Mack Brown Wednesday update: having Dabo arrested, embracing the opportunity and not paying coaches for losses

Here are the highlights from Mack Brown's post-practice availability on Wednesday as North Carolina prepares to play host to Clemson on Saturday afternoon:

Opening

Chapel Hill is so excited about having the No. 1, defending champions coming to Kenan Stadium this weekend. Our first two home game atmospheres were really, really good. I’m excited for Clemson people to see that — Clemson has a tremendous atmosphere at their place — and I want them to see that we do, too.

We’ve got a great challenge this weekend and we know there’s a lot of things we have to do to play well and hang in there with them and hang in there with them in the fourth quarter because nobody else has, so give them credit.

I read a story the other day that Coach (Frank) Howard, when Alabama was coming to Clemson, met Coach (Bear) Bryant at the airport with the police and arrested him and Coach Bryant said, ‘What are you arresting me for?’ He said, ‘Disturbing the peace in my county.’ I may get Dabo (Swinney) arrested; that might be the best thing to do.

The other thing I’ve done for five years is text Dabo on Friday night and said, ‘Give me keys to the game tomorrow,’ so I may text him on Friday … I don’t know if I’ll get the same answer I’ve been getting.

On preparing his team to meet the Tigers

We tell them we want to win the game. They have better players than we do, they’re deeper than we are, they’re used to winning — we know it’s an uphill battle — but also this is who you want to be. They’re the best; they’re the best in the country, they’re the best in the conference. Everybody is chasing them; not just the people in this conference. When you see the video, that’s what we want to look like.

I told them, I thought we should have won the last two games. Then, we’d be 4-0 and it would be two 4-0 teams matched up here and it would be a lot better build-up to this game than it is right now. Our job is to get better and that’s all we can do. If they’re proud of 2-0, we should be disappointed in 2-2 and that’s where I am with them.

We’ve outscored people 45-9 in the fourth quarter and good for you. That was one of our goals for this year; that’s something that we really needed to change and they’ve changed it. Now, let’s stop going home in the second quarter; let’s play four quarters. That’s what we’re not doing, we’ve got to play every play.

On the difference between Clemson and other teams in the league

The difference is that if Clemson plays great, they’re going to win. That’s it. To beat a team like this, they have to make some mistakes — especially have some turnovers or kicking game mistakes — and they’re so well-coached, they don’t do that very often, but that’s what has to happen to win.

On what's gone well in practice this week

Their attitude. They’re disappointed in the last two games and I told them, ‘Then we need to practice better and we need to practice harder, because there are things we’re not doing well.’ Sometimes when you’ve struggled for the last two years you think, ‘We’re OK, we’re doing well,’ but we’re not. We’re not doing what we needed to do the last two weeks. Both those teams are good teams, both those teams have been winning more than we have but we had obvious opportunities to win in those games that we didn’t take advantage of, and that’s who we’ve got to become. We’ve got to become that team, that when it’s time to put our foot on the gas, we do that instead of, ‘Oh, I’m not sure.’

There is time and time again that I can go back and show them examples of opportunities we had to win that they probably don’t understand right now. They’ve got to learn that every play is critical and that’s what’s so hard, especially when you’re where we are. We’re not good enough to play every play and play pretty well to beat anybody that we have left.

Is Chazz Surratt a real possibility at quarterback at any point Saturday?

We just have him around for short-yardage and goal-line because he’s big and he’s strong and he can do those things, so if our guys get banged up, he can do that.

On young players adjusting to new roles

What we’re seeing is improvement. I think we’ve had nine guys miss a game … when that happens, some younger guy has to come in and play, so the Storm Ducks, the Cam Kellys, the Don Chapmans and those guys are having to get reps and they’re having to grow up real fast.

Tomari Fox started. Who would have thought that four weeks ago? What happens when you do that is all that process gets better. Do we miss Nick Polino? Yeah; his toughness, his leadership. Do we miss Charlie Heck? Absolutely; he’s a pro player. So you take your two best guys and they’re out and all the others, they’re forced to grow up. Are they making improvement? Yes. But should one of them have pulled back out and gotten the defensive end at App when he hit Sam from behind? Yes. Charlie Heck does that; that play is not an issue if Charlie is in there.

