Mack Brown complimentary of Clemson, Swinney + Tar Heels looking for line, second quarter answers

Injury update

Charlie Heck (upper extremity), Myles Wolfolk (lower), Jace Ruder (lower) all going through evaluations Monday, and their status is unknown for Saturday vs. Clemson.

Antoine Green (lower) is available to practice.

Opening Statement

We’ve had four very close games. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a situation where we had four games that came down to the last drive and last play. At the first of the year, probably if you had asked me, I’d have thought we’d have been 0-4, maybe 1-3, at best 2-2. I would’ve thought we might have won the last two, not the first two, when we’re looking at our history and our lack of depth and the things that we’re fighting. When you go back through the stats, I looked at all of them yesterday and studied them, they’re really close, too. I guess when you have games that are that close, the stats would be the that close. If we make mistakes like we did Saturday, we’re not going to win against anybody. We just can’t afford those mistakes right now. We have to play really, really well. So a few things that I looked at: No. 1 on defense, and I will say that the guys are playing so hard, they played hard every play on Saturday, so they’re not giving up. And that’s why I think we’re coming back. We just dig ourselves in a hole.

But defensively, we haven’t forced a fumble that we’ve gotten. Not one, in four games. I’ve never see that before. So that’s something we’ve got to do, it’s something we emphasize all the time. We’ve got to strip a ball loose and get it on the ground. There were two or three on the ground versus Miami, they got them, we didn’t get them. So we’ve got to strip some balls loose and we’ve got to get them.

We’ve got to play better in sudden-change situations. When they intercepted the ball, and Sam made a great a tackle to save us, it’s three plays, we don’t tackle well at all. They score easily. Same thing happened after Javonte fumbled at Wake Forest. We go out for the sudden change, that’s when your defense has to step up, they’ve got to make plays because those are momentum changers. And they got 14 points off their turnovers. We got one interception and got no points. So that’s really the difference in the ballgame.

And the other thing is our defense has to learn to make key stops. At the end of the Wake Forest game, we’re I think three points down or something and we’re ready to win the game. And Wake Forest takes it the length of the field, and we had stopped them the entire second half, and they kick a field goal. They also leave us a minute, 06 (seconds) but they take our timeouts away. And then that happened again Saturday. We’ve got a third-and-4 with Appalachian with a timeout in our pocket, two minutes left in the game, and they run a quarterback sweep and our corner gets sucked up inside. They make the first down. We still have a chance to win the game with 30 seconds left. But if the defense in either of those situations had stepped up and made a stop, we’ve got two minutes left in both cases, even have our timeouts at Wake Forest. And those are winnable games for sure.

Offensively, we’ve got to protect the ball. If we turn it over three times, we’re probably not going to win. We had not been doing that. Again, those turned into points. We’ve also got to stay ahead of the chains. Too many times we’re second-and-long and third-and-long, and therefore we’re not converting enough third downs. Those are things we’ve got to continue to do better. Saturday, it was unlike us, we dropped three passes that were catchable. And we just can’t make mistakes with the pressure on us. We need to play our best every week to have a chance to win.

Special teams have just been OK. We had the great kickoff return to start the game, score in one play. Might not have helped us that we scored so fast. Might have been a little relaxed. We call those things impostors because when they slip in, it looks like ‘Oh this is going to be easy’ and it’s never easy. Early plays don’t lead to the end of the game for sure, even though we ask them to go out front early. Our punt coverage has been good. Our punt returns have been inadequate. We’ve got a great returner in Dazz, and we’re not doing well enough to give him a chance to get field position. That’s something that we can do better. Ben Kiernan is punting much better, so I like that. Ruggles can make a 56-yard field goal, he makes them in practice, but again we don’t protect on the right side and get it blocked. So those are mistakes we can’t make. The seven plays that are difference makers in a game, we’re not making.

