’s confidence knowing if he throws a catchable ball his guys are going to come down with it.

The thing is, the true freshman didn’t need to see them make those game-changing catches for his own confidence to grow or to have more faith in his receivers.. He already had it before the game ever started.

“I’ve seen them do that since I got here,” Howell said. “I have all the confidence in the world in those guys, they’ve been making crazy plays like that ever since I stepped in the room here… What everyone saw on Saturday, I’ve seen that ever since I got here.”

*Howell is glad to have his first game out of the way because it enables him to go into Saturday’s contest versus Miami more comfortable because the newness is gone.

“Having a game under my belt, you don’t really know what to expect going into your first game because you’ve never really taken a college hit,” he said. “Now going into game two, I kind of know a little bit more about what college football is like, so that’s probably the biggest part.”

*So, with it well known that the staff sort of removed the training wheels from Howell at halftime Saturday, what does that actually mean to Howell, as in what did offensive coordinator Phil Longo call differently in the second half?

“In the second half, they called a little bit more passing concepts, (let me) throw the ball down the field,” Howell said. “Part of it was our running game was so good, our offensive line did a great job the whole game, our three backs ran the ball as hard as I’ve ever seen. Honestly, we didn’t really need to throw the ball downfield, we could have run it downfield.”