Now, hopefully the next time that happens, whoever is playing left tackle will pick that guy up because it was a critical play in the game. So, yes, they’re improving; no, we’re not where we need to be.

Do the injuries to experienced players mean limiting schemes or cutting plays from the gameplan?

It means both, because you’ve got all freshmen and sophomores and they’ve never seen this offense, so it’s a double-whammy. What you do, some of it is ability and the combination of lack of experience and they’re not as good as the guy they’re trying to block, so you have to throw out some of your protections, so that limits some of the things that you can do in the offense that we wanted to do. The other thing is, you have to cut down on the number of plays just for assignments.

Ed played but 25 plays, I think, on Saturday and Billy Ross had to play the whole thing. So, that’s just what it is and who we are, so I’ve challenged our coaches, ‘It is what it is, you’ve got what you’ve got; you make it work. I want us to know what to do. I don’t want us getting beat because we don’t know what to do, so simplify everything and get it down where we know what to do and we can play fast.’

On young players understanding the culture you're trying to build

You understand there are no plays off and you understand the last five minutes of the half is critical and the first five minutes of the second half is critical, and you understand when they do something well, you’ve got to answer it.

Understanding when the defense is out there with six minutes left the last two games, if they get a stop, we’re going to win the game. They play well during the game, but they don’t get the stop when they have to. The whole, ‘Be the One’ issue was, ‘You be the one to make that play,’ so we’ve got to start making those plays. We made them in the first two and we didn’t make them in the second two. Ask me why? Oh my gosh. I’d be doing something a lot more important than coaching football if I could answer that, but that’s what we’ve got to do.

On the need for seniors to step up and lead

I think the seniors are really trying. Patrice was on the sideline screaming and shouting on Saturday, but he wasn’t in pads.

Our guys like Aaron have to step up; there’s just not many of them. Since there’s not many seniors playing, that bodes well for the future, but we’ve got to have some other guys learn to step up. Myles isn’t a very vocal guy; he’ll tell them what to do, and he does his job. None of those guys on our team are real talkers. Leadership is something on our team we talk about constantly.

On embracing the opportunity vs. Clemson

I’ve tried to teach them that you need to be who you are every week. It shouldn’t be, 'It’s Appalachian State, Wake Forest, South Carolina, Miami or Clemson,' you ought to be you. At the same time, there’s more pressure on us for Wake and Appalachian because nobody thinks we’re going to beat Clemson.

The other thing I said, ‘For you guys that want to be NFL players, NFL scouts are going to look at this game. They’re going to look at you against the best players in the country so understand that this weekend.’ I’ve told them, we need to be us. The thing I want them to do is play well and play hard and play every play and not look at the scoreboard. If it’s 50-0, I want us to play the last play as hard as we played the first play. That’s one thing I think our fans will appreciate right now, is our guys are giving it everything they’ve got.

Did you talk to them about anything different this week?

I did tell them today life would be different if, when a coach lost a game, he didn’t get paid that week. Then I said, ‘Hmm, what if a player didn’t get to eat or didn’t get his scholarship paid if he didn’t play well or didn’t grade well or his unit didn’t play well. Then we’d all have more attention to detail.’ That got their attention a lot, especially the coaches … I said, ‘Yeah, so win.’

On the common thread in upsets his team has been a part of in the past

We were pretty good. I think that was the best thing and when you’re good, you realize you’ve got a chance. Our team is still trying to figure out who we are. We talk about identity; are we the team that beat Miami or the team that lost to Appalachian? That’s what drives you nuts as a coach because you’ve got to see the team you want every week.

We’re young enough we should be growing, we should be getting better. Our schedule has been brutal with teams that like to beat us and physical games and emotional games and they have not had a break, so they’re being tested. I told them today, ‘Last year you had just come off a horrible loss to Miami, so figure out who you want to be.’ After that, we went down. We’re not going to do that, we’re going up.

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