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 a thrilling, double-overtime win against rival Duke on Saturday. It’s Carolina’s fifth straight win against the Blue Devils. Now, the Tar Heels will take to the road for their final two games of the regular season. Oddly, this weekend’s game at Clemson is the 11th of the season for Carolina, but just its third in a true road environment. UNC split its first two road contests.
Here are a few of Brown’s answers on various topics:
On the win against Duke: What a tremendous atmosphere. Senior night, two teams that fought their hearts out and fought their guts out and came down to the last play. I had a quote for the staff this morning that said sometimes one yard can separate a team or bring it together. And that’s basically what happened on Saturday night. Really, really proud of our guys, proud of our crowd. We’re down with 41 seconds left and two timeouts, and not one person got out of their seats to leave. And that just showed the confidence that our fans had in our team to come back and win the game. Really, really proud of them. It was a fun night, and you have to give Mike Elko credit and Duke credit, they fought their guts out. They faked a punt, they had an onside kick. They did everything they could do to have a chance to win the game. Proud of our guys that they hung in there and kept fighting and found a way to win.
On Carolina’s home stretch of the schedule: We’ve got the toughest schedule, I think, to finish the season. You’ve got three emotional games, two of them on the road. You just played a double-overtime game till midnight with your rival. And then you’re going to Clemson who’s one of the premier programs in the country and one of the hardest places to play. And then you go to NC State who is another rival that plays tremendously well at home. They have great fans. So our guys just gotta get energy back up. They’ve got two weeks to finish here and finish strong. And this is the three weeks that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.
On his message to the fans: I’m just so proud for Chapel Hill and the university that we presented such an outstanding environment on Saturday night. Our fans made a huge difference in that ballgame. Our students made a huge difference in the end zone with the overtime. It was hard to hear anything and it was so electric and it’s what college football’s supposed to be like. That’s who we want to be every week from now on. I thank our fans for this year, for what they’ve done to help our team. We’re sitting here at 8-2. There’s only 16 Power 5 teams in the country that have eight wins. So it’s something for us to be proud of. Would we rather have 10 instead of eight at this point? Yeah. But these kids are fighting and they’re making progress. Really proud of them. And I’ll always get excited about how much money all the fans brought in to this community. It makes a difference and it impacts the communities. I feel like football has really helped the economy. And that puts a smile on my face.
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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