CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Mack Brown met with the media via zoom following practice Wednesday morning to discuss his team’s preparation for Virginia Tech, the weather for the game Saturday, elements of his team, and much more.
The Tar Heels host the Hokies on Saturday for a 3:30 PM kickoff at Kenan Stadium. The game will air on the ACC Network.
Above is video of Brown’s Q&S session, and below are some notes, pulled quotes, and time markings from what he had to say:
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*1-min mark: Brown had remarks expressing concern and sending well wishes to those in the path of Hurricane Ian.
*2-main mark: Carolina’s nonconference portion of the schedule is complete, so it’s ACC games only the rest of the way. Brown says they are essentially starting over, as the goal is to win the Coastal Division.
“Starting over because the non-conference season is over. You got the conference season, that’s exciting, that’s the new challenge. You always wanna be in the mix and play for the championship at the end of the year, and that starts this weekend without a question.”
*2-min mark: Saturday is UNC’s cancer awareness game, and part of the plan is to honor wide receiver Tylee Craft, who continues battling cancer.
“It’s our cancer awareness game, where our players dedicate the game to someone in their lives that either have had or lost their life with cancer for their family or have had cancer, do have cancer and they want to celebrate their life with them and say how much they care about them and are thinking about them.… Tylee will be an honorary captain and be out there with our captains as we start the game.”
*3-main mark: Brown discussed various elements of the Hokies.
“Defensively, they are really good. Fourteenth in the NCAA in rushing defense, third in the ACC, they are giving up 86 yards rushing, 26th in the NCAA and second in the ACC in scoring defense. They are giving up only 17.5 points per game, fourth in the NCAA and first in the ACC in third down defense.
“So, the guys are really playing great defense. They are tough, physical, and fast. We are not running the ball well. We didn’t run the ball well against them last year, we got just over 100 yards. That will be a tremendous challenge for Saturday. Offensively they got a lot of big offensive lineman from last year that are big and physical.
“They’ve got really quick backs and got good receivers… The struggle we had on defense with against the run, they can run the ball, so they’re gonna line it up and run it right at us. Offensively, we gotta run the ball better.”
*4-main mark: Brown was asked about players taking ownership by having a players-only meeting. Brown said there’s a benefit when this happens. “They’re really just calling each other out to say, ‘This is not who we are.’”
*6-min mark: Paring down the running back rotation was on tap for this week, OC Phil Longo said Monday. But Brown said they haven’t done that yet because they will need to see more in the game Saturday to help in that respect.
An issue has been players not hitting the right holes and making the wrong reads. That further complicated a running attack versus Notre Dame that was challenged since the offensive line lost a lot of those battles.
*7-min mark: Brown said UNC’s rushing defense will be tested by the Hokies.
“We’ve been poor in run defense. I’m sure they’re looking at coming in and improving their run offense against us because we haven’t stopped the run.”
*8-min mark: With Georgia Tech firing Geoff Collins earlier in the week, that means that Brown and Pitt Coach Pat Narduzzi are the only coaches among the seven Coastal Division teams that have the same head coach as they did this time last season.
*9-min mark: Does Brown know Brent Pry, the first-year Virginia Tech coach? He said he’s only met him in person at the spring coaches’ meetings. ACC coaches also do a weekly zoom, so he sees him on that as well.
*11-min mark: Back to the players-only meeting, can Brown point to times in his career when his teams had players-only meetings that rendered an immediate impact?
He said he has seen immediate positive effects before. But, “number one, you’re not having them unless you’ve got problems. So, that’s obvious. They don’t feel the need to do that if everything’s good…
“We’re really, really pushing hard to get more leadership and do a better job with player-led defense and offense. And that’s something that we’ve talked about so much since last year. And they feel that need to step up and do that. We’ve seen a couple of confrontations on the sideline, and people have gotten stirred up about it.
“It’s really a positive thing for us because we need people to start calling each other out and calling on each other. And we need a better response when they do, because we need to keep our composure and not get frustrated.
“But that’s all part of growing up, that’s all part of learning. And it’s part of this team that’s got a lot of young players getting better. I’ve never worried about having them. (Former Texas) Coach (Darrell) Royal said, ‘If they get together and vote, you want them to vote for you.’”
Brown said he learned about the meeting when he saw someone in the media tweet about it. “I didn’t ask them, they didn’t come to me. I didn’t know about it until it came from one of you.”
He said it’s unimportant to him because “it’s their business” and if it was intended for the coaches, they would have been in the meeting.
*14-min mark: With Hurricane Ian affecting some college football games this weekend, UNC and the ACC have been monitoring the storm and its projected path. What have the conversations been about playing or not playing, and how might wind and rain affect the game Saturday, as all signs point to them playing as scheduled?
“We haven’t had any conversations at all, we are planning on the game going ahead…We have had it(rain) about every week, we are not concerned about it, we are concerned about the people in the path of the storm obviously. It doesn’t look like it’s going to affect our game at all, except maybe it will be more windy than our normal days.”
*15-min mark: An interesting topic came up with Longo on Monday about going for it on fourth down and how that process plays out. Brown shared his philosophies about it. We will have more on this in the next day or two, but it’s certainly worth listening to.
*18-min mark: The offensive line has improved some over last year, especially with respect to run blocking. UNC allowed 17 sacks through the first four games last season, but just nine through four contests this fall. The starting five is a bit of a patch-work group, but they have come along well, Brown says.
“Two of our five transfers are starting in the offensive line, and that has really helped us. Corey Gaynor has done an outstanding job because he’s an older guy that’s a big body at center. Spencer Rolland gets better each week. He missed some time, he wasn’t here this spring, and he missed sometime in preseason. He’s been playing in the Ivy league for his time. He hasn’t played in the power five except four weeks. He is getting better. He had a really good job pass protection the other day.
“(Offensive line) Coach (Jack) Bicknell is a guy who has been a ten-year head coach, seven years in the NFL and he also has won a Super Bowl… I do think it has helped a lot, that he and (offensive coordinator) Coach (Phill) Longo and (running backs) Coach (Larry) Porter have all worked together at different places. They are all on the same page. They believe in the offense. That’s huge too because it is easier to make adjustments because they spent time together before on this offense and they really believe in it.”
*19-min mark: Brown said “the fact that we’ve been exposed in some areas over the last four weeks should help us Saturday, because we know, and Virginia Tech knows, exactly what our issues are and what we’re good at and what we’re not. And we know what we’ve got to fix.”
*20-min mark: Brown heaped plenty of praise on the fans for the atmosphere during the Notre Dame game last weekend, and with Saturday’s game versus the Hokies sold out, he would love to have the same kind of crowd and atmosphere, but he also understands with the weather coming, it’s not worth it for some people to risk things.
*25-min mark: How has Noah Burnette done as the kickoff specialist this week now that Jonathan Kim has left the program?