The other thing, I’m not really sure why, but we’ve been atrocious in second quarters. We’ve scored 13 points and given up 41. And that makes no sense to me. I thought it was even more first quarter, but it’s not, it’s second quarter. We’ve come out and been pretty even after we make adjustments at halftime. And then the fourth quarter, we’ve scored 45 points to nine. But we seem to always be in a hole and we’re digging ourselves out. Those are all things that we’ve got to do better. There’s still too many injuries. We continue to look at why. I think it’s because we don’t have enough depth and guys are playing too long, and these four teams have been very physical. All four games, they’ve all spent a lot of energy, they’ve all come down to the end like we said. So we’ll keep looking at that. It hurts us short term and I hate it for the players that can’t play. Long term, it helps you because you’re forcing young guys to go out there and play. They’re probably not ready but it doesn’t matter. So that’s why recruiting is so important to us. Freshmen come in next year, they’re going to have to play. It’s just what it is in our program right now. So if you want to play, guys, come on. We’ve got plenty of room. In fact, if you’re available Saturday, we can use you on Saturday.

As far as Clemson, how exciting for our university and our program to have the defending national champ and the No. 1 team in the country coming to Kenan on Saturday for ABC national TV game. They have the best program in the country. They have the best coach _ head coach and coaches in the country. They have the most depth in the country. I started looking at our scouting report yesterday, all the people that break them down: first-round draft choice. This one, first-round draft choice. This one, first-round draft choice. So they’re for real. And they’re so good. I don’t think the quarterback’s ever lost a game in his life, and that’s not good, because that’s pretty good. I didn’t go back and check middle school but I bet he won then too or elementary school, whenever it was. He’s such a great player. And you can also see Kelly Bryant’s a really good player, but you can see why Dabo made the decision he made last year. This guy’s the best in the business. I mean, he’s tall, he can run, he can throw. He’s a great leader. So he’s got it all.

But the other thing people need to understand, sometimes when you’re that good and your players are that good, they don’t talk about the coaching. These guys coach them up. They play hard each week. They’ve got a lot of depth so they rotate people. I thought the heat affected Appalachian Saturday. It didn’t affect us, so we were in great shape. But it won’t affect Clemson, because they just roll them in. One comes out, the next one comes in, it looks like his brother, the same looking guy. But they’ve recruited that well.

Our program is run very much like Clemson’s. Dabo and I have been dear friends for many years. I’ve watched his program closely. I’ve pulled for him. Woodrow McCorvey is an assistant athletic director in charge of football and one of my dearest friends, and he does a tremendous job. So these guys do it right. Like I said, they’re recruiting better than anybody else in the country now, so it’s not going away soon.

From our standpoint, we want to be the Clemson of the Coastal. I mean, they are the best team in the country, they’re the best team in the ACC. They’re dominating the ACC, and all of us are trying to catch them. So one of the good things this weekend for our players is when you play the best in the country, it’s a great challenge for you. With challenge, there’s opportunity to see how we stand up to them. The other thing is, if you’re going to win this league, you’ve got to beat them. So it sends a message to our players and our coaches about what the best team in this league looks like and what you have to do to compete to win an ACC championship.

I’ve loved the atmosphere in Kenan for our two home games. It’s been better than I remembered at any time. The fans were great Saturday even when we got behind and were not playing well. They were great at Wake Forest on the road. I remember that crowd like the old days at Wake Forest. So fans, I appreciate you, you’re doing great. Just hang in there with us. You keep giving us 100 percent, the guys will keep giving you 100 percent, and we’re going to keep giving you 100 percent as coaches. One of these days, hopefully pretty soon, we’ll start having a lot of fun. But with a new staff and a young team, we should be getting better each week. This thing should be working this way (gestures up) and not this way (gestures down). Because we’re on the front end, we’re not on the back end, and I think that’s very important for us to note.

How big of a challenge is it to get players to believe after the past two games?

I think it’s hard, just because of the situation we’re in. And two losses, and our guys are really smart. That’s not a good thing this week. They can see how good these guys really are. But they’re going to want—we always face the best out of every other team. Clemson faces the best, too, because kids get excited about playing someone that good. And they want to see how they live up to it. Plus your guys that are trying to get to the NFL, this is a game that the pro scouts watch. They want to see you against the best, so our guys will be challenged this week to step up.

