UNC football head coach Mack Brown joined 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck this morning for “Mondays with Mack,” presented by Chapel Hill Tire.
Brown and the Tar Heels had their first bye of the season last week. It came after another tough defeat for Carolina, 41-34 against Georgia Tech in Kenan Stadium. But the game was quickly overshadowed by the news of the death of Tylee Craft, whose long battle with cancer inspired his UNC teammates.
Here are a few of Brown’s answers on various topics:
On Tylee Craft: Tylee taught us so much. He’s so tough and so strong. And the last month he just really dropped off and we all saw him just die right in front of us. That’s so difficult. And for all the moms and dads out there that have lost a child thoughts and prayers with you. And our players are doing well. We’re all trying to grasp what that means. Losing a guy around their age is so very difficult for them. All of us have reflections of things that happened. The team went down [to Sumter, S.C.] yesterday and the funeral was wonderful. There were a lot of great testimonies of Tylee and what he meant to us. And what we’ve all gotta do is make sure that with his passing, that we learn from the energy he had, the integrity, the toughness, the values, and make sure that we live our life better. And it’s just another reminder that we don’t have any control of how long we’re on this earth. So we better control what we do while we’re here. And we said grief is really, really difficult. Everybody handles it differently and you never move away from it. But you do move forward and you make sure that you keep his legacy where it needs to be.
On moving forward this week at Virginia: Well, we’ve gotta start over. We’re healthier than we’ve been. We’ve got all of our offensive linemen back for the first time. We got our offensive line coach back. We should continue to get better on offense. Jacolby Criswell improves every week at quarterback. We gotta stop the run better. Kicking game’s better. Virginia’s playing really well. They’re 4-3. We’ve had a history of not doing well in Charlottesville. So this would be a good test for us to go back to work. Our job is to play the best that we can play and win games. And you’ve got to make sure that you do not forget Tylee. But at the same time, there are other aspects of our lives that we have to handle at the same time.
On his message to the fans: We had a great three-game start. Unbelievable win up at Minnesota. And then we’ve struggled for four weeks, but even though the last three weeks we’ve been in the game the fourth quarter with a chance to win. And now we need the fans to step up and start over and keep fighting, because this team continues to fight with all the adversity they’ve had. Let’s finish this thing right.
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
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
