CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Mack Brown met with the media Monday morning to discuss his team’s loss Friday night at Virginia Tech, the difficult conversations he had with his coaches over the weekend, what must get fixed, and to look ahead to Saturday’s opponent, Georgia State.
Above of the full video of Brown’s 30-minute presser, and below are some notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:
Note: We addressed the “uncomfortable” couple of days in a piece posted earlier.
*UNC noted before Brown’s presser that it was a bit “premature” removing running back D.J. Jones from the depth chart that was released Monday morning for the GSU game. He will be under evaluation during the week and could be available.
*Also, center Brian Anderson and cornerback Storm Duck were both available to play Friday night in Blacksburg but were held out as a precaution. Anderson did play a snap after Quiron Johnson lost his helmet and by rule had to leave the game for a snap. Anderson was credited with playing two snaps. No word on how much available either player will be this weekend versus the Panthers.
*Much has been made about UNC losing running backs Michael Carter and Javonte Williams and wide receivers Dyami Brown and Dazz Newsome. Brown said Monday “We didn’t do a good job of replacing them” based on those units’ performances in Friday’s 17-10 loss in Blacksburg. But overall, he said the Tar Heels just weren’t ready to be the No. 10 team in the nation.
“We weren’t the 10th best team in the country the way we played Friday night,” he said. “Virginia Tech gets credit for beating a top-10 team, (but) I don’t think we were one.”
*Brown was pleased with how his defense played after the first three offensive series for the Hokies, in which they ran 32 plays, scored two touchdowns, and were on the move the other time but the drive ended when UNC forced a fumble at the 9-yard-line. After the first quarter, Tech gained 32 rushing yards on 26 attempts.
“We missed some tackles, we aligned wrong,” Brown said. “Virginia Tech hit us with a few key passes, and a little speed sweep. We thought they’d line up and just try to hammer us. And they did a good job early of changing up their play selection. But we adjusted to that and played really, really well from the second quarter (through) the fourth quarter holding them to only 93 yards in the second half and only three points.”
Brown noted that this is largely the same group for Tech (minus RB Kahlil Herbert) that ran for 250 (or so) yards against the Tar Heels the last two seasons.
“Really proud of our defense and the way they hung in there and fought, forcing the turnover at the 9-yard-line going in when the game could have gotten away,” Brown said. “But really proud of our defense, and (we) showed signs that we can be really, really good on defense for the first time since we’ve been (back) here. So that’s a huge plus.”
*Offensively, there was no sugar-coating it for Brown. No point in trying, because the Tar Heels really struggled finishing with just 354 total yards and the 10 points. Sam Howell was intercepted three times, though the staff put just one on him, and the Tar Heels were only 2-for-10 on third downs.
The questions Brown and the staff had at running back and wide receiver going in remain, with one exception.
“Josh Downs, as advertised, played great,” Brown said. “I was really, really proud of him, and he competed and made plays throughout the game, and kept us in the game.
“We’ve got to get him some help outside; we didn’t catch contested balls outside, really on either side… We had two or three balls that we didn’t catch that we had a chance to catch that were deep. Then Justin Olson had one taken out of his hands. I thought it was after he hit the ground, but it doesn’t matter, they (referees) didn’t even review it.
“We didn’t make the contested catches outside.”
Note that Brown later praised the running backs, but it appeared more he was talking about how they played in the second half.
*There was plenty of miscommunication along the offensive line. In part, the problem was that regular starting center Brian Anderson was not available, though he did play two snaps. Quiron Johnson started in his place and had some rough moments. In addition, Joshua Ezeudu, the team’s best and most versatile offensive lineman, was moved from left guard to left tackle during the game, and Asim Richards was moved inside to guard.
“(Richards) and Q (Johnson) had not worked together (as guard and center) as much, so we had some miscommunication issues and thought Virginia Tech’s crowd was a factor. They did a super job of making it hard to hear. It was one of the best environments I’ve seen…
“We had too many tackles for loss, too many bad plays on first down, which put us in third-and-long.”
*Howell was intercepted three times, the most in the 26 games he’s played as a Tar Heel, and he was picked off in the fourth quarter for the first time in his career. He was being dragged toward the ground when he released the final pass that was intercepted, which was a mistake on his part even though he was just trying to chuck the ball out of bounds. Brown discussed all three picks.
“Really and truly, the three interceptions, only the last one was Sam’s issue,” Brown said. “One was a tipped ball that we’ve got to do a better job of keeping the defensive lineman’s hands down. Another was a ball taken out of Justin’s arms. It was caught by Justin.
“And then the last one, he was trying to throw the ball out of bounds, but he had pressure when we were going to win the game and couldn’t get the ball out of bounds.”
Overall, the struggles offensively stood out the most from the loss.
“I thought all of us were frustrated offensively because we’ve moved the ball so easily through the last two years, and it didn’t happen on Friday night.”
*That said, the offensive line did run block better after halftime and the Tar Heels were far more effective moving the ball generating 229 of their total yardage over the final two quarters.
“Much better second half than first half offensively, but we’d get to the 30, the 20 and stall…,” Brown said. “We’ve got to improve offensively.”
Brown did say the running backs played well, Ezeudu and Jordan Tucker played well up front, and Downs was a stud.
*Quite a bit was made on social media about Brown holding onto his timeouts. He addressed that Monday morning:
“Number one, I want the clock to be down to the end when we score, I don’t want to leave any time on it,” Brown explained. “Number two, you can run a lot of plays with three timeouts with 37 seconds left, and that’s when Sam threw the interception. I’d like to have it where we can spend time and talk about the play when we need to.
“We knew what play we wanted to run with 50-something seconds left, so that’s just a philosophy that we have.”
*Brown emphasized the importance of winning games. No loss is okay, no matter how much a team learns from a defeat.
“Winning is key; it’s key to keeping your players’ attention, it’s key for them to learn,” he said. “You’ve got to lose some because we learn to lose in life. And when you do you’ve got to overcome that and step back up and not let one loss beat you twice. Winning is very, very important, and I sure don’t take that for granted.”
Winning isn’t just something want to do, it’s the staff’s obligation.
“You can’t sit around and act like it’s (losing) okay, it’s not okay,” Brown said. “We’ve got coaches we’re asking to do a very difficult job and do a great job of it, and they’re responsible to the university and they’re responsible to the fans like I am. And it’s our responsibility to put a good team out there and win.
“So, this is important, and this is serious.”
*Carolina hosts Georgia State this weekend, a game former UNC Coach Larry Fedora scheduled because the Atlanta area, where GSU is located, is such an important recruiting territory for UNC. The Tar Heels head to Georgia State next season.
The Panthers are coming off a 43-10 loss at home to Army in a game GSU had the ball for just 17:53 of clock time.
“They had a disappointing opener like we did,” Brown said. “You never want to play Army in the opener for sure. They got behind, Army kept the ball, they didn’t get the ball back and they couldn’t catch up.
“They’ve got a veteran defense. The strength of their defense is the defensive line. They’ve got a good secondary as well. They are a running, play-action football team. They are pretty much like us they have the spread. Cornelius Brown’s a 6-5 quarterback that was very impressive last year.
“They upset Tennessee a couple of years ago while Ty Chandler was on the team. I talked to him about that yesterday.”
