Mack Brown Wednesday update: Surratt working at Wildcat QB, Heck's impact and UNC's struggles in Atlanta

The linebacker might play both ways on Saturday

North Carolina coach Mack Brown met with the media after Wednesday morning's practice to provide a final update before the Tar Heels travel to Atlanta to take on Georgia Tech on Saturday.

Here are the highlights from the conversation:

Opening statement

Are they going to be prepared and are they going to play hard after the energy they gave at Clemson. After they spent so much energy with South Carolina and with Miami, they didn’t. We played two weeks without as much passion as energy.

We came back and did it against Clemson, so this is a critical week for us to grow up and see if we can respond to a game after we spent a lot of energy and passion with another one, back-to-back, and we haven’t done that since the first two weeks. So, that’s the big question mark for us this week. We’re talking about us, we’re talking about the standard. The standard was set last week in practice, they did great; today, I thought it was ok.

Is that a result of playing five straight tough games while battling depth issues and injuries?

I think so, but again, all of our excuses, it is what it is. We don’t have any choice. We’ve got to get to bye week, but to do that, we’ve got to win Saturday against Georgia Tech or we lose a whole lot of who we are. If we’d have thought we’d be 3-3 at this point, it’s great; 2-4 is going to be unacceptable. It is what it is; we are who we are. We’re young, we’re banged up, we’ve had a bunch of people out, we’ve had five straight drives come down to the last drive — none of which matters on Saturday. You’ve got to play on Saturday and Georgia Tech will be motivated.

Is that a matter of having a player-led team?

So many guys that are playing in key roles are real young, so we have more seniors than we do offense. We’ve got to have some leadership from somewhere this week. They've got to step up and pull it together.

Do you find yourself leading more than in the past with this team?

I think anytime in your first year, you’re still trying to connect with your team. You’re still trying to figure out who they are, you’re trying to figure out what to say to them and what picks them up and this team has been beaten down a lot, so you’ve got to be careful that you don’t stay on them so hard because they’ve lost so many games, then they have these big wins or play well and lose and spend a lot of energy and then they have trouble bouncing back. Great teams play every week. They may not play with total passion every week, but they play hard every week and that’s something we’ve got to learn how to do.

Have they continued practicing with the same energy and focus as they did before Clemson?

No. They haven’t. Practice this week has been good; it hasn’t been as good as last week, which is the standard and what we needed to do.

Why is that?

They don’t know how to be continuously good at this point. We’ve got to do that. I told them today, ‘Your life is going to be predicated on whether you can get up and create an edge and have energy every day. If you can’t do it out here, you’re probably not going to do it in your life, so this is a great week to learn to grow up.’ And we’ll see Saturday whether they’ve listened or not.

Is that disappointing or part of the process?

It’s disappointing, it’s part of the process; but grow up. Wake up, it’s football.

I asked this morning in the 6:30 meeting, how many of you love football? It was 100 percent. So, if you love football, then come and practice.

On Storm Duck emerging as the second cornerback

Storm is from a great family, he was well-coached in high school, he’s very talented, he’s very smart and he loves the game. I was pushing the coaches in the spring to get him out there and they're always hesitant with that freshman, and I thought he did a really good job most of the time Saturday.

Is there a tactic you use to motivate them or do you allow it to take care of itself?

If it takes care of itself, you get fired. So, yes, I have to deal with it.

I told them, ‘We’re going to grade this video really hard today, and if you didn’t play well in this video, we’re not taking you to Atlanta. That’s it. So, you’re either playing hard or you’re not; you’re either playing good or you’re not. So if you’re not, we don’t need any hamburger-eaters, then stay here.’

If we take 45 to Atlanta and all 45 are trying, I’m. I don’t care.

On the meaning of "hamburger-eater"

Either you came to eat hamburgers and steaks before the game or you came to play. We don’t need any hamburger-eaters, we need players.

The guys that really have energy and get excited about the game usually can’t eat pregame meal. The ones who are along for the ride look around and see whose steak is left so they can eat some more steak.

What does Jay Bateman do schematically that separates himself from other defensive coordinators?

The most impressive thing to me with jay is he brings people from all over the place and confuses the blocking schemes and the quarterbacks and he still can play zone behind it. he’ll play some man, but a lot of times, he’ll still get the same amount of pressure from different people. He may bring a linebacker and drop an end and you’ve still got a four- or five-man rush most of the time, but he’s bringing it with different people so you can’t get a bead on what he’s doing.

