UNC football head coach Mack Brown joined 97.9 The Hill this morning for “Mondays with Mack,” presented by Chapel Hill Tire.
Brown and the Tar Heels are now 5-0 after a thorough beating of Syracuse at Kenan Stadium last weekend. At No. 12 in the latest AP Poll, Carolina is also the highest it’s been ranked since debuting at No. 10 in the preseason poll in 2021. But that ranking was soon followed by a drop out of the polls by Week 5. To avoid a similar fate in 2023, Brown and the Tar Heels will have to beat No. 25 Miami, who are coming off an embarrassing loss to Georgia Tech.
Here are a few of Brown’s answers on various topics:
On the win against Syracuse: I’m so proud of the guys and the way they played and the coaches and the way they’ve been coaching them. They’ve actually practiced hard every day and they’ve played hard every weekend, and it seems like that would be easy to do, but it’s not because we’re dealing with human beings, not video games. And I’m also proud of our fans buying all the tickets. I thought they were a huge factor on Saturday night in key plays. And also, I really appreciated the way that they helped Tez Walker live his dream when he came on the field to start the game, but also when he came in in the game for the first time. The fans have really shown him how much they appreciate his tough journey. And I really appreciate that.
On Tez Walker’s return: I thought [wide receivers] Coach [Lonnie] Galloway did a great job of mixing him in. We had the ball for 97 plays and he actually got 56 plays, which was a lot. He will now be involved with the game plan and have his chance to earn his starting position back by working hard in practice. But it was a little bit crazy, the whole thing, trying to figure out how to play him, when to play him. How much does he know? He hadn’t been in involved with the game plan at all because we really didn’t have any idea, number one, if he would be eligible, and number two, when that would be.
On the performance of the defense: Coach [Gene] Chizik and the guys have done an amazing job of turning the narrative around on our defense. They’ve given up very few points in the second half, and it’s because of adjustments they make. The guys are playing better in gap control. We’re giving up much fewer touchdown passes than we were at this time last year. We’ve only given up two this year and last year we’d given up a bunch. So I’m really, really proud of the way they’ve turned it around. We’re also playing a lot more people. We only played 51 plays on defense, so if a guy plays half the time, he gets 20-something snaps and then he’s more fresh the next week as well.
On the upcoming matchup with the Hurricanes: Miami’s as talented as anybody in the country and they’ve got a great staff. We’ve had tremendous games with them. It’s a night game, 7:30 p.m., so the stadium should be buzzing. It’s the first game that we played here when I came five years ago, and it came down to the last second. So it should be a great game. Our guys have gotta get ready to go get back to work. And we’re 12th in both polls and we’ve talked to them about [how] next year, 12th will matter because there’ll be 12 teams in the [College Football] Playoff. So you need to start looking at the College Football Playoff polls in a couple of weeks and where you are. And that’ll actually decide your fate moving forward in the future. So it’s part of our lives that have not been part of our lives in the same way before. And now it does matter.
Listen below for the full conversation with Mack Brown, and tune in to hear the segment live on Monday mornings each game week!
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
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