Mack Brown Press Conference: Previewing Pitt, Adjusting the Routine and Howell for (Eventual) Heisman?

UNC meets Pittsburgh on Thursday night.

Nell Redmond | USA TODAY Sports

Mack Brown met with reporters on Monday for the first time since North Carolina's loss to Virginia on Nov. 2.

After an open week, the Tar Heel return to action on Thursday night at Pittsburgh. Here's what the coach had to say about Carolina's progress over its week off and looking ahead.

Opening Statement

We thought we had to stop (Perkins) running and force him to throw the ball, and other than the 65-yard run — which was is a little facetious — I thought we did a good job throughout the night, but he goes 65 yards to start the second half.

We go up 17-10 with 2 minutes and 6 seconds to go in the first half, then you’ve got to have a stop and take a lead into halftime with them getting the ball to start the second half and they drive right down the field and score with very little time left, which is where we’ve got to grow up; we’ve got to do better. We’ve got to learn to answer the other side of the ball.

Then we say the next five minutes to start the second half is the second-most important part of the game and they take it 65 yards on a run and score on the first drive. It puts us where we’re up seven with 2:06 to go in the first half, we’re down seven right after the half.

The other thing is we didn’t make three critical fourth downs that we’ve been making and all three of those put us in positions where we could have won the game and we had some drops and we had some overthrows. It kept us from winning against a really good football team.

So, I’m encouraged that we keep getting better. I’m encouraged that they fight every week and we haven’t had a down game; they’ve been very competitive and they’ve tried really hard. They fight back when they get down, because they’ve been down a lot throughout the year. All of those things are real positive; we’ve still got to make the plays to win the game at the end. Hopefully, that’s what we can do the next three weeks. We’ve got a new season, we’ve got three weeks to try to finish this thing strong and that starts on Thursday night with Pitt.

Pitt is a typical Pat Narduzzi team: they’re going to crowd the line of scrimmage and stop the run, which they’re doing as well as anybody in the country. They’re going to try to get you in second-and-long, third-and-long and rush the passer, which they’re doing with sacks as good as anybody in the country and then they’re going to make you beat them one-on-one some outside in the passing game. That’s just who they are; he did that at Michigan State with Mark Dantonio. They’re really good on defense and that doesn’t change. Michigan State has been the same way, they’ve been one of the better defensive teams and schemes from Michigan State to Pitt in the country.

Offensively, they’re going to be balanced but they’re going to throw the ball a lot. Obviously, people have picked on our corners; we’ve got to play better at corner, we’ve got to play better on the fade and the back-shoulder ball and that’s really, really important to us.

We’re going to have to run the ball on the road to win; that’s very, very difficult against them. We’re going to have to stay balanced and hit some throws because they’re really, really good up front, and then we’ve got to be able to stop the run and force them to throw some fade balls and let’s make plays for a change, because we haven’t done that. Then, we’ve got to win the kicking game, which, we’ve been OK in; we haven’t been great at any time in our kicking game.

On adjusting the routine for a Thursday night game

The biggest challenge is to figure out what day it is. Just like today, we’re sitting here, this is a Wednesday and it’s on a Monday. Sally gets really mad at me … I’m totally zeroed-in this is Wednesday. She says, ‘What are you doing in today?’ I said, ‘Well, it’s Wednesday.’ She said, ‘It’s not Wednesday, it’s Monday.’

So the biggest thing is we had Tuesday’s practice yesterday on a Sunday when they didn’t have class, so it was unique and different. Then, we had Wednesday’s practice today and we’ll have Thursday’s practice on Tuesday. Then, even in your staff meeting today trying to figure out which day you leave, you leave Wednesday which is Friday normally. So, coaches are in such routine that block out your schedule so much that you have to completely change it this week.

Then, you think about the kids get back at 4 o’clock in the morning and we need them in class on Friday, so that’s a challenge for them. One of the good things is we practice in the mornings, so class is in the afternoon so we’ll need to get a little sleep and get up and do their classes, then they’ll have Saturday off and then we start next week for Senior Day.

