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CHAPEL HILL – Toughness travels.

That’s what North Carolina Offensive Coordinator Chip Lindsey preaches to the guys on his side of the ball, and that was the injected slogan when the Tar Heels went to Minnesota last week, a game they won 19-17.

“He has emphasized toughness does travel,” starting center Austin Blaske said after practice Tuesday before quoting Lindsey. “‘You brought it with us to Minnesota.’ Sometimes you have to be tough. We had one drive, I think it was (17) plays. We pretty much had the ball the whole third quarter, and that’s toughness traveling.”

The Tar Heels paved the way for a 129-yard game for Omarion Hampton, and did enough to give Noah Burnette close enough to convert four field goals in the game. The Heels also had a 12-play drive in the third quarter and ran 29 plays to the Gophers’ four.

The toughness Lindsey wants, and what the program wants, is to find ways to win game. They want to grind out victories in a manner UNC hasn’t done enough of in recent years.

Carolina has been tough and physical much of the time, but there’s another level that must become a constant for this program to ascend from the 8-9 win range. That’s the mission.

But it isn’t just pounding the ball between the tackles, it’s the other side of the line of scrimmage, too.

“Most physical means both sides of the ball,” UNC Coach Mack Brown said. “We are stopping the run on defense in an open game against a very physical run-oriented offense.”

Whereas the offensive message got through enough for a win, the same went for the defense.

“We’d done some great things in that game last week holding them to 78 yards rushing, which is huge for a team that led the Big Ten in a lot of rushing yards last year,” preseason first-team All-ACC Rush/OLB Kaimon Rucker said. “These guys were not an easy task by any means.”

Brown says this is the most physical team he’s had in stint number two in Chapel Hill. He attributes it to the players and their football DNAs, but also the battling in the spring and in fall camp.

They went after it, he said, and it made both sides better. Not just the commitment to simply being more physical, but position pecking-order competition on both lines added to it as well.

So, the message moving forward: non-defensive stalwarts won’t stay on the field; explosive plays are nice and the Heels will take them, but grinding it out is an absolute must.

“Being able to run the ball is huge nowadays,” quarterback Conner Harrell said. “Being able to control the clock, control time of possession, you not letting (their) offense have the ball giving our defense a rest, that’s huge, too. That’s an underrated part, and when we can get guys in even when they load the box and still run the ball, that’s a huge part of the game.”

It requires a degree of physicality usually reserved for teams that win the most games. For them, it travels, either at home, on the road, or to any field of play.