UNC football head coach Mack Brown joined Aaron Keck this morning for “Mondays with Mack,” presented by Chapel Hill Tire.
The Tar Heels took their fifth loss of the season Thursday night, as a second-half comeback against Pittsburgh fell short in a rain-soaked overtime. Carolina needs to win at least one of its final two games to become bowl-eligible for the third straight season. Brown is also prioritizing honoring his senior class this weekend during their final game at Kenan Stadium.
Here are a few of Brown’s answers on various topics:
On the Pittsburgh game: I’m proud of the guys. They fought their guts out on national TV against a leader in the Coastal [Division] with Pitt. They’re really, really good. We beat Wake Forest, who’s leading the Atlantic, and we had a great chance to beat Pitt. After we dug ourselves in a hole, the guys fought back. The coaches and the guys did a tremendous job. We get it first-and-goal at the 1. Pittsburgh did clap, and made us have an errant snap, and then we came back and jumped offsides and didn’t score. And that’s what we’ve gotta do. We’ve gotta close when we have opportunities like that to beat a great team. So, we’re so close. The guys are working really hard, but we’ve gotta finish strong.
On his decision to kick the game-tying field goal from the 3-yard line: I wanted to go for it. And then I thought, ‘We were just first-and-goal from the 1, and messed it up and didn’t make it.’ And part of that, again, was officiating. Because they can’t clap. That disrupts your snap count, because now your snap count is clapping. So, we got disjointed and lost some confidence there, lost our momentum and rhythm, and that’s something we’ve gotta do, is we’ve gotta be able to handle that adversity and go back and not let a mistake by somebody else lead to a mistake by us. And also, we were 1-for-3 at that time on fourth downs. So, I would’ve gone for it if I thought we had momentum, if I thought we’d had confidence on the road.
On Wofford: This week, we’re playing an opponent that everyone will expect us to beat. They’re struggling some. And how do you approach the week? What do you do? This is a week where a lot of people let up, and they won’t think it’s important. My message to the team is going to be, ‘What is the standard you want to set? What do we need to improve?’ We’ve got too many penalties. We need to force more turnovers. We’ve got to continue to stop the run and Wofford’s averaging over 200 yards running. We’d like to play more people this week. So, what is our goal this week other than winning? Because we need to set very, very high standards.
On his message to the fans: These seniors have really done a great job during a very difficult time of losing their coach, and not winning many games, and not being able to go to a bowl game the two years before we got here, to a time now where they have a chance to go to their third straight bowl. They have a chance to leave this place a lot better than it was when they got here. And that’s something that everybody always wants to do. Leave your mark. Help us have momentum going into next year. We’ll lose some great players, but we’ve got a lot of great young ones coming back, and that’s what this weekend’s about. So fans, come out. Say thank you. Watch these guys play. Pick them up. Let’s get ready to finish strong this year and start looking at next fall.
Listen below for the full conversation between Mack Brown and Aaron Keck, and tune in to hear the segment live on Monday mornings each game week!
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