UNC football coach Mack Brown joined Ron Stutts this morning for “Mondays with Mack,” presented by Chapel Hill Tire. Read his entire interview below:
Mack, it must have been just some kind of a crazy relief just to get out there on the sidelines and get this season underway.
Ron, it really was, I was actually emotional when I got to the stadium because I wasn’t sure, like all of us, whether we’d have a chance to play or not. And just seeing those guys get off of the bus and we missed all the fans, we missed all the pageantry. We didn’t have our bell tower walk. You come in the stadium and there’s no students and there’s no cheerleaders and no band and no fans. So it’s all kind of crazy anyway.
But still the players wanted to play and they were excited about playing and that was a real emotional day for all of us. So I, again, thank the ACC office and John Swofford and all the presidents and chancellors and athletic directors in the ACC because they took their time. They waited, they asked the medical experts if it was safe for us to play and gave these guys an opportunity to play. And they’ve worked really hard since the pandemic started to put themselves in a position to play. So it was fun to get out there.
I know you’re awfully proud of these guys and at the end of the day, you had a 31-6 victory, very impressive win for opening the season. What was it like being able to score so quickly at the very beginning of the game? Could that have been a little bit of a problem for you?
I guess so, Ron, you never want to say it’s a problem. We always call those imposters. Because if you score easy, that means the game probably going to be hard because then you relax a little bit. One thing we’ve donee’ve, we’ve successfully raised expectations. We won 31-6 and people are griping about the second quarter against an ACC opponent. So I can say that after winning two games two years ago and winning seven last year, and people are concerned about a 31-6 win, yes, we have raised expectations. I told the players, you got to learn to play with that. That’s just the new world you’re living in.
That is just the understatement of the year. You have certainly raised expectations for the Carolina program and your defense played so well all day long. You’ve got to be especially proud of them.
We played 26 players on defense. So we’re trying to get more depth. Those guys had seven sacks, 11 tackles for loss. They held [Syracuse] to 202 yards, which is the lowest output since 2009 when we held Boston college to 198 yards.
In the last four games, these guys have been unbelievable, Ron. The teams have averaged only nine points a game, 247 yards, and that’s in modern day football. So it’s really, really hard to do what this defense has been doing. I’d like to see a few more turnovers. We had a fourth down stop. We an interception late in the game, but we’ve got to strip some balls and try to get some more short fields for our offense, but really, really pleased with the first outing for our defense.
You talked before the game last week, about how opening day, you can always expect to have a lot of mistakes and this sort of thing. And certainly this year that may be even accelerated a bit, but did this game go pretty much the way you thought it would as far as mistakes and that kind of thing we’re concerned?
Yes, I asked the guys, a lot of the guys didn’t even think we were still going to play 10 days ago, maybe a week ago. So the fact that all of these young people are thrown out there and you lose your home field advantage because we had wonderful crowds last year and they were loud and they were emotional, and we’ve got Dazz Newsome returning a punt for a touchdown, and it’s dead silent. I mean, it’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Just watching some of the pro game last night, it was the same.
You don’t do your kicking game live in preseason. So there are a lot of things that were different in this ball game. Syracuse had a five win season last year. People acted like they were no good cause they won 10 the year before we won seventh last year. So we only won two more than they did.
Their defensive front was really good. It’ll be one of the best we see. Their secondary was really good. We knew that. Their linebackers were inexperienced. Their quarterback is really good player and they’ve got some really good wide outs. We just didn’t give him time to throw. And their punter was great. He was a lot like our punter. So it was two, two punters that were booming it to the other end of the field.
So I felt like that the, the offense sputtered in the second quarter only because we had the ball twice. Dazz dropped the punt and [Sam Howell] threw an interception, so we didn’t have the ball and gave Syracuse some credit. They moved the ball and then the second half of the offense ran up and down the field and the defense did what they’d been doing the whole game.
And weirdly enough, Ron, I was mad at the kicking game during the game because of the penalties. We had about three penalties and we’ve had the fumble, but my gosh, we got a chance to be really good and special teams. Ben Kiernan’s a great punter. You start looking at Jonathan Kim, he kicked every ball out of the end zone for kickoff returns. They had no chance. They’ve got some speed. And then Grayson Atkins, the All-American from Furman came in, he was one out of two, but he missed a 50 yard into the wind and it hit the crossbar. So I think we have a chance to be good in that area as well.
Coach next week, next Saturday, only five days from now, you’ve got another opponent, Charlotte. It must’ve been really difficult preparing for Syracuse knowing next to nothing about them because of all their changes in personnel and all that kind of thing. And also this, a weird season that we have, but what do you do between now and then to get ready for another opponent that is far different from the first one?
The best thing for us is that Charlotte played Appalachian State and it was 21-20 going into the fourth quarter in Boone last weekend. So we’ve at least got video on them. We didn’t have anything on Syracuse because they lost seven starters on defense. So there were a lot of new guys and we were trying to find the new defensive coordinator, what’s he going to do, and who’s each going to do it with, and we weren’t scheduled to play Syracuse or Charlotte until about a couple of weeks ago.
So it’s definitely been everything, changing very quickly, and we’re having to make some decisions on the move, but Will Healy’s doing a fantastic job at Charlotte. Those guys will be excited about playing the University of North Carolina. We know we’re going to get their best shot. They’ve got a real fun offense as you watch, it’s got a lot of different wrinkles to it. A lot of different motions and shifts. And I think Will Healey’s one of the top young coaches in the country. He’s innovative, he’s got energy. He’s, uh, he’s a good friend of mine. We actually partnered with him last year to do a camp in Charlotte to try to help his program. So we’re looking forward to the game again this weekend.
One more question here. Is there anything that you learned about your team? You know, they always say that improvement takes place between the first game and the second game, but anything you learned about the Tar Heels on Saturday? Coming up with this game on Saturday, and do you have any final words for our Carolina fans out there?
Yes. We got frustrated some on offense during the second quarter, like the fans did, and we can’t do that. We did that some last year for, for whatever reason. We’ve been fantastic in the third and fourth quarter because we wear people down. We have not been as good or consistent in the second quarter. So that’s something we’ve got to look at. Maybe we just tell them it’s the fourth quarter in the second quarter, Ron, and screw them up and try to get them off off their bad second quarter, but that would be the only thing I think.
And for fans, it’s so disappointing that you’re not in the stadium. I know that you’re, you’re yelling. I know that you watch the game. I know you were wearing your Carolina blue and pulling hard for your Tar Heels and do the same this weekend. And hopefully when we get through September, maybe when we get back here for Virginia Tech in October, we can get some fans in the stands.
Well, coach, I was doing that in front of my television at home and listening to [Jones Angell] on the play-by-play and wish you get the same result this coming Saturday. And as always, I appreciate your spending time with us.
Thank you, Ron. Thanks for having me on.
Featured image via ACC Media
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