The only difference in this open date before Virginia Tech and Pitt, is Sunday you start over with your regular routine. If you’ve got a Saturday game, they come off a day off Friday and a day off Saturday, to you’re practicing Tuesday, so it’s a real, real short week. That’s why you had to do a lot of Pitt stuff last week.

On the opportunity and challenge for getting deep balls vs. Pitt’s defense

The challenge is protection. They really rush the passer well and they do it by scheme a lot, but they’ve also got Patrick Jones, who’s 6-5, 260 and he’s a great pass-rusher. That’s the thing; we can’t end up second-and-long, third-and-long. You know, we start the Virginia game with a sack; I’ve never seen that before. I told Phil and the guys, ‘Come on now. We work a full week to get that first play of the game so we can get started, and we have a sack? We can’t do that.’

We’ve got to stay on schedule, we’ve go to run the ball some even though they don’t make it easy. Backs are going to have to make some four-yard runs where we’re not going to block everybody and it’s going to be really cold. We’re lucky that it’s going to be 30 degrees here tomorrow and 16-mile-an-hour winds so we’ll probably practice outside and let them get ready to go to Pitt, so we’ll say, ‘Welcome to Pittsburgh; here we are.’

I think that’s the biggest thing: we’ve got to stay balanced enough to be able to protect, we’ve got to stay ahead of the chains, then we’ve got to hit some deep balls.

On whether he talks bowl eligibility with the team

Because this Sunday was a Tuesday, we didn’t talk about anything except Pitt. Normally, what we’ve done is we go over, ‘Here’s the league standings, here’s the bowl situations and all that.’ We’ve got to get another win before we can start talking about having one more to go for a bowl.

They’re fully aware that we need to win some more games to get to a bowl game.

On whether the winning streak over Pitt has any bearing

I don’t think so. One of the things that really intrigues me is why … universities have streaks against other universities; I never figured it out. We had trouble beating Kansas State at Texas when I was there, and now, they beat them all the time. So, I don’t know. That one always gets me. Like, we talked about the streak at Georgia Tech being very difficult for us, I’m sure Pat has brought up the streak this week, and what you do if you’re them, is you get tired up and try to change it and if you’re us, you try to keep it going.

How does Sam stack up against other freshmen quarterbacks that you’ve had?

Sam is very much like Colt McCoy because of his accuracy. If we give Sam time, he’s really an accurate thrower and he’s that way in practice. I used to sit and watch Colt throw for hours and the ball never hit the ground and that’s’ what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to be more consistent catchers and wide receiver because Sam is going to put it there and they’ve just got to catch it.

Also, because of the injury to Jace (Ruder and the inexperience of Vincent Amendola, we haven’t run Sam very much and in this offense, you really need to run your quarterback. That’s so important that on third and fourth down, 3 and 3, 3 and 4, if it’s not there, he can run for three or four. We’ve been more hesitant to do that with him just because of our lack of depth, so that’s hurt us some too, I think. In his future, I think we’ll see him be a much better runner and continue to improve his accuracy.

How much of a priority was signing Sam when you got the job?

It was our number one priority. We weren’t sure what we had on campus; we knew we had two young ones, but we also really liked what we saw in him when we got here. The coaches that were here talked about him and we couldn’t afford to lose a great quarterback out of Charlotte.

What did you most get out of the open week?

Probably some rest. Young guys got a lot of fundamental work, they got a lot of physical work; older guys got some rest. Javonte (Williams), for instance, we could really rest him completely and get him fresh. The backs that have been hit so much, we just didn’t hit them much during the off week. Came back and had a regular practice (Sunday), (Monday) and now (Thursday), tomorrow. I think that was the biggest things.

In some cases, I think because we haven’t had depth — and it’s our fault we haven’t developed enough depth — is that we wear down during games, so we’re really trying hard now to put more guys in the game. For instance, Ray Vohasek has played more and played well. We’re trying to get Jahlil Taylor in the game more so we can get some rest for especially Aaron Crawford, who played 90-something plays at Virginia Tech. That’s just inexcusable; that’s too much. Especially for a 300-pound-plus guy, he wears down.

That was a big thing for us; get some conditioning in, get some rest in and keep the young ones working on fundamentals.