Outside of having excellent players, what has Dabo done to keep his program rolling?

He’s made them believe. We went through the same process that he’s going through. First if you don’t win all the games at home, you’re not any good. And when you win all the games but one, you can’t win the big one. And then, they called it Clemsoning or some stupid thing, that he can’t win them all, he’s just winning 12, which everybody in the world wanted but him. And then when you win them all, you’re a great program but you’ve got to do it every year.

So the pressure on them is they cannot take their foot off the gas at any time. And the rest of us are trying to get back to that. And I remember it at Texas, you play the best effort from every team every week. And people have come in and say, ‘Ah, North Carolina’s no good, they can’t beat you.’ Dabo’s going to say, ‘These guys played hard, they were good enough to beat Miami, they were good enough to beat South Carolina, obviously they’re good enough. So we’ve got to really be ready to play’ and all that. But he’s right. This is a week where the guys are going to play, they get ready to play.

What are your program's similarities to Clemson's, and what made you decide to follow that blueprint?

Well, Dabo came to see me before he ever took the head job, full job. Coach Gene Stallings is his mentor, and Coach Stallings is a dear friend of mine. And Woody McCorvey and I have known each other since I was the receiver coach at Southern Miss, he was the defensive backfield coach at a high school in Pensacola, and we recruited one of his players. But we’ve been dear friends ever since. Woody’s been a head coach, but he was the assistant head coach for Coach Stallings at Alabama. And Woody and Dabo brought the whole staff to visit with us for three or four days when we were at Texas and things were going really well.

Coach Stallings and I were a lot alike anyway, a lot alike, in our thoughts and process. So we just believe in the right things and the same things and do the same things. Not that anybody else doesn’t do a lot of those same things, but it’s just Dabo and I have kind of grown up together. And I spoke to his charity a couple of years ago. He was the first to text me when my name popped up with this job, he said, ‘Are you really going to do this?’ I said, ‘I’m going to ask the NCAA, I’ll do it, if I can petition the NCAA to get you off our schedule. I do not want to play you.’ And he laughed, and now here we are. So obviously the NCAA didn’t cooperate.

What can you point to as the things that separate a program like Clemson or yours at Texas?

Yeah, players, and therefore depth, and therefore morale. When you’re beating everybody, everybody gets to play. I think they’ve played 111 people or something. So everybody gets to play.

All the moms are happy, all the dads are happy. Nobody gets hurt because they don’t even play very long, in a lot of games. We had all of our starters out usually after the first series of the third quarter in most of our games at Texas when we were really good. And I mean, everybody’s happy. And everybody’s fresh, because they don’t play that much.

One thing you have to worry about is conditioning. They don’t play enough in games, you’ve got to run them in practice. But that’s the biggest thing. And then when you keep winning, you’ve got happy players, you’ve got happy mamas, you’ve got happy dads, and then you’ve got happy recruits because they come down to see them. And everybody’s happy because everybody gets to play. I think that’s the biggest difference in the rest of us. The rest of us are trying to find enough healthy guys to get out there every Saturday, and these guys just roll them in and out.

Do you have any concerns with anything you might be missing in scouting and evaluating opponents?

No, if you look at App State, the only thing you didn’t know is what Ted Roof was going to do. You knew what Eli was going to do because he was at NC State last year as offensive coordinator, but Ted hadn’t called them in a couple of years, so you weren’t really sure what he would do different. We knew they wouldn’t show anything against Charlotte or against East Tennessee. They could beat them without a lot of energy and they could beat them without showing a lot. We knew that. So we knew we’d see different things.

When you look at Wake Forest, their offense is very, very difficult for a new defense to see because of that slow ride up inside, the fact that they’re so unique, they’re more like a military school with their running game. And that makes it really, really hard on your defense to prepare for one week.

When you look at Miami, you had entirely new coaches. You knew pretty much what Manny would do on defense, but you didn’t know what they were going to do on offense. Did they do at Alabama what Nick wanted or did they do what the new coordinator wanted? He hadn’t been the boss for a couple of years.

South Carolina was kind of new with their offensive coordinator, too. So I really think all of our coaches working together new and we’ve seen new things, unique things, in each of our four starts is probably one of the reasons we’ve started slower.

Is there anything else you can point to in the slow starts?

You know, our starts haven’t been as bad as our second quarters. If you look at it, I think 33-27 has been the score at the end of the first quarter; we were ahead of Miami 17-3. It’s that second quarter that’s killing us and that makes no sense to me. I mean, it makes none; I’ve never seen a second quarter that’s as miserable as ours, so that’s the thing we’ve got to look at.

The other thing we have to think about is, the more injuries you have, the simpler you get because you’re playing new guys so you’ve got to really simplify everything you’re doing. Really and truly, Phil and Jay can’t be who they want to be right now — they’ve got to be what we can understand. With our injuries on the offensive line, we’ve had to simplify so much and take out a lot of protections and do what they can do best.

Even on the first sack touchdown against Sam, that’s the backside tackle not hinging when he didn’t have anybody or that’s protected and we throw the ball away or have a big first down. Instead, it turns out to be a touchdown for them. Those are things we can correct; it’s a redshirt freshman offensive tackle who hadn’t been in that situation before.

Is four games enough to have an explanation for the second quarters?

No, no. If you’ve got one, ‘Please, anybody with suggestions, send ‘em to me.’

I think if we knew it, we’d correct it. For four weeks haven’t, so that’s why I took a synopsis of the first four games yesterday and said, ‘OK, let’s figure out what have we done in these four games where we’re happy with two and really sad with two others.’ Kids played hard, they did what they’re supposed to do. Now, what’s the difference in winning? I think the biggest thing is we’ve got to do a better job of making sure we continue to sell the players on fundamentals.

We shouldn’t have a corner inside with a quarterback keeping it outside. That, we can correct. We’ve got to get more pressure on the quarterback; don’t know that we can do that, we’re trying. We’ve got to strip more balls. Well, when you’re fighting to get to the ball and fighting to hang on and make a tackle, you’re usually not thinking about stripping, so we’ve got to figure out how we can do those things better.

We’ve been taking care of the ball so well that hasn’t been an issue, then that came up three times on Saturday. What you’ve got to do is, again the Clemsons of the world and the Texas when I was there and Tom’s getting it back, you can make all those mistakes and still win the game and nobody noticed them. We just can’t make mistakes right now; we have to be perfect in what we’re doing and that’s our job and that’s what I told the coaches. If the players aren’t getting where they need to be, to me, that’s coaching; that’s on us. We’ve got to teach players about momentum changes and, ‘Why couldn’t we stop Wake Forest and App State the last drive?’ That’s our job. We’ve got to get out and stop them, so what can we do differently in those situations to have somebody step up.

Our theme is ‘Be the one,’ well, ‘Be the one to make that stop, be the one to step up, be the one to excite them in the second quarter.’ But we’ve got so much stuff on us right now it’s hard to pull out the second quarter and say, ‘OK, where does this fit in priorities, because we’ve got a big list of stuff we’ve got to get fixed.’

The offensive line is young. How would you evaluate their play against App and looking ahead to Clemson, potentially without Charlie Heck?

I though they did a good job. At times, we ran the ball really well, we didn’t run it consistently well. They’re all freshmen, sophomores or redshirt freshmen and sophomores; there’s not a junior on the team on the offensive line, which is kind of strange and there were only two seniors and that was Charlie Heck and Polino, and both of them have been out.

So what we did was really challenge the offensive line to just be better at what you do. The other thing is Stacy Searels and Phil are trying really hard to limit the number of protections or any protections that really put a guy one-on-one in many cases and it hurts Sam and it hurts Phil in our play selection because it really limits some of the things we’d like to do in our passing game, for sure.

I thought, we had two sacks we gave up on Saturday, maybe three? Still too many, but it was better. We’re starting to do a better job and I think the biggest thing is that we are who we are. Every snap that these young guys get, they’re going to get better, so hopefully at the end of the year, this offensive line is a whole lot better than it was Saturday.

After Saturday’s loss how do you get your team mentally prepared for Clemson?

When they see film, they’ll be mentally prepared, because they’ll be excited to see the best team out there. Practice yesterday was great and they’re excited, so that will not be an issue.

Playing them will be an issue, but getting ready to play them will not be. The pregame talk this week will not be a big deal. Clemson will give us the pregame talk by what they’ve done on the field.

On being a 28 ½ point underdog

I think they’re real good. I don’t remember ever being that big of an underdog, but it is what it is.

How much do you use being an underdog?

What I do is focus more on us. To me if you focus on Clemson then you focus on App and then you focus on Wake, and every week you’re trying to get a chip on the shoulder. This is not a chip on the shoulder school. We need to be a great program; we don’t need to be a chip on the shoulder. That’s hard to sell here. I didn’t come here because we haven’t ever been any good, this place should be great. What I’m preaching to our guys is, ‘Let’s worry about us. If you constantly talk about who you’re playing, then you’re not getting better. We need to play better as a team, regardless of who we’re playing.’ I don’t want a team that plays up and down.

One thing I’m really proud of is these guys have given us everything they’ve got for four straight weeks. I’m really proud of that, that’s hard to do. Most teams can’t do that, especially when you haven’t had a lot of success and especially when you’re not very deep. I don’t want to coach a team that doesn’t try every week and I’ve told them that. I said, ‘If you’ll give me all you’ve got, we’ll learn to win; that’ll happen.’ So far, they’ve done that and I think we’ll see that this week.

How much will it help to be at home?

I think it helps. Clemson had been pretty good home and away. I don’t think it bothers them very much and in fact, they’ll have so many fans here, that’s what happens when you’re that good. Everybody gets on board, everybody is on that train and that train is rolling.

What’s the first step in closing the gap that Clemson has over the whole conference?

Recruiting, period. They’ve got better players than everybody else and I don’t want to take away the fact that they coach them so well either.

When you look at Clemson, sometimes you just see great players; you see great players that are motivated and being coached and they know what they’re doing. They’ve got a very good plan on offense; you know what it is, they know what it is. They’re going to run it up inside until you put enough in there to stop them, then they’re going to throw to 6-4 and 6-5 receivers that are first-round draft choices outside. Then, if you stop trying to tackle one of the best backs in the country then the 6-6 quarterback that can fly just happens to keep it and runs out the back for about 30 yards.

On defense, Brent (Venables) coached against us in the Oklahoma-Texas game, so I’ve known him for a long time and he does a tremendous job.

Clemson has been smart. They built the best facilities in the country because it was important to them. They’re paying both offensive co-coordinators $1 million-plus, they’re paying Brent, I think, $2 million or something. They’ve made it really important to be good and stay good and you have to compliment them for that.

You were here in the 90s when Florida State dominated the ACC. Is there a parallel to what Clemson is doing now with maybe a better overall league?

Yeah, that day we played Florida State out here in 1997, I thought they could have beaten maybe a handful of pro teams; I mean, they were that good on defense. (Chris) Keldorf got hit 12 times, knocked down seven at least, maybe sacked seven. It was a 20-3 game and we were as good as they were on defense, but we could not block them and Clemson is in that role right now and all of us in this league have to do everything we can do to get better and catch them.

But they’re better than anybody else in the country; it’s not just the ACC. They dominated A&M. They dominate everybody; that’s just who they are right now.

Is Sam doing a better job of getting down or is he still taking too much contact at the second level?

I thought Saturday he did a great job on the zone read we ran for about 20 yards, he got down. He’s being much smarter there. He’s also getting out of the pocket better; we’ve worked really hard on the scramble drill and he hit a couple of balls as he was running.

I thought, other than getting caught up inside with a couple of sacks, he’s really doing a good job.

Sam is so good; he doesn’t gripe about anything. He doesn’t gripe about the offensive line, he doesn’t gripe about somebody not blocking anybody. He’ll get so when he gains confidence, he’ll address it