North Carolina Football Coach Mack Brown took the time to spend with Tar Heel Illustrated for an exclusive one-on-one interview Tuesday afternoon in advance of the Tar Heels opening fall camp next week.

THI Publisher Andrew Jones and the Hall of Fame coach talked for close to an hour about a variety of things regarding the program, fans, and himself.

UNC’s participation in the ACC Kickoff media days in Charlotte is Thursday, and THI will be there for that. This interview, however, hit on mostly topics that won’t come up in the format later this week, or even during fall camp.

The Heels begin practicing Monday, July 29, and open their season August 29 at Minnesota.

Above is the full video of AJ’s chat with Brown, and below are several bullet points about what they discussed:

*Brown is entering year six in his second stint at Carolina, so they talked about that, how he feels and more.

*The Tar Heels are flying under the radar, so Brown offers his thoughts about that.

*UNC started 9-1 two seasons ago and finished 9-5, and last year was 6-0 before ending up 8-4. AJ and Brown discuss the poor closes to those seasons and how to avoid it happening again.

*Fan reaction is louder than ever before because of social media, but in some respects more important considering they can now impact their teams more than ever before through NIL collectives. AJ and Brown discuss the fans and in what manner he pays attention to them.

*Yet, even with the way the last two seasons finished, UNC is second in the ACC in conference wins and second overall in wins since Brown returned more than five years ago. They discuss that and that UNC has been first in the ACC the last three years in APR rate.

*How has recruiting changed since Brown took the job in November 2018 given the advent of the transfer portal and NIL?

*With the collectives having merged into Old Well Management, they discuss why this will be good for football moving forward.

*Sally Brown, Mack’s wife, has an active role in the program, and one might even say she’s the Tar Heels’ “team mom.” Brown was asked about her role and how it helps him.

*Brown turns 73 two days before the opener at the Golden Gophers. AJ didn’t ask how much longer he will coach, but discussed how he views the next several years and the prospect of eventually not coaching anymore. And how will he know it’s time to walk away?