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CHAPEL HILL – During a time when the coaching carousel has churned at a rate perhaps never before seen in college football, North Carolina’s staff has remained intact, in spite of some concerning issues with a few of the Tar Heels’ position groups.
UNC’s defense is currently ranked No. 87 in yards allowed per game and No. 101 in points allowed. The offensive line allowed 45 sacks this season, and special teams took a major detour late in the year from its essentially average play for most of the campaign.
Those are major reasons Carolina finished the regular season with a disappointing 6-6 record, including 3-5 in the ACC, after beginning the year ranked in the top 10.
Yet, given the rate schools are firing head coaches and head coaches are firing assistants these past couple of weeks, UNC Coach Mack Brown has bucked that trend. But he has had open and honest evaluations with the staff, and they weren’t exactly pleasant.
“These meetings have been brutal,” Brown said Wednesday in his first press conference since the Tar Heels' loss at NC State 12 days earlier. “I've asked them to say whatever is on their mind because we gotta get some things fixed, and this year was not what we wanted. We could have taken a horrible start and finished really strong, and we didn't.
“We were a play or two away and we've got to figure out how to do that. We’ve got to figure out why we start so poorly on the road offensively, that's just unacceptable. We've gotta figure out why we're still not as good in the red zone on both sides of the ball. We've gotta practice differently. I love to go for it on fourth-and-two, fourth-and-three, and we're not as good at that.”
There certainly is no shortage of things to comb over from the season: Meltdowns on defense that often lasted multiple quarters and at times occurred versus pedestrian teams; pass protection issues that flared up in an ugly way in multiple games, theoretically costing the Tar Heels probably three contests (Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, and Pittsburgh); special teams that had few positive returns, allowed too many long kickoff returns, and had a pair of punts blocked versus NC State with one leading to a touchdown, basically costing Carolina the game; and a red zone touchdown rate that ranks in the bottom third nationally.
“What we've got to do is, I've gone through every game, I've gone through it with the entire staff,” Brown said. “I've gone through it individually, I've gone through it with the coordinators. Why did we give up two block punts in the NC State game? Why did our punt game, which was one of the best in the country go to average to poor at the end? We blocked six punts, I think we're maybe fourth in the country in blocked punts, but we've gotta protect better, we gotta punt better.
“So, this is an exciting time that I can take everything that all of us know needs to be fixed and have hard conversations, tell me why it's not fixed, and tell me what you're gonna do to fix it or I have to get involved more. And those are the hard conversations we've had.”
Brown said each staff member has embraced the process and has been equally transparent about what didn’t go well and why. Identifying a problem is often more than half the battle with respect to fixing it.
Nobody knows the personnel within the program better than the coaches on the current staff, most of whom have been there for three seasons. And nobody has a better grasp on exactly where the lines of growth have been, so they get the various trajectories, be it with individual players, position groups, or entire units.
So, it appears as for now, whatever alterations are made it will be done so by the components that comprise the current regime.
“They've (staff) taken full responsibility for it, so nobody's mad nobody's acting like they're gonna run out and point fingers at somebody else,” Brown said. “Everybody gets it and we've just got to keep moving forward and get better.”
That isn’t to say there won’t be changes to the staff. An assistant might choose to leave on his own, like former running backs coach Robert Gillespie did last season when he had a chance to work for Nick Saban at Alabama and also be 75 miles from his mother. And, who knows what could happen in the bowl game that might trigger a move.
Based on what Brown said Wednesday, the staff is locked arm-and-arm and pushing forward intent on fixing what needs fixing. Plus, the increasing talent pool is getting deeper and older. That is a factor looking ahead, too.
“Some of it’s tweaking, some of it's getting a little bit older as a team,” Brown said. “We had a tremendous recruiting class last year (and) we're going to have a better recruiting class this year. Most of our team is freshman and sophomores so we didn't learn to win. I've told them that.
“It was kind of sick humor on Sunday when we met with them, I said I've been telling you to give us everything you've got, and they do they play so hard, and it doesn't matter if their ahead or) behind and I'm so proud of that. I also said I'm gonna add something give us all you've got and figure out a way to win the game at the end, because that's what we're not doing.”
And as of now, it appears UNC isn’t making any changes. Problems have been identified, hashed out, measures of tweaking have been put in place, and they are moving on full throttle ahead.
