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CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Mack Brown met with the media Tuesday afternoon a couple of hours after his team concluded their first of 15 football practices this spring.
UNC’s coach briefly discussed offensive line coach Stacy Searels leaving for Georgia, how he goes about finding new coaches, a short overview of the first practice, and fielded a variety of questions about new defensive coordinator Gene Chizik, the changes on defense, the quarterbacks, freshman offensive tackle Zach Rice, and so much more.
Above is video of Brown’s full press conference, and below are some notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:
*After three seasons at UNC, Stacy Searels informed Mack Brown this past weekend he was leaving for Georgia. Brown had the following to say about Searels:
“Stacy Searels left Sunday night, met with his players on Monday morning,” Brown said. “We appreciate all Stacy did for us and want to wish him good luck. He’s a tremendous coach and better person. He wanted to go back to Georgia, and we totally understand that.”
*Brown didn’t take long getting into his team and what he saw from Tuesday’s practice. He was pleased with the energy, spirit, and how guys performed.
“It was fun to get back out on the field today,” Brown said. “The guys had what I felt like was a high energy practice, and a great practice considering you’ve got two new defensive coaches, you’ve got an entirely new defense, you didn’t have your offensive line coach out there.
“Kevin Donnalley did a great job with his 13 years of experience in the NFL and coaching at UNC-Charlotte and coaching high school ball in Charlotte. He coached the offensive line today and said it was so much fun for him. And then you’ve got Larry Porter as the new special teams coach, and we worked on punt today as well.”
*A huge topic moving forward will be about the quarterback battle. UNC has four on scholarship, of which three got extended reps Tuesday. Redshirt freshman (RS year, COVID year), Jacolby Criswell, redshirt freshman Drake Maye, and true freshman Conner Harrell got pretty much all of the reps at QB. Brown liked what he saw.
“All the young quarterbacks looked good,” Brown said. “I thought they had a great first day. And we have tweaked some things on offense, and I thought those things that we installed today that we haven’t done a lot looked good as well.”
*Anytime a college football team loses a three-year starter at quarterback, especially the most prolific player at that position in school history, it will undergo a major transition. No matter how talented the next guys in that room are, it’s still a major adjustment.
So, with that in mind, the post-Sam Howell era began Tuesday at UNC, and it’s not new to Brown. He did it at UNC a couple of times during his first stint, and went from one outstanding QB to another during his time at Texas.
“The biggest thing I’ve learned is figure out what they do best and make sure you emphasize that,” Brown said. “And that’s one of the things we’re really talking about offensively. Let’s find our mismatches, let’s get the ball in the hands of the best players. It seems like a very simple concept: Do what they do best and get the best ones the ball.
“It sounds very simple, but that’s what we will do with these quarterbacks. You hope all three of your quarterbacks are similar, that makes it easy… And today, Jacolby Criswell, Drake Maye, and Conner Harrell got most of the work, and I thought they were all three very impressive. You would not walk out there and think they haven’t played very much.
“So, it was a very encouraging day for us walking off the field.”
*Brown would like to see one of the QBs separate themselves from the others, but he’s not in any hurry either.
“I would like to see that, (but) I don’t care if it happens now,” Brown said. “It’s got to happen before the fall. If they don’t separate you play them both. We did that here with Jason Stanicek and Mike Thomas, we did it with Oscar Davenport and Chris Keldorf, we did it at Texas with Major Applewhite and Chris Simms. So, we have done that before.
“And if you go back before, Coach (Phil) Longo had experience with that the first fall here.”
In 2019, Jace Ruder, Cade Fortin, and Sam Howell battled for a job Howell eventually won in mid-August of that season.
“I was impressed with all three of those guys today. All three looked real good. They all like each other, which is real good. The three that played a lot today are very similar, so they can all run the same offense. I think we’ve got a really, really good quarterback room.”
*Two transfers were on the field Tuesday morning. Former Miami center Corey Gaynor and former Virginia outside linebacker Noah Taylor are prominent members of the team and were quite vocal in their first practices as Tar Heels.
“The number one thing they’ve brought is confidence and leadership ability,” Brown said. “Corey is an aggressive, vocal leader. And he and Brian Anderson have both been probably the two best leaders in our offensive line room so far. And they’re guys that are good in that room especially when you have a change, because the Zach Rices have lost their coach after a month… So, they’ve got to pick them up. I thought Corey did a great job of leading today.
“Noah’s not as loud as or as vocal as Corey, but I thought he looked really fast, he was a quick pass rusher with the ability to drop. Coach Chizik’s actually coaching our Jack linebackers, which are the outside linebackers.
“So, I think both of them will bring confidence, knowledge, a world of experience, and therefore leadership.”
*One of the most intriguing items from the first practice was that true freshman offensive tackle Zach Rice worked with the ones at right tackle. Brown was clear noting there are no starters right now, but it is noteworthy Rice was only with the first unit. Rarely do true freshmen start or play a lot along the offensive line in major college football, but Rice is a different caliber of player and athlete.
“It’s very rare,” Brown said, about true freshmen playing on the OL in major college football. “I had a good visit with him at lunch, and he’s probably 6-5-plus, 316 pounds and quick and really aggressive. It’s hard to tell much about offensive linemen in shorts; they don’t get to play in shorts.
“I was talking to him, and he said, ‘Boy, these guys are quick, man. They’re so much quicker than what we’re used to in high school.’ Well, yeah. And he was talking about the urgency of practice, how fast the play’s going, and how fast the drills move, and he said, ‘It seemed like we weren’t out there at all, because in high school you stand around a lot.’ And there was no standing around.
“So, he felt like he had a blast and he was doing really well. But I think the biggest thing about him is his aggressive nature. He loves to come off the ball and compete. The hardest thing for the three freshmen linemen will always be pass protection, because they’re protecting against much better pass rushers in college than in high school.”
*Eight true freshmen arrived in January, so Tuesday was their first taste of major college football on the actual field of play in a formal practice. Brown spent time with them after practice at lunch to get their takes on how things went.
“We’ll come back on Thursday and have another morning practice, and then we’ve got a little bit later first-time-in-pads practice for the first time on Saturday. Thursday will be in shorts because the NCAA dictates that the first two are in shorts then you have to have one more practice in shorts before the end of your spring training.
“Saturday will be the first pads practice, and that will be a lot of fun to watch these young ones. Your eight young ones, new enrollees, and your two grad transfers practice is just different for them… The young ones, I was talking to them at lunch and basically they said, ‘Coach, it goes a lot faster and the players are a lot faster.’
“We’ve told the young ones, 'just learn what to do right now, and that’ll give you the best chance to set it up to where you get a chance to play.'”