On balancing winning now vs. developing the program for the future

Everything we’re doing is to try to win now. We promised our seniors at the first of the year that we were going to do everything we could to win every game for you because this is it for you.

We had a couple of freshmen that didn’t practice well yesterday and I called them out in front of the team and I said, ‘You’re going to be a senior one day and you’re going to ask the rest of the guys to play for you because you want your senior year to be special and you’re going to remember it the rest of your life, and here you are laying down and being lazy and not creating an edge for practice. That’s just inexcusable and unfair.’

So, that’s what we’ve told these seniors. Everything these next three weeks is for them to try to finish a lot better than they have in the last two years.

The senior class the last two years had disappointing years and Senior Day is next week; I want the stands to be full and I want it to be a special day for them and I want that to be really the kickoff or the start of something special in our program moving forward.

There are six ACC teams that rank in the top 20 nationally for sacks…

We’ve helped them. We’ve led to some of those good sacks for them.

Is there anything in common among them?

There’s good athletes, number one, in those positions and we throw the ball a lot in this league. I think there’s a lot better teams in this league than perceived because a lot of us are so much alike that so many games are coming down to the end.

There’s Virginia Tech that loses by one point to Notre Dame on the road and then you come back and they beat Wake Forest by a couple of touchdowns. Virginia Tech is really doing a good job. Virginia had Notre Dame on the ropes and turned it over a few times at the end of the game. I do think the league is better than perceived.

Is it more schematic or within the flow of the game?

I think there’s a lot of great defensive coordinators in this league. We talked about Bud Foster, I think Jay will be one of those; he’s coming right now like he is. A lot of different schemes and a lot of people are stopping the run on first down and they really bring a lot of different stuff on third downs and it has been very, very difficult to stop.

You had Colt McCoy and Vince Young finish as Heisman runners-up, and Sam is mentioned among quarterbacks like Joe Burrow and Tua Tagovailoa. What will it take for him to become Heisman candidate?

Us to win. We’re so close.

Those guys are winning, Joe Burrow is not in there because of just being Joe Burrow; if those guys were 4-5 they wouldn’t be talking as much about Joe as they are Sam.

So, Sam is off to a great start. We need to finish strong then we need to become a better program, then the guys will get the individual attention for winning games.

I told Vince Young one time, ‘The only stat a quarterback is ever remembered for long-term is his record, how many wins.’ I think Vince Young was 30-2. I can’t remember how many yards he rushed for, I can’t remember how many passes he had; I can remember 30-2.

Do you talk to Vince Young a lot?

I’m so excited Vince is going into the Hall of Fame. He’s having a big dinner and I’m going to fly up for his dinner. I text with the guys more than I talk to them because everybody is so busy, but any time anything comes up with this 150 years of college football, he’s on all the time. If I ever turn on a TV and see him, I take a picture of it right quick and say, ‘Thank you.’ He’s a special guy in my life and Sally’s life and I’m so proud. He went into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame last year and he’s going into the National Football Hall of Fame this year, and as much we need to be recruiting, I will be there because I’m not going to miss that.

Mack Brown on Garrett Walston

Garrett has gotten much stronger. He wasn’t a very good blocker last year so it was hard to put him in a lot. And now he’s worked so hard in the weight room. He’s got good strength and he runs really well. And he’s tall. He’s got length. And he’s got a really good reach and ball catching skills. He’s fast enough to get open. He’s got a big body to shield himself from linebackers and safeties. And he can catch. But I think the biggest difference is his ability and willingness to learn.

What’s the best way to coach effort?

The best is to coach effort is to have depth and put them on the bench. Right now we don’t have that. Bench is the best motivator. And that’s what we got to do. If you can take them out, and they know you can take them out, they are going to play hard because they like to play. But the most powerful thing you’ve got is when you’ve got somebody behind them that you can put in and they know they lose playing time. That’s the best motivator. The rest of it, we all know about speeches and all that stuff. Eh, that bench is good. ‘Hey, Come here! Right there. Sit there.’ The other guy is going to play for a while and then they pout, then they get mad and then got back out and don’t want to come back out.

Did you feel like this was a team that would go into the last quarter of the season with a chance to be a bowl team?

