CHAPEL HILL – Game week is here, so North Carolina football coach Mack Brown held his first official weekly press conference of the season Monday morning at the Kenan Football Center.
Brown hit on numerous topics, among them the quarterback situation, his team’s need for leadership, how ready the Tar Heels are to play a game, suspensions for the opener and more.
Here are some notes and quotes from what Brown had to say:
*Part of Brown’s opening statement: “You’ve made some progress, you feel good about guys, you’ve changed positions, you’ve looked at what you’re going to do and who you’re going to get the ball to and who your best blitzers are and all that stuff,” he said. “But you’ve been working against your own so now it’s time to put yours out there against somebody else and see how it works.”
Yet, while coaches aren;t ever fully satisfied prepping for an opener, Brown said he’s ready for this group to play somebody.
“Coaches never think their teams are ready,” he said. “If you said we need another week, yes, but it’s time to go.”
*The Tar Heels scrimmaged Saturday and broke down the film Sunday. Like in the Florida-Miami game played over the weekend, there were a lot of mistakes, the coach said:
“Thank goodness we had that in the stadium and were able to go back and talk about corrections yesterday. We practiced yesterday for about an hour-and-a-half… It was frightening the number of mistakes we had.
“This was the first time the staff had worked together, the first time this team and staff had worked together, there’s new schemes in all three phases, so we’ve got a lot to get done for Saturday. And all of the things we screwed up Saturday we’ve got to correct.”
*Brown said true freshman Sam Howell is still the blue team quarterback but wouldn’t go as far to say he will absolutely start Saturday in Charlotte, though he did say “as of today, he’ll start Saturday.” It’s highly probable, however, which is one reason he was named the blue team guy eight days ago.
“We felt like if it was going to be Sam for sure, we didn’t need to announce him the day before the game or the day of the game,” Brown said. “He needed to have felt that for two weeks that he was the guy and get comfortable with (media) and get comfortable with it.”
*As for whether or not Jace Ruder will get some series at quarterback, Brown said: “We would like to play them both for a couple of reasons. Last year, (then UNC Coach) Larry (Fedora) had three that were knocked out of games, so you’ve got to have another guy ready, sow e always would like to play two. Then you’ve got to figure out how, and we’re not there yet, when you put them in and does it disrupt your team? What does it take away from Sam?
“With both of them being so young, this year we feel like we’re going to need both of them.”
Note: Brown said the number three quarterback, if it came to that, is true freshman Vincent Amendola, who is 6-foot-2, 215 pounds and attended Leesville Road High School in Raleigh. Amendola was offered by VMI and was recruited some by Maryland, Charlotte and FIU.
On a funny note, Brown noted he walked by QB-turned-linebacker Chazz Surratt on Sunday and joked, “It may be you, brother” to which Surratt replied, “‘He said, coach, I’ve overloaded right now.’” I said, “Just hang on, you may get an emergency call. I hope you don’t.”
*UNC has not defeated a Power 5 opponent in a season opener since Brown’s last season at UNC in 1997, when the Tar Heels beat Indiana, 23-6, in Chapel Hill. Since then, UNC has lost 11 consecutive openers versus P5 teams, including the last four seasons versus South Carolina in Charlotte in 2015, versus Georgia in Atlanta in 2016, and a home-and-home series with California the last two campaigns.
“Cam Cameron was the (Indiana) head coach and he was from Chapel Hill,” Brown said. “I can’t remember the score, it was a tight game… It’s been too long, we need to fix that.”
