Chansky’s Notebook: No Burger Eaters!

Mack Brown has acknowledged it IS a must win at Georgia Tech.

Short of a do-or-die playoff, most coaches will never admit any particular game is a must win. As long as there is another game on the schedule, they won’t say, “We gotta have this one.”

But when Mack Brown pulled out his hamburger and steak challenge this week, he was saying exactly that. The Tar Heels’ chances of winning at least six games and landing a bowl bid are much, much better if they beat Georgia Tech on Saturday afternoon in Atlanta and go into the off week with a 3-3 record.

Brown isn’t crazy about how his team practiced after the inspirational near-miss against Clemson. He said it was good, but not the attention to detail that was paid preparing for the then top-ranked Tigers. He obviously needed some extra inspiration to get his kids lathered up once they hit the astro turf at Bobby Dodd Field.

He claimed that the level of excitement to play should be so high that the Heels will be too hyped up to eat a full pre-game meal, whether it’s hamburgers or steaks. The guys who don’t care as much as they should will finish their meals, then hang back after the noon lunch and eat whatever is left over off the hyped players’ plates.

But Mack says that won’t happen, because he will review the tape of the last full practice, and anyone who didn’t play hard for every snap won’t be on the bus when it departs for the airport and the flight this afternoon. If he only sees 45 players who make the intensity cut, it will be a short squad that takes the field.

Sounds a little hokey, but it’s one of Brown’s life lessons that you have to learn to get up every day and be ready to go hard at whatever your job is. And he wants his players to develop that habit.

With a win over the 1-3 Yellow Jackets, who scored just two points in last week’s loss at Temple, the open date will be more fruitful before play resumes at Virginia Tech on October 19. Each of the last six games is winnable, but only if Carolina develops the kind of play-hard mentality it had versus Clemson.

The ultimate players’ coach, Brown will do and say what it takes to get his team ready. He claims they have already lost two games they should have won due to a lack of the full passion they had to begin the season. So, no hamburger eaters on the bus.

If they play hard and win, they will enjoy every bite of victory.

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