CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina football coach Mack Brown met with the media following the Tar Heels’ practice Tuesday, which was the fifth of fall camp and the first with the team in full pads.

Brown last spoke with the media following UNC’s first practice last Friday, so getting his take on how things have progressed was interesting and in some respects enlightening.

Brown’s interview is above, but here are some tid bits from what he had to say:

*Five days into fall camp and one day in full pads, is the team about where Brown expected at this point?

“Five days in, there’s not really a lot fo difference in shells and full gear now because you practice in a similar manner except when you scrimmage, and that’s only two or three times a year,” Brown replied. “The guys’ attitudes have been good, they’ve obviously had a good summer, we’re stronger, we’re a better looking football team, they’re effort’s good, we’re not seeing guys loaf.

“We’re still having too many penalties, and that was an issue last year. We thought we corrected it for the spring game, but we have ACC officials out here every day and yesterday (Monday) we had too many and today we had some… A number of them are the young guys ad they haven’t been out here long enough to learn what to do yet.

“But, really, really pleased with the overall effort and attitude of this team.”

*Of course, the quarterbacks are always going to be a hot topic when the media has an opportunity to speak with Brown until someone runs away with the job, if that ever happens. Brown said former LSU coach Mike Archer was at practice Tuesday and joked with him there’s no way Brown could have three quarterbacks that are basically even, but after Archer saw them work out, he realized Brown wasn’t kidding.

“They said, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re all three alike,’” Brown said, smiling. “We look at all their stats and there’s been absolutely no separation at this point. Probably, the separation will come at scrimmage time.”

The Heels are expected to hold their first scrimmage this Saturday.

*Brown wants to use the best attributes players have, so with respect to senior linebacker Dominique Ross, that means he could line up in spots away from his normal LB spots.

“We’re moving guys around to a lot of different places because we’ve got to establish some depth,” Brown said. “So Dominique can’t just play linebacker, he’s also going to have to be a pass rusher at some point because he’s a really good pass rusher. So maybe on third down we put more defensive backs in and let him rush the passer.”

*Staying on the need to build depth, Brown said they are moving guys all around to do just that. There might be situations where a player gets hurt and the best sub at his position is already playing another spot, so they may slide him over. Example, the nickel gets hurt but if the boundary corner’s second teamer is better than the second-teamer at nickel, they may move the starting boundary corner to nickel and elevate his backup. There could be an effect, though.

“It will keep our schemes more simple,” Brown said. “But, we’re going to have to do that until we can get a defined group of 22 guys at least that on each side of the ball we feel like can put the puzzle together so we can have depth.”