Highlights from Mack Brown's first game-week press conference

The Carolina coach spoke for 25 minutes on Monday morning

Jim Dedmon - USA TODAY Sports

First the first time in more than five years, Mack Brown woke up ready to begin game-week as a head football coach.

“We’ve talked to our guys, this is about now,” Brown said. “It’s not about my past, it’s not about their past, it’s about what we do starting on Saturday and that’s a new era or whatever you want to call it. Their legacy will be this team, this year and especially the seniors.”

With North Carolina’s season-opener vs. South Carolina looming on Saturday (3:30 p.m., ESPN), here are the highlights from the first of Brown’s game-week press conferences on Monday morning in Chapel Hill.

On whether his team is ready and made the progress he hoped to see in August...

Coaches never think their teams are ready, so if you said, ‘Do we need another week?’ Yes, but it’s time to go. We had a mock scrimmage Saturday and we had a lot of mistakes  and thank goodness we had that in the stadium and we were able to go back and talk about corrections.

It was frightening the number of mistakes we had. This is the first time the staff has worked together, it’s the first time this team and staff has worked together, it’s new schemes in all three phases. We’ve got a lot to get done before Saturday and all the things that we screwed up Saturday, we’ve got to correct.

On Sam Howell becoming a leader…

I think Sam has done better since he took over. It’s one of the reasons we felt like we needed to announce a quarterback, because we were not getting very good leadership at that position because all three of them were trying to get the job and none of them felt like they could step up. Sam isn’t real vocal, Jace isn’t real vocal but both guys now know who they are, they know where they are and they know the role they play at this point for our team. I think Sam has done very well. No 1, we didn’t think it was right to wait the 11 days for the three quarterbacks before we made a decision and none could transfer If they wanted to. If you want to leave, you should be able to leave and Cade did that, obviously.

Secondly, we felt like that if it was going to be Sam for sure, we didn’t need to announce him the day before the game or the day of the game, he needed to have felt that for 10 days or two weeks that he was the guy and get comfortable with you all and get comfortable with them.

On Howell being more vocal…

He’s not a vocal guy really; he’ll call somebody out if he needs to, but he really leads more with his actions. He works so hard; he’s in the office every day, he’s watching video by himself every day and I don’t know that I’ve seen a guy work harder than Sam Howell has just to get himself ready.

On the possibility of playing Jace Ruder on Saturday…

We would like to play them both for a couple of reasons. Last year, Larry had three that were knocked out of games, so you’ve got to have another guy ready. So we’d always like to play two, then you’ve got to figure out how and we’re not there yet. When do you put them in, and does it disrupt your team and what does it take away from Sam? With both of them being so young, we feel like we’re going to need both of them to play.

On beginning the season with no injuries on the two-deep...

No. 1, you’ve got to be lucky because you hit every day. No. 2, at Texas, we kept them out in the heat too long and got them too tired, and over time, we learned that 105 degrees, it’s stupid to leave them out there instead of making them tougher; they’re exhausted.

Since I got out of coaching and back in, the GPS system is really helpful.

We know during practice, we’re monitoring how much they’ve run, whether he’s near a hamstring pull or not and they will take him out and give him fluids. All of those things just didn’t happen before. And we’ve challenged guys to be tougher, ‘If you are hurt, get out, but if you’re sore, come on man. This is football.’

It’s really a cool thing for kids. The game is much, much safer for them now than it was when we just had to see when he got tired, he started cramping, ‘What do we do?’ We haven’t had cramps in camp, either. The trainers and our strength staff have done a phenomenal job keeping these kids in shape, and healthy. It’s been fun to watch.

On whether it’s been surreal to be back…

I haven’t thought any different; it’s like I never left. I practiced really hard when I was with TV and I prepared really hard, and that’s just what you do for your job. I haven’t thought about anything any different, and Saturday, for me, will be another game. I’ve had 43 years on the sideline and I think it’ll be the same way.

On the Heels’ lack of confidence and teaching them to win…

What we talk to them about is our process and how we win.  Some ask about that because the previous two years, they’ve struggled with winning late in games, especially. We told them, ‘Here’s the process; you win by doing the process.’ We’ve tried to point out, every day in practice, here’s why you win, here’s why you lose. We’ve had entirely too many penalties last year and unsportsmanlike penalties.

We can’t do that; we’re not better than anybody on our schedule so we’ve got to be good at everything we do. We’ve stopped calling them little things; penalties are big things, they’re not little things for us. The turnover is huge, whether we get it or lose it. How are we going to do on third downs? We were poor on third downs last year, both sides, we turned it over too much, we didn’t get enough back. You start looking at the process of winning, we’ve tried to show them, don’t get into, ‘We’re good or we’re bad.’ Get into, ‘This is what we’ve got to do to be successful.’

On the series vs. South Carolina, a good one, and how it matters to recruiting…

I think so, in both, because we both recruit the same regions. In recruiting, it’s like N.C. State, Duke, Wake, Clemson. We’re all looking at this pool of guys in this footprint and to me, it was my first game when I was here before with Coach Joe Morrison.

In fact, they beat us, I think like 38-14 and after the game he said, ‘You really have a bad team,’ and I said, ‘Thanks coach, I was fully aware of that before we got here, but you just reinforced it.’ Hopefully Will won’t tell me the same thing Saturday after the game.

I think it’s a great game and I think the fact that we’re halfway between the two in Charlotte is fun, and Charlotte is a hotbed of recruiting for both of us. It does matter to win any game, but when you’re playing somebody that all the kids are aware of and they know the coaches on both sides and they’re being recruited by both sides, it is important.

On Chazz Surratt’s progression at linebacker…

Tommy Thigpen has done an amazing job with Chazz Surratt to get him in the right places. He played some safety in high school; he’s never played linebacker and he’s 230 pounds and can run a 4.5, so he’s really doing some good things now that we didn’t see in the spring. I think he’ll be a really good linebacker for us before he leaves.

On his team’s quiet nature…

This team has been very quiet; they’re not a vocal team. They laugh and cut up, but they don’t call each other out. We’ve said that coach-led teams are very average, player-led teams are very good. The best teams I’ve ever coached, the players on the field and in the locker room handled all of it. they told them to shut up and do this and act right and play harder. We’re working on that now; we’re still not there, and we’re going to need that Saturday. There’s going to be adversity in any ballgame, especially the first game. There’s more upsets in opening games and bowl games than any other time of the year because there’s this span of time where you have less practice live and the kicking game live. That’s why those two games are so unpredictable.

There’s usually one guy that stirs them all up and right now, we don’t have that guy. We need a guy to stir the pot.

This team is quiet, it’s just a team that I think, there’s probably a little bit of that lack of confidence is why they’ve been like this and now it’s time to be aggressive and go. I told them Saturday, when adversity hits, you get stronger and you have better body language, because It’s going to come. The team that overcomes adversity the best is going to be the team with the best chance to win.

On South Carolina’s likely gameplan…

They’re always aggressive on defense, but with a true freshman quarterback, Will is going to put a bunch around the line of scrimmage and blitz him and try to stop the run and hit the quarterback. That’s easy, I mean that’s a no-brainer and Will is one of the better defensive coaches in the country.

Offensively, I would think they would try to line up and run the ball against us because they’ve got the two big backs.

I think they’ve got the really good quarterback, he’s experienced, he’s an older guy, he’s a smart guy as a coach’s kid. They’re big up front on defense and you start looking at what these guys can do, Bentley has been around a long time. There’s a huge receiver, Edwards … he’s a guy they’re going to go to. I think they spread them out, they run the ball and try to get us in one-on-one situations and then Bentley is really accurate so he’s going to try to get the ball to his big backs on the edge in the passing game, run it up inside then throw it to Edwards. Football is not complicated; people are. We’ve got to figure all that out.