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 coming off their bye week a perfect 4-0 after a 41-24 win at Pittsburgh on September 23. It’s Carolina’s best start to a season since 1997, which was Brown’s last of his initial stint in Chapel Hill before leaving for Texas. Now, UNC will host Syracuse on Saturday with a chance to improve that spotless record even further.
Here are a few of Brown’s answers on various topics:
On the team’s 4-0 start: We’ve only been 4-0 nine times since 1950. So it’s significant, I think even more significant that we’ve played a tough schedule. We’ve played three Power 5 teams, which very few people in America have done. Then you play App State who’s as good as anybody, and obviously this is a huge game for them with our guys. And the fun thing for us is we’re 4-0 and haven’t played our best game yet.
On the win at Pittsburgh and Drake Maye’s left-handed touchdown pass: The left-handed touchdown pass actually put a smile on my face. I think it was the first time I’ve just absolutely smiled and said “Really?” in a long time during a ballgame because it was really cool to see him do that. But we got off to a slow start, which I thought would happen because they were desperate after losing a couple of games early, and Pitt’s a tough team. And it was raining. There wasn’t a great crowd. So this was a game in the past that we’ve probably lost. And our guys flipped the switch. We took over time of possession the second half. We really handled the middle 10 – five minutes before the half and five after – really well, and had significant advantages there. So I’m really, really proud of the coaches and the players for not panicking, hanging in there, turning the game around and heading back in the right direction.
On the upcoming matchup with Syracuse: Syracuse was undefeated going into this weekend with Clemson, and the game was much closer than the score because Clemson forced three turnovers, and after those three turnovers, Clemson got 21 points. So it was kind of like our championship game last year with Clemson. They do a good job of forcing turnovers. Syracuse has always played them well. They’ve got a great quarterback in [Garrett] Shrader from Charlotte. They’ve got tall receivers. Rocky Long’s a very experienced defensive coordinator. They’re gonna blitz about every play from all different angles. They’ll come in here ready to go this weekend.
On what he expects from his team this week: Well, hopefully we’re healthier. We’ll find out tomorrow when we put the pads back on for practice. We’ve had some offensive guards that are limited with lower-body injuries and we haven’t run the ball as well the last two weeks. And it’s been two good run defenses with Minnesota and Pittsburgh. We’re still giving up too many big plays on defense, but our defense is significantly improved. And we said we needed to start making plays to win ballgames in special teams. And at Pittsburgh, we returned a punt for a touchdown, returned another punt for 30 yards. That led to a touchdown. But on the other side of the coin, we started making some plays that would lose a game. We had a blocked punt and we also had a kickoff return against us for a touchdown. So we’ve got to improve in those areas.
On his message to the fans: We’ve got a seven-game road winning streak, which is the second longest active streak in college football behind Georgia. And we didn’t finish well at home last year. We lost the last two games that we played and we’ve been so good at home since we’ve been here. We’ve got a couple of wins to start this season. We need to get a streak going here. We’ve got three weeks against very good teams. We’ve got Syracuse coming in this weekend, undefeated Miami next weekend. And then Virginia coming in the following weekend. I know the first two games are sold out. It’s fall break for our students for the Virginia game. We need to make sure that all those tickets are taken up. There are only 17 teams in the Power 5 that are undefeated. And we’re one of those 17. So we need the fans to be the extra person. So come early, be loud, stay late, and let’s help these guys win another game and be 5-0.
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 UNC Athletic Communications/Anthony Sorbellini
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