CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Mack Brown met with the media for his weekly press conference Monday to discuss his team’s performance in a loss Friday to rival NC State, some young players that stepped up, fan reactions to losing consecutive games, and to look ahead to Clemson, which UNC faces this Saturday in the ACC championship game.
The Tar Heels dropped their last two games, both at home, after clinching the ACC Coastal Division title. First Georgia Tech got them, and then the Wolfpack earned a double-overtime victory at Kenan Stadium.
UNC is 9-3 overall and finished 6-2 in league play. It will face the Tigers (10-2, 8-0) on Saturday night in Charlotte.
Above is video of Brown’s presser, and below are a few notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:
Note: UNC’s injury report this week is that Came Kelly (lower body), Storm Duck (upper body), and Tony Grimes (upper body) will be evaluated during the week.
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*Brown opened his press conference talking about playing for the conference title this week. It should be noted that Brown was quite positive Monday. There is negativity around the team from the outside noise, but he said that’s not the case within the Kenan Football Center, and his messaging was clear on that.
“We’re excited about playing in the ACC championship game,” Brown said. “It’s only the second time since they started in (2005) that Carolina’s playing in this game. And the last time with Gene Chizik and Charlton Warren in 2015, and they had a great game with Clemson. And we’re sure looking forward to this this weekend.”
*In spite of losing consecutive games, the achievement of being in this game isn’t lessoned, Brown says. His team won the Coastal outright and didn’t back in because someone else lost.
“It’s cool for our team to be the last Coastal champion because it’ll never happen again,” he said. “Divisions will be gone… The guys have earned their way into this game. I’m very proud of them and the fact that they have won nine games, and it’s only the second time since I was here before that Carolina has won nine games is really cool.
“It’s a huge game with a chance of going to the Orange Bowl. And we’d never been to the Orange Bowl before, we were in the Orange Bowl two years ago. And obviously, (we) have a huge task this weekend with Clemson. But at least have a chance to go back to the Orange Bowl for two times in four years (since he returned), which would be a great accomplishment for us.”
*The offense hasn’t been its usual self the last two weeks. UNC has six TDs in its last 32 possessions dating back to the Wake Forest game, it was 9-for-34 the last two weeks on third downs, and scored just four TDs in 12 trips to the red zone the last two contests.
“We need to get back on track,” Brown said. “We did so well earlier in the season, and the things we had as priorities we were doing well, we haven’t done as well the last two weeks. We’re not scoring touchdowns at the same pace in the red zone. We scored three touchdowns out of seven (versus State), we geta fourth you win the game…
“We’re not doing well on first downs, so too many long-yardage plays on third downs. We were 5-for-20 (versus State), and that’s just unacceptable.”
Brown also said the number one reason they have lost two in a row is, “because we haven’t played as well on offense.”
*Carolina has registered just seven sacks in its last seven games and has only 16 for the season, and only three teams have fewer nationally.
“We’ve got to create more negative plays, and we’re still not getting any sacks, and we haven’t gotten them for four years,” Brown said. “And the only sacks we’ve gotten have been created by blitzes.”
*Brown said blitzing is the only way they’ve been able to generate any pressure on opposing QBs, but the quandary all season has been that the corners don’t cover all that well, and if the staff isn’t confident in them, blitzing much is too risky. UNC blitzed State’ Ben Finley only four times Friday, and of the 42 times Finley dropped back to pass, UNC got pressure on him just six times.
“We blitz more than people think after mid-season, we had to to get some pressure,” Brown said. “We’ve just got to play better: play better and coach better. If you can’t cover, you can’t get there without covering it. It’s an easy question, it’s a hard fix.”
*The blitz numbers have increased over the last month, so is it simply because they needed to find ways to create something, or have other parts of the defense improved enough to allow for more blitzing?
“At one point, we weren’t stopping anything,” Brown said. “We weren’t stopping the run or the pass, and we weren’t getting any pressure on the quarterback. I said, ‘Stop something.’”
*It should be noted, as Brown did, UNC is allowing 10 points per game in the second halves of ACC games, and less than five points in fourth quarters of ACC play.
*NC State Coach Dave Doeren had some interesting comments about UNC he told the ABC broadcast crew before the game.
“They don’t like us, we hate them. We are blue-collared, they are elitists. Their coaches talk down to us, they talk behind our backs recruiting negatively against our coaching staff,” Doeren said.
Brown was asked about those remarks.
“I never talk about what the other coach says,” Brown said. “I’ve got great respect for NC State and what they’ve done. Dave’s done a good job there. I talk about our team.”