There's an emphasis on players hydrating in heat, but what do you do?

They give me a bunch of Propel. So, that's what I drink; that’s my go-to drink. And you have to. You don’t think about it, but you stand out there for a long time and you’ve got a lot of energy and there’s stress during the game and definitely, it’s dangerous for all of our coaches. Some of the coaches have gotten cramps.

Amazingly, I think that Brian Hess has done such a tremendous job, we haven’t had cramps on our team and usually the people we’re playing against have. As thin as we are and as many plays as guys are having to play — consistent plays — just continuously through the game, I think Brian has done an amazing job of getting them ready.

On the impact of Charlie Heck

We really lost Charlie at Wake Forest because he played with one hand then we didn’t have him at Appalachian and we didn’t play very well in the front. His presence last week along with his play made a huge difference and that’s why we need him out there.

What concerns you about Georgia Tech??

Georgia Tech’s got a lot of speed, their quarterback can really run, Geoff’s a motivator. They're going to look at the record of us coming to Atlanta and have hope because we haven’t played good in Atlanta since The Flood; it’s been a long time and we’ve been inconsistent down there. 

He’s going to tell them, ‘Look what’s happened after they’ve spent a lot of energy: they don’t play hard, they’re going to be a soft Saturday.’ Then they’re going to try to onside kick and they’re going to throw a double-reverse pass early in the game to get all their kids excited, and if we’re not careful, we’re going to be standing there watching all of the game and I’d rather us play.

What have you learned about Chazz Surratt?

He is really smart, he’s really tough. He’s playing some wildcat quarterback for us now because of Jace going down. He’s very unselfish, he’s very quiet — he doesn’t say very much — but I’ve been very, very impressed. Here’s a guy that’s going to play both ways some, so that’s pretty cool.

I’m starting to call him “Two-Way” now; I don’t even call him Chazz.

How many offensive packages do you have for Chazz?

“We’ll see.”

Do you recall having a starter play both ways?

No, not quarterback. I think we had Nathan Vasher who was a great defensive back we played some at wide receiver in special packages at Texas, but it doesn’t happen very often just because of the time constraints in practice. Chazz is in such great shape, what we did today is took him from the defensive drill when they were through with their five minutes and while the White Team was working, he came down and ran five minutes with the offense and ran back.

We’re not ready to use it really yet — we’ve got a ways to go — but we figure until we get Jace back, we need to have more options at quarterback.

Are you superstitious at all?

No, but I look at facts. The facts are they’ve played better than us in Atlanta. I remember, we were better than them in ’97 and we still had a long fight on Thursday night to win 28-20. I expect this one to come down to the last drive like all the rest of ours.

So you don't spit in the river or anything like that?

No, I don’t spit in the river but I look very closely at history, and for some reason, when it’s hard to play somewhere it’s hard to play somewhere. This one’s got it written all over it, it’s screaming at us, ‘You’d better be ready to play and you haven't been ready to play all the time this year. You’ve played hard but you’re not good enough to win without emotion so you’d better be ready to play.’ I’m screaming, history is screaming, coaches are screaming and I hope somebody’s listening.

Do you put much stock into Georgia Tech's film from the loss to Temple?

We don’t put a lot of stock into film; we put stock into individual plays and the players that they’re doing.

That was a setup for Coach Collins because he left that team last year. He did not want Temple on that schedule, I can promise you. I came back here two or three years after I left and it still wasn’t fun, playing against guys you recruited. That’s just not good and they’re mad at you, so that whole Temple team was mad at Coach Collins and that was a setup for him.

They fumbled a couple of times going in and they had some opportunities and just weren’t able to take advantage of them.

What was your expectation for Chazz coming into the season?

I really didn’t know about Chazz going into the season because this spring, he was kind of all over the place and he didn’t have instincts. Jay and I actually sat and talked a long time about if, ‘he doesn’t learn to play linebacker, he’s fast enough we’ll just blitz him all the time and just send him; we’ll make it where he doesn’t have to think.’ Last week he was phenomenal; he was all over the field, read things right and I was just very, very impressed.

In fact, for a program that’s had struggles at linebacker the last couple of years, (Jeremiah) Gemmel, Surratt and (Dominique) Ross played as well last week as I’ve seen any linebackers play in a long time, so I’m very, very proud of them.

Has your grandson gotten over the Clemson game yet?

I haven’t talked to him again. I’ll get to Thursday and I’ll FaceTime with him and hopefully he’s feeling better.