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 begin the season ranked No. 10 in the preseason AP Poll, and despite losing critical pieces to the NFL Draft, the team is expected to compete for an ACC championship. Here are a few of Brown’s answers on various topics ahead of Friday night’s season opener:
On his roster makeup coming into the 2021 season: “Our defense is pretty much intact from last year. Our kicking game should be improved. And we lost a lot of great players on offense. So I think a real question mark this year, going into the season, is how will our offense play?”
On how he has been preparing his team without overworking them: “The biggest thing is you don’t want to play the game today. Guys are excited, they’ve had twenty-something practices. And they’re on the really weird side of: a little tired, and excited. So, you’ve got to get them fresh between now and Friday night. You’ve got to get their minds right, because they’ve still got girlfriends, they still lose a phone, they still flunk a test, and all the things that can come up in your life outside of football with COVID now as well. So, you’ve just got to get them back to focus on the game, understanding Virginia Tech is really, really good. It is a hard place to play, but it’s more about how we play. Because we can’t control how they play.”
On the support of UNC fans: “Our fans have been wonderful. They bought all the tickets for the home games, they bought all of our tickets at Virginia Tech. They’re so excited that I know our players don’t want to disappoint them. I challenged the fans a couple of years ago to be the best fans in the country, and ours have done that.”
On a player that may surprise fans this season: “Probably the running backs more than anything else. You’ve got Ty Chandler, the grad transfer from Tennessee. And then you’ve got Caleb Hood, who’s a freshman who actually played quarterback last year, that’s had some good moments in spring and fall. And then you’ve got D.J. Jones, who’s healthy now. His lower-body injury seems to be gone, and he’s really quick. I think the biggest question mark going into the game is the running backs, and they’ll be fun to watch.”
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!
