UNC football coach Mack Brown joined Ron Stutts this morning for “Mondays with Mack,” presented by Chapel Hill Tire. Read his entire interview below:
It’s Ron Stutts along with Mack Brown, and a coach it is good to hear from you again. It seems like a month ago when we last talked.
It really does. I enjoy talking to you and all of our fans and chapel Hill every month. Missed last week.
Well you know a lot of people, a lot of casual fans say Carolina didn’t play last weekend and they’ve had some time off. That is not necessarily the case. I know that you’ve been working very hard during this period of time before you play your next game.
Ron, we don’t call it off week. They call it open week because there’s no game or some people call it bye week. But it gave us an opportunity to rest some of the guys that are older and played so much and we’ve got so many young guys on the team and a lot of injuries right now.
So we took Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to coach the younger ones and get ready for Virginia Tech. But the guys are really, really excited to be 3-3 and be tied for leading the Coastal. First time they’ve beaten Georgia tech in 22 years on the road. So they felt really good about that accomplishment.
Jeremy Sharpe — our communications director — told me we’re only a one of nine teams with at least 100 percent capacity at all home games this season, which is quite the tribute to our fans. So thank you fans for all coming out. It’s exciting for our team to be in the mix in the Coastal and have so much fan support at midseason.
Quite a turnaround from the last couple of seasons. I’ll tell you that much. And of course you were a part of the big reason for that happening. But coach, I know you never use injuries as an excuse for anything, but I know you’ve had a lot of guys hurt. Give us an update if you would on the status of some of those guys who’ve been injured.
The biggest thing, Ron, is our secondary. We’ve got four guys in the secondary that aren’t going to play for awhile. We’ll release today that Trey Morrison’s out indefinitely. And so that’s four starters in the secondary that aren’t playing right now.
You’ve got Myles Wolfork out indefinitely, Trey Morrison’s out indefinitely. You lost Patrice Renee for the year with an injury against Miami and then Cam’Ron Kelly is lost for the year with an injury against Clemson.
So that’s four really good football players that have hurt us. We didn’t have a lot of depth back there anyway. So [defensive coordinator] Jay Bateman and [defensive backs coach] Dre Bly have their hands full making sure that they can try to get enough guys in the right place against a good quarterback at Virginia tech.
I want to talk about Georgia Tech just a second. Coming off that win over Georgia Tech down in Atlanta, you’ve had this time to prepare for Virginia Tech going on the road. What have you been working on? You told me you’ve had an opportunity to work with some of the young players specifically and that’s really great because you have so many young guys, but what else have you been working on as you get prepared for the game against the Hokies?
Offensively we’ve been working on catching the ball. Our offensive line is improving. We’re running the ball better. We rested our running backs last week from a hitting standpoint. They ran a lot but they didn’t get hit. But we’ve got to catch the ball better.
We had two drops for touchdowns against Georgia Tech that would’ve put that game away really early and given us an opportunity to play a lot of the guys. And then we overthrew a touchdown pass so we’re leaving some points on the board and we can’t afford to do that. And the other thing we’re doing is really working on depth defensively because when we put the white team — our second team defense — in against Georgia Tech, they scored about five plays. So we’ve got to start working on some depth. Then also we lose some good seniors on defense. So that depth, not only for right now but for next year as well.
Now with the open date, this past weekend you had the opportunity to maybe watch some other college football games. What were the impressions that you came away with and what games did you get an opportunity to watch?
I watched every one of them. I think that I flipped back and forth like a crazy fool being the college football fan I am. But I definitely watched NC State and Syracuse on Thursday night. NC State’s got a great defense. Syracuse, who moves the ball really, really well, had trouble scoring.
Then I watched Virginia-Miami on Friday night and that was a great football game and the Virginia’s quarterback’s really special and they’re playing better on defense. And then I watched pretty much everybody. I watched some Georgia tech-Duke on Saturday because I always watched the teams that we play, but I also watched the great games of the week with Clemson and Florida State.
I watched Texas-Oklahoma obviously because I have 16 years involved with that. Then watched Wake Forest and Louisville played really well on Saturday night. So I tried to watch all the ACC games and some others if I can.
Yeah, it’s great to be able to sit there with a clicker and watch all this stuff. Technology, guys.
And I have a wife who’s excited about watching them with you. That’s even better.
Oh man, that’s, that’s wonderful. Now getting to Virginia Tech this weekend, of course you’re on the road again in Blacksburg, Virginia, which is a wonderful setting for college football. But boy, it’s tough to play there. What concerns you most about Virginia Tech?
You go back and look at our history in the ACC. We’re 2-5 up there, so we haven’t played very well. And part of that it’s been because they’ve been so good. And Justin Fuente, the coach is a good friend of mine. And of course, Frank Beamer was a great friend of mine and I look forward to seeing him and Cheryl up there.
But they changed quarterbacks two weeks ago to Hendon Hooker from Dudley High School. He’s a big 6’4″ quarterback and he’s really done well. He’s changed who they are offensively and they’ve got two of the best wide receivers in the country.
Everybody that’s ever played Virginia tech talks about kicking game and we haven’t been as good there. We’ve been okay. And [Virginia Tech coordinator] Bud Foster’s defense because Bud’s an Assistant Hall of Famer really. If you look at it, he’s been around for a long time and he really gives you a lot of different looks and comes from everywhere.
What is it most important for your team to do to come away with a win at Blacksburg?
You have to take your running game on the road, which means that you have to rush the ball better than they do. So that’s both sides of the ball and you have to protect the ball and you usually have to win the kicking game. Those are three things that you have to do, but specifically on the road because you’re fighting the crowd and you’re fighting the emotion and Virginia Tech will be really excited to play North Carolina this weekend.
Well, you know, this past weekend Clemson won and still dropped in the polls. Now a lot of people who have been making some really crazy assertions out there, you know, South Carolina beat Georgia and everybody is saying, “Hey, that’s the same South Carolina team that North Carolina beat earlier in the season.” And of course the Tar Heels played Clemson to a virtual standstill and only lost by one. A lot of people saying that Tar Heels ought to be rising up in the polls. What do you think about all that speculation?
I think our opportunities are ahead of us. Losing to App State and Wake Forest hurt us in the polls because the perception was we were going into the top 25 after being 2-0 if we had beaten Wake Forest and not only did we lose to Wake Forest, we got behind early and didn’t look good then had to come back and got behind again against App State. So hopefully we’ve grown up since then.
But ours is all ahead of us. Just the next three weeks really could determine the Coastal cause you’ve got Virginia Tech at Virginia Tech, you’ve got a sell out for Duke and home for homecoming next week and then you’ve got Virginia coming in here and it’ll be sold out by them too.
So we have it all here ahead of us and the opportunities there are, I’ve never seen a more excited team than yesterday when we practiced and met.
Well, I’ve said this before, this Tar Heel team, it’s fun to watch because they never quit and they do seem excited when they’re on the field. And just such enthusiasm to play is just amazing.
They’ve been a fun group to coach. We had our two games where I didn’t think we played with as much emotion, but we even played really hard and came back and fought against Wake Forest and App State. Other than that, they’ve had fun. They played with passion and we’re going to have to do that for the rest of the year and we’ve told the guys about injuries that it is definitely the next man up. You guys that haven’t played much, it’s time for you to step up and play. So our coaches are going to have to do a great job coaching those guys and, and our players are gonna have to step up.
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