CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Mack Brown met with the media Monday at the Kenan Football Center to discuss his team’s loss to Virginia and look ahead to its game this Saturday night at Georgia Tech.
Above is video of Brown’s presser, and below are some notes from what he said:
*UNC announced that kickoff specialist Liam Boy will be monitored during the week with a lower body injury and defensive end Jacolbe Cowan is out for the season with an upper body injury.
*Brown took “full responsibility” for the loss to UVA. He said there were “all kinds of check marks that this game would be a handful” and he didn’t get the team ready.
He said games like this happen, “but you have to find a way to win the game,” and UNC didn’t.
Later, Brown put it back on himself again: “It’s all on me, 100 percent.” He said he let the team and fans down. “I’m disappointed in me.”
*The loss is considered by many the biggest upset in college football this season, and one of the worst ever by a UNC team. Brown said it hurts, but every loss hurts.
“It is a bad loss, all losses were bad,” noting the Clemson loss and Oregon loss last year were bad losses.
*Brown didn’t go to sleep until between 4 and 5 AM on Sunday morning. He watched the game four times, including once watching the TV broadcast.
“You sit there and you wonder why you lost. My job is to go back and try to figure out what happened. And what could we have done on Tuesday? How did we miss it? What happened Wednesday? Go back and look at Wednesday’s practice again.
“And I understand why we didn’t have as much energy as they do. Older coaches have always told me, ‘You’re going to have a lot of energy probably four times a year. And you’re going to have to play good the rest of them.
“We’ve already had energy more than four times we’ve had to play because we’ve had a really touch schedule. So, I got that, but you’ve got to figure out ways to win. And that’s our job as coaches.”
*Carolina punted on its first possession and three of its first five. Offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey said the offense was “a little bit off all night,” and Brown said, “It wasn’t a typical performance on offense… We started poorly and gave them some confidence.”
*Brown acknowledged Omarion Hampton should have gotten more than five runs in the second half. He finished with 112 yards on 19 attempts. So, when he discussed it with OC Chip Lindsey on Sunday, what was the explanation why Hampton didn’t get more touches, and how did that conversation go?
“He wants to win. Chip’s a great guy, and he’s done a tremendous job. And he’s got Freddie Kitchens, who’s brilliant, sitting there next to him. Sometimes, you want to win so badly you miss it. That’s just what happened.
“I’ve called (plays) before, and you get through and you say, ‘God, how did I miss that? What happened?’ And Drake (Maye) is so good, when you’re in trouble, you want him to pull you out… It is really a hard job, and people have no concept of how hard it is to call plays and call defenses because they’ve never done it.
“So, it’s unfair to ask people, when you’ve got about 15 seconds, and you’re sitting up there and you’re going fast, and everything’s happening.”
*What’s interesting, is that Virginia twice turned the ball over in the end zone after marching toward the goal line. Once was an interception by Armani Chatman late in the first half, another was a fumble (caused by Chatman) that went through the end zone for a touchback giving UNC the ball.
So, UVA was 4-for-6 in the red zone with those two plays ending the two failures. “So, we could have been beaten worse.”
*UNC’s head coach said the loss Saturday was very similar to the home loss to Georgia Tech last year. Carolina was 9-1 and ranked 13th going into that one, and it led 17-0 before losing 21-17. The Tar Heels led UVA, 24-14, midway through the third quarter and were outscored 17-3 the rest of the way. He said it “was the same game,” as last year.
*Brown has said a few times in recent months the offense focused too much on getting Josh Downs the ball late last season, and it hurt the unit overall. With Tez Walker being targeted 18 times versus the Wahoos, Brown was asked if the same thing might be starting to happen with Walker.
“No, that’s a good question. The question right now is, how are people going to play us? We didn’t have any idea Virginia with a week off, and they’d seen Tez, we didn’t have any idea of what they were going to do in the game plan.
“Coaches are parrots, they are going to sit and watch somebody else, and they’re copycats. So, you’re going to start seeing it.”
*UNC heads to Georgia Tech (3-4, 2-2 ACC) on Saturday night. The Tar Heels have lost 10 of their last 12 there, with one of the wins the largest comeback win in program history, when Marquise Williams led the Heels after falling behind 21-0. The other win there was in 2019, Brown’s first season back at UNC.
That should get his team’s attention, not to mention what happened last season. As for Tech, among the things Brown said was it “has great speed, the best speed at wide receiver we’ve seen.”
In addition, he said: “Georgia Tech is a game that’s been tough for us… Georgia Tech has had North Carolina’s number in Atlanta. This is a game people should project we lose”
