UNC football head coach Mack Brown joined Aaron Keck this morning for “Mondays with Mack,” presented by Chapel Hill Tire.
Brown’s Tar Heels snapped their two-game losing streak on Saturday with a 59-7 win against FCS opponent Campbell in Kenan Stadium. It moves Carolina to 7-2 on the season, though its ACC championship hopes are still a long shot. But there’s still plenty to play for this season, including a fifth straight win against rival Duke this weekend. As UNC head coach, Brown has not lost to the Blue Devils since 1989.
Here are a few of Brown’s answers on various topics:
On the win against Campbell: We don’t have any [games] that aren’t needed wins. Coach Gene Stallings, one of the great coaches ever, told me one time, “If you think a game’s not important, lose it. And then it becomes important.” I was proud of our guys. They played really well. We played about 90 guys and, and it’s the best we’ve ever seen. Our backups come in and play. In fact, they played probably better than the starters and had energy and shut them out on defense in the second half and really ran up and down the field offensively and did a great job. Very, very proud of the guys. You can’t change who the opponent is, but you can figure out how you’re gonna play and I’m glad that they played at a very high level.
On the performance of backup quarterback Conner Harrell: Very proud of Conner. He is obviously very fast. He outran the whole Campbell team on his zone read play. But he also had a great touch. He was 4-4 in passing and I’m really, really proud of him. He’s worked really, really hard and we haven’t had opportunities to put him in. And in a lot of cases in our past, we’ve made a mistake when we put the backup quarterback in. We haven’t let him play. We’ve just run the clock to get the game over with. We thought it was really important to just let him play. So we ran the offense we would run if he was in the game, just to help him continue to grow.
On the upcoming matchup with Duke: Any time there’s a trophy that you pass back and forth when you win the game, it makes it special. That started in 1948. It’s also homecoming, it’s senior day, so this should be a fun week. The challenge of playing a good Duke team is fun. And any time you mention the words UNC and Duke in the same sentence, that means it’s gonna be a really competitive game and a fight. That’s one of the reasons you come to these two schools. You wanna win against your rival team. And this rivalry dates back forever. We’ve got a newer rivalry with NC State, and then we play Clemson in two weeks so it’s kind of like three rivals here in a row, two of them on the road. You love playing your rival team. Your players know each other. The fans all work together and they pick at each other at church on Sunday and at the grocery store and during the week and at work on Monday. So that makes your rival games really important.
On his message to the fans: We’ll need to do what we did for the Miami game. Pack it, be loud, be there early, thank the seniors for what they stand for and what they’ve done. This the last home game for a lot of them, probably including Drake Maye. So come and make sure we thank them for all the great football and all the thrills they’ve given us on Saturday. And help us beat Duke!
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/Nell Redmond
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