No Easing Into The Slate In Brown's Second Act
CHARLOTTE – North Carolina is still six weeks from playing its first game of Mack Brown's second stint as its head coach, but the Hall of Famer is already well aware of how difficult the first month will be for his team.
Brown has inherited a program that won just five games over the previous two seasons and entertains a demanding early slate of games to begin his second tour of duty in Chapel Hill.
The Tar Heels, who were 2-9 last season after going 3-9 the year before, open Aug. 31 versus South Carolina in Charlotte before hosting Miami, a team many have picked to win the ACC’s Coastal Division. Six nights later on Sept. 13, the Tar Heels travel to Wake Forest, which has finished with winning records and won bowl games each of the last three seasons.
Carolina is back home in week four entertaining Appalachian State, which is coming off an 11-win season and has won three straight Sun Belt Conference championships. And in week five, the Heels host defending national champion Clemson, a program Brown says is the best in the country.
There’s no doubt Brown and his staff will know an awful lot about their team by the time the calendar turns to October. He’s chomping at the bit to get going, but he’s also well aware of what this group’s dealing with those first five weeks.
“It’s South Carolina then Miami then Wake on the road then App, who’s got 19 starters back, and then Clemson,” Brown said Thursday at the ACC Kickoff. “So, I haven’t even looked past that. I got that far and I stopped. I said I’ve got enough problems without (knowing) what’s past that.”
So how does he plan on navigating such a challenging slate?
“That’s our job,” Brown replied. “It’s our job – they haven’t the last two years.
“We were brought in to get them more confident and to get them to be in positions to win more games, and that’s our job.”
The question Brown nor anyone else has an answer is how often the Tar Heels be in position to win games this fall and how many will they eventually claim. He gets that question, or something of the sort, quite often.
“People say, ‘What are your expectations?’ Our expectations are to win every game,” Brown said. “And then they say, ‘So you think you’re going to beat Clemson?’ I say, ‘I didn’t say that. But we want to and we’re going to try to. We’re going to do everything in our power to.
“So, I’m not going to sit here and say we’d love to win six. What an awful thing to love to win six, that’s half your games. I’m excited to see us put these guys in positions where they can play well.”
How well, again, that’s to be determined, though Brown has consistently said he’s told the seniors to plan on being busy preparing for a bowl game during the holidays in December.
Brown is confident, believes he has some really nice parts, running back, offensive line and tight end in particular, and on defense Brown likes a lot the starters up front and some of the parts in the secondary, but he’s also grounded in reality.
The Tar Heels’ season can go in just about any direction, and he knows it. With that, however, there must be one constant every time the Heels run out of the tunnel.
“We may not be better than anybody on our schedule so we’ve got to play good every week,” Brown said. “That’s what coaching’s all about, that’s our job. Our job’s to help them.”