CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Mack Brown met with the media Monday for his weekly press conference at the Kenan Football Center to discuss his takes after reviewing the film from the Tar Heels’ win at Miami, and to look ahead to Saturday’s game at Duke.

Among the things Brown hit on were the play of the defense with different guys stepping up at different times, notably on third and fourth downs, Caleb Hood, the run game, stopping the run digging deep into the rotation, special teams, the goal line stand versus the Hurricanes, 18—play fourth-quarter drive, defensive identity, Drake Maye, the Blue Devils, and more.

Brown spoke for 47 minutes.

UNC defeated Miami 27-24, and this Saturday visits Duke for an 8 PM kick on the ACC Network.

Above is video of Brown’s presser, and below are some notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:

Note: DL Ray Vohasek and DB Don Chapman are out this week (upper body), and LB RaRa Dillworth and OL William Barnes (both upper body) will be evaluated during the week.

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*British Brooks, who arrived at UNC in 2018 and was slated as the starting running back when practice began in late July but tore his ACL and is out for the season, has decided to come back for another year, Brown said at the outset of his presser.

Because Brooks can use the Covid year, he will get a sixth season.

“British Brooks came to us and said he to come back for another year, so that’s good,” Brown said. “It’s good for him. He’s an amazing young man, he has overcome so much through getting in school, and being such a tremendous student, walking on, starting, becoming a captain, then getting a scholarship, then getting hurt.

“And now he wants to come back and finish, and he just said he loves his team and he wants to be a part of it. We asked him if he wanted to come and talk with you all (media) this morning, and he said, ‘That’s not my deal.’ He said, ‘I just want to play.’

“So, good for him, good for Carolina football, and he’s just a special young man.”

*UNC has won three consecutive road games for the first time since winning four in a row during the 2016 season. That year, Carolina won at Illinois, Florida State, Miami, and Virginia.

“Winning three consecutive games on the road, which is really, really special… for a program that didn’t win a game on the road last year,” Brown said.

The Tar Heels are also 5-1 for the first time since 2015. That club lost its opener versus South Carolina in Charlotte, then won 11 straight games before falling to Clemson in the ACC championship game.

UNC has also beaten Miami four consecutive times.

“This team is accomplishing a lot of really good things right now that (were) really kind of unexpected when we started our season,” Brown said.

*Players of the game in the win at Miami:

-Defense – DeAndre Boykins (sack, INT). “He’s just continues to play at a high level. He loves football, he practices and plays with a passion, and it’s fun to watch him.”

-Offense – Caleb Hood (13 carries, 74 yards, five receptions, 50 yards). “He made some outstanding runs for us, caught the ball well out of the backfield, and just overall played really well.”

-Special teams – Jake Harkleroad (three tackles, two on special teams). “He is a guy that the players just love with his passion and the way he plays and the way he covers kicks. He was even in on the goal line stand, so he’s playing quite a bit now and helping us.”

*UNC ran the ball for 161 yards on 43 attempts, and if you remove the five sacks for 22 yards, that’s 38 for 183, which is an average of 4.8 per attempt. Brown is pleased with getting a solid run game, but he wants more.

“We ran the ball better, but again, it’s not as consistent as I want, especially in the four-minute offense at the end of the game,” he said. “We make a first down and the game’s over. We come up with a third-and-three and don’t even have a chance on the play.”

*Carolina allowed 538 total yards and 29 first downs, but Brown was still pleased about elements of the defense.

“The defense did some really good things, (but) we said we’ve got to get great at something,” Brown said. “When they were running the ball and throwing the ball and we weren’t stopping anything, ‘Stop something.’ So, they did a tremendous job the last two weeks stopping the run.

“Ninety-nine yards against Virginia Tech, and then 42 yards rushing against Miami. We thought Miami would come out with a game plan like Notre Dame and the try to run it down our throat and keep the ball, and I thought they tried to do that, and our defense really stood up.”

*The mood around the UNC football team following the Notre Dame appeared a bit gloomy, certainly that was the case with respect to the fan base. The Heels were getting beaten up some. But they have won consecutive game since while holding the last two opponents to 34 combined points. Brown says the players are feeling better because they are more confident.

“Weirdly enough, I do think these guys gained great confidence after Notre Dame seeing we just got whipped,” he said. “And saying, ‘Okay, here’s the deal, they’ve been telling us we’re too soft, they’ve been telling us we’ve got to do this, man it’s real, so let’s go work.’

“And they took that game and turned it into a positive about being more physical and stopping the run.”

*UNC’s 18-play drive in the fourth quarter that used 8:21 of the clock was huge in the outcome It led to three points and shrunk the end of the game, giving Miami no room for error in attempting its comeback.

Discussion about the Heels not waiting longer to snap the ball surfaced during the drive, and it came up in the presser. There’s a tricky nature to being in that situation. The mission is to score points to make it a two-possession game, but also score points. Brown understands what people are saying, and was open about what he was telling offensive coordinator Phil Longo during that drive.

“I kept telling Phil during the drive, ‘Slow down if you can, don’t disrupt the drive, we’ve got to score,’ and I wanted to score a touchdown. If we score a touchdown and the game’s probably over..

“But 18 plays and 81 yards, and it’s really tricky. I wish we’d snap the ball with three seconds left every time, and we snapped it with 12 and 14 and 15. The thing I’m going to suggest with Phil is that he just get the play in later, because it’s hard to ask those kids, we’ve either got to huddle up, which we don’t do – we would do that some with four-minute if we wanted to – but it’s hard to ask those kids to just stand there, stand there, stand there, when that’s not their norm.

“And you’re trying to say, ‘We’ve got to score a touchdown.’ We’d like to kill the clock, but scoring the touchdown is more important at that point than killing the clock… It was one of the best (drives) we’ve had since we’ve been here.

“And the question is, when you’re going so fast, are they going to do as well when you say, ‘Okay, let’s just stop, let’s get it down to three seconds.’ Then you have a three-and-out because that’s not who you are. And that’s the real question.

“So, I think the answer is more that we probably get it to them later instead of asking them to stan there and wait.”