Very honestly, I had absolutely no idea what we were going to do.

When we beat South Carolina I was surprised because we had a linebacker who had never played in a game, a quarterback who had never played in a college game. So, if you’d asked me before the South Carolina game, I couldn’t eat or sleep. But guys just played so hard. And we were disappointed at both Wake, who is a really good team, disappointed at App State, a really good team, and then we got back on track.

It’s been an up and down ride I think in every case, the good thing is these are good young people and they’ve really listened and they’re trying. And Jay and I were disappointed sometimes when the defense didn’t try as hard -- sometimes I think they’re worn out a little bit too, and they’re worn down. They weren’t worn out after sitting in the dressing room 20 minutes for that first drive of the second half. And part of the transition is learning how to play hard all the time. Sometimes they think they are playing hard all the time, but they’re really not, because they have to see themselves on video before they realize, ‘is that full speed.’ If you can say that’s full speed, then you’re not good enough to play for us and that’s not good enough to be in the NFL.

But if that’s all you got then we need to put somebody else in. And usually they understand. That’s the process we’re going through and that’s why we grow each week.

Aside from linebackers is there another position group or player that’s surprised you?

Ray Vohasek is picking it up. He’s so quick inside I think he’s got a chance to help us here in the next three weeks. Jahlil Taylor. Like I said, I think they’ve got a chance. It’s interesting and we’re trying to get Javon Terry, Storm Duck, and DeAndre Hollins, where they can play the fade. Just where they’ve compete. It’s a process. People say, well you’ve got to play the ball better. Well you’ve got to learn to see the receivers eyes go up and his hands and eyes go, and when they go, you’ve got to go. And we’re not doing that very well. And Dre is killing himself trying to get them to do that. And I think we’ve improved in that area, but losing all these defensive backs really changed who we are defensively. Because Jay is in such a bind, do you protect your corners with zone, or do you try to stop the run by putting them all in and playing man or do you disguise so much and how much can you disguise with the young secondary. From the Clemson game where we’ve gotten a lot of people hurt, we just haven’t been as good on defense consistently and that has hurt us some.

Offensively I think the most improved two players for me, well let’s go three players, would be Beau Corrales, Garrett Walston, and Marcus McKethan. We weren’t sure any of those three would be players for us. It started in the fall and all three of them have had a lot of good snaps for us.

What would you like to see from your defense?

Stop the run, and force turnovers. That’s how you play defense. Against Virginia, we really didn’t do either one of them. And if you don’t stop the run, the game is over. What I really thought is, Virginia would have a lot of trouble running the ball and that Bryce had not thrown the ball consistently well and I didn’t think we would be able to run the ball because Virginia was No. 2 in the league in defense at that time. And we have trouble protecting because they have a bunch of sacks, but neither was right. We threw it all over the place. And they ran it in and threw it all over the place. So I thought it would be one of those 20-17 games and it ended up being, whoever had the ball was going to score, so you never know.

Has officiating gotten worse over the years, or is it a matter of having better technology?

I think it’s No. 2. We know everything now, because we can replay a play so many times that we know exactly what happened. And these officials are guys who have full time jobs during the week, and run out and do this on the weekend. The game is so fast. Things are happening so quickly sometimes they can’t see it. That’s why I wish that the guy upstairs would make a decision that if it’s a critical game changing play, then let’s go upstairs and get it right. And let’s just stop the game. People would say, well we’re stopping the game too much now. We want the game to be right. Coaches are held accountable. Players are held accountable. To me it helps the officials, if we have that call upstairs. If it’s an absolute pass interference call and the guy on the field misses it. Call down and say I’ve got video here, it’s pass interference, throw the flag.’ That’s what I wish we would do. I think that’s the only way to get it right. Every Sunday, because of human error, we’re going to have plays that make a difference in the game that are missed calls. And when you’re teams like we are, because we’re not better than anybody. We’re just like everybody. A call or two will make a difference in whether we win or lose the game. We’ve seen that. It just kills you. We may turn in five calls a week that were missed. They’re game changing calls. And they say, yeah sorry we missed it.

But that’s what it is. I’d like to see us have more help for the officials upstairs. I love the officials. You’ve got to give them credit. They don’t get paid a whole lot to work themselves to death. They fly all over the country and they work really hard, and they’ve got impossible jobs.

There are sometimes as long as I’ve coached I see the play and I don’t know what happened and I can look up to the jumbotron and say hey man. They will not look. I promise you, i’ll say ‘Right there. He just dropped it. Man he dropped it. Look!’ They will not look. They won’t speak either. But they have the hardest jobs.

Should they be full-time?

I don’t know with money issues that we have in college sports that we could afford to pay the officials full time. I think that is a good question. I think there should be transmission in the helmets for the quarterbacks and even the linebackers. There is in the NFL, but we don’t have it in college football. We know that NFL coaches and players are further advanced than we are, so why couldn’t Phil Longo talk to Sam during the game to help him and the reason is it cost too much money for all 130 schools to buy it, so we voted it down. To me, the ones who can afford it, buy it. It helps our game. Same with linebackers with tempos going so fast, you’d love to have your defensive coordinator talking to your linebacker getting lined up. I think that would really help as well.

On ESPN's first CFP rankings

I really didn’t. I had to do that for five years. In fact, they would ask me my projection for the playoff next year, the night after the national championship. I would say I haven’t even gotten any sleep yet. Give me a break. I don’t even know who the quarterbacks are. I don’t know how it will come out. But they’re questions now, after my five years in your seat, are who is No. 1? Do you give Ohio State the No. 1 spot because they beat Rutgers to death or do you give LSU a jump because they beat Alabama. And the second thing is, Clemson is in there for sure. So then what do you do for No. 4. Does that become a one-loss team? And that’s when it gets crazy. Because is the oh-loss team Alabama? Is the one-loss team Georgia. Is the one-loss team Oklahoma? Eh. They had a close win. So that’s where it gets crazy and would drive me nuts every week in the studio we just start talking about this one-loss team.

And I think that’s where it’s very difficult for the committee. I don’t think we should have ratings until now. Until the first poll comes out. Because preseason polls mean absolutely nothing. Because none of us have any clue about who is going to be good. We think we do, but then we don’t. And then we’ll cuss that poor coach and those kids, ' Ahh they were No. 1.' No, you voted them No. 1; they didn’t vote them No. 1. They didn’t think they were any good. I’ve been in some of those teams where they said, ‘They voted us No. 1? Oh my gosh, they haven’t been in practice.’

What’s the angriest you’ve been at an official?

I’ve thrown hats, I’ve thrown headsets. I can’t remember. 31 years as a head coach. I’ve been mad at officials, every game I’ve ever coached I think at one point or another, so yes.

How much do you think Clemson’s No. 5 ranking went into their motivation to beat State so badly?

I was worried when we started the playoff. And the committee that it would push coaches to beat somebody as badly as they could. And I think it does. Right now everybody is trying to impress the committee and the difference in the 1 spot and the 2 spot is huge because of where you play. It’s not big, it’s huge. So you get that home field advantage if you’re 1. And the other thing that you look at , I called Clemson losing to Syracuse. And I saw them lose to Pittsburgh, and might have won the national championship that year.

So Clemson normally doesn’t play as well early as they do late. And I think we, you all, media, whoever that is, has been very very unfair to them. And I think it was because of our game. I think people thought we were bad enough, that when that game was close, Clemson must not be any good. And that’s very unfair to them. Because they’ve played some close games early. But to me, Clemson is right in the middle of that LSU, Ohio State conversation, and I don’t see how they possibly couldn’t be, as many games as they’ve won and as good as they are on both sides of the ball. They’ve got a lot of young guys. But if you look at Dabo’s teams they get better as the year progresses every year.

So everybody better look out, because I think, they’re not peaking, but they’re headed -- they’ve got a strong trend up. And as a coach you don’t even have to say it. They read. They know when they say they’re fifth. Fifth? What do you mean, we’re undefeated. We won 31 straight games , whatever it is. That’s motivation enough. All you have to do if you’re Dabo is walk in and say, 'Eh, guess they don’t think we’re very good enough. Maybe they’re right, I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see Saturday night.' That’s all you have to say. It doesn’t take very much.