UNC football head coach Mack Brown joined Aaron Keck this morning for “Mondays with Mack,” presented by Chapel Hill Tire.
Brown and the Tar Heels moved to 2-0 last weekend, but it wasn’t easy as Appalachian State played Carolina into double overtime. Now, Carolina will ditch a familiar foe for an unfamiliar one: Minnesota. The Golden Gophers’ visit to Kenan Stadium will be the first-ever meeting between the two programs in football.
Here are a few of Brown’s answers on various topics:
On the win against App State: 2-0, getting ready for another great week. Fun night in Chapel Hill. What a great game. Give Appalachian State a lot of credit and give our guys credit. They hung in there. We didn’t play very well at times, but we played hard and ended up finishing the game. Finding a way to win is the only thing that’s important.
On his takeaways from the game: We try to look at every game like we lost it. And we’re very, very hard on ourselves as coaches. We’re hard on the players, because we want to correct mistakes. Most coaches, when you win, they’re lighter. They don’t have as much urgency. We’re trying to act like we lost every game. And then how do you fix it and how do you be really critical of yourself, your position as a position coach and you as a player, were you accountable to your team? Did you do the things you needed to do? And we had twice as many mistakes on Saturday night as we had against South Carolina in the opener. So we didn’t play as well. Probably the best thing that can happen to your team is not play well and you still win. because you have an urgency to fix things more quickly. And that’s what we’re doing this week, because we’ve got no wiggle room against Minnesota. We’ve got the hardest three games to start a schedule of anybody in the country.
On the upcoming matchup with Minnesota: We had a great advantage late in that game Saturday night because of our student body and our fans. Home-field advantage was real and it helped us finish the game. And it’s gonna be a beautiful day, it looks like, this Saturday. We need it packed. We need the most home-field advantage we’ve ever had from Carolina fans. Minnesota is a bigger, stronger App State. They’re gonna run the ball, they’re gonna be physical. Their defense kept Eastern Michigan from making a first down the second half of Saturday night’s game. I’ve never heard of that. Unbelievable. That’s just something that doesn’t happen. Last year they were fifth in the country against third downs on defense. So they’re really, really well coached. They’re tough, they’re physical, they’re confident. It’s two undefeated teams. We’ve already beaten an SEC team, and now we’re playing a Big Ten team. It’ll be an exciting challenge for us.
On his message to the fans: It’s fun to have a good team. It’s fun to have a team with a chance. It’s fun to have one of the best quarterbacks in the country. We’ve got a back that for only the seventh time in our school history rushed for that many yards. So it’s a fun time and we really need you to help us win. We don’t need you to just come on Saturday afternoon. We need you there. We need you early, we need you screaming. This is a huge game for us. And then we’ve gotta go to Pitt and start conference play next week. So like we said, we’ve got a really, really difficult schedule. These guys are trying, they’re giving us all they’ve got. Let’s pick ’em up and, and have a great time on Saturday afternoon.
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!
Featured image via Associated Press/Reinhold Matay
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