One Game at a Time? Brown, UNC Not Afraid to Talk Coastal Title for Motivation

Daily focus is required, but the coach isn't afraid to talk big-picture with his team

Mack Brown is skipping the coach-speak and silly platitudes about his football team’s sole focus being on the next opponent.

Looking back, he never thought he used as much coach-speak as others accused him of, but now in the twilight of his career, he’s certain he’s not sugarcoating things for his North Carolina football team.

“I’m having a lot more fun,” he said. “I’m a lot more relaxed, I’m a lot more direct. Maybe when you get old you can say what you want.”

Which is why it makes perfect sense that Brown isn’t pretending that he’s oblivious to where the Tar Heels are right now, headed into the back half of their season tied for first place in a wild Coastal Division with a legitimate chance to play in the ACC Championship Game.

Not only is Brown acknowledging it, but he went as far as laying it all out for his team on Sunday with the hope that it would embrace the opportunity it has in front of it.

“We put up the records, we put up the standings in the Coastal and we put up the bowls that are out there for us to go to,” Brown said. “We took it down and said, ‘Now you’ve got to play.’”

Given the bowl projections and rankings and ACC Network conversations available from every social media network out there, there’s no point in sticking to the old cliché.

“We can sit around and say, ‘Next game,’ and all that but they know, they read, they hear,” he said. “So, I wanted them to know, ‘Here are facts, here’s what you got.’”

It’s a long way from the past two seasons when the Tar Heels needed a miraculous finish to even reach a bowl game.

Fifth-year defensive lineman Aaron Crawford has experienced both first- and last-place Coastal finishes at Carolina, and for the first time since the 2015 division title, he’s starting to see a belief develop among the younger Tar Heels.

“Just being able to see that, young guys are starting see, ‘Maybe this is achievable,’” he said.

So far, it’s translated on the field as Carolina has found more consistency in practice.

Players and coaches agreed that this group’s best week was leading up to the Clemson game, setting a new standard for what they wanted to achieve. It didn’t hold up, with a few inconsistent days preparing for Georgia Tech and Brown let them know it.

Over the open week and carrying into this one, Brown has been impressed with his team’s energy and focus, finding motivation within themselves.

"It's hard to put into words, but you can just feel the energy, I guess,’ receiver Beau Corrales said. “We had practices over the bye week last week, and I feel like the energy was some of the best we've had so far, and then we go into practice today and it was just another really great practice. So, we're starting to string together a bunch of consistent days and a bunch of consistent practices. So, the energy's up, and I think this whole past week — week-and-a-half — has been something to really build off of."

Since Sunday, the Tar Heels haven’t spent much time discussing the Coastal or beyond, and that’s precisely what Brown wanted his team to get to.

“We’re definitely aware of the situation that we’re in and the opportunity that we have,” Howell said. “If you get too worried about what’s a few weeks ahead, you’ll find yourself in trouble for that week, so we’re just trying to take it one game at a time. If we do what we’re supposed to do every single week, then we’ll be where we want to be.”

In understanding what goals are still attainable, there’s also the realization that the only way to attain success in the big-picture is to take care of business daily. And if his team isn’t good enough to approach it with maturity, then clearly, Carolina isn’t good enough to win the Coastal.

“’Now, use it to motivate you, forget it, whatever you want with it,’” he told his players. “We’ve got to beat Virginia Tech or this stuff doesn’t work, but I think it’s foolish to sit around and act like it’s not important. It is important and what I told them this morning is that message of, ‘Don’t put pressure on yourself.’ If you’re good enough, it works. If you’re not, play your best and we’ll go to the next game.”