Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.

Mack Brown and his staff need to coach like they are 0-4, not 4-0.

The Top-20 Tar Heels are off to their best start in 26 years, but clearly it gets tougher after the open date this week. Brown said repeatedly that their first four opponents were the “toughest” he’s had in 35 years as a head coach.

The records and rankings of those four teams do not support Brown’s claim, not even close. None of the vanquished opponents has beaten a ranked team and, obviously, are not in the top 25 with a combined record of 7-9.

South Carolina is 2-2 with wins over Furman and Mississippi State. App State (which Brown says has had the best program in North Carolina over the last 20 years) is 2-2 after losing at Wyoming Saturday. Minnesota is also 2-2 after squandering a 21-point lead at Northwestern and falling in overtime. And dear old Pitt is 1-3 with a bad offense and polarizing head coach.

The Athletic’s well-respected rankings have UNC at No. 13. South Carolina is No. 39, App State 66, Pitt 88 and Minnesota at 90, all with below-average college quarterbacks except for the Gamecocks’ Spencer Rattler.

After the bye week, the Tar Heels’ next two opponents are unbeaten No. 36 Syracuse and No. 18 Miami, both at Kenan Stadium; then come winless Virginia at home and a dangerous trip to 2-2 Georgia Tech, a “practice” home game versus Campbell before finishing with very tough tests against currently No. 14 Duke at home, at No. 30 Clemson and at No. 40 N.C. State.

That could be the toughest LAST three games of Brown’s career.

He says his new approach after every win is to coach like they lost, be tougher on the players to keep them focused on the future and ignore all the pats on the back and social media buzz they will get during this open week. So, in other words, 4-0 can turn out to be misleading unless Carolina can keep improving and beat all the lower-ranked teams on their schedule.

Fortunately, the Heels don’t have No. 2 Florida State in the regular season and hope to finish at least second and meet the also 4-0 Seminoles in the ACC championship game at Bank of America Stadium on December 2.

Overall, Power 5 conferences seem to have upper and lower tiers of teams in terms of records and strength. Clemson is 0-2 in the ACC and could climb into contention. Pitt, Virginia Tech (No. 101) and Virginia (102) are incapable of that.

Duke and Carolina are both ranked in the top 20 for the first time in decades. The Blue Devils are also 4-0 and now face Notre Dame and N.C. State in Durham and road trips to FSU and surprising Louisville in a bruising four-game stretch.

 

Photo via AP Photo/Reinhold Matay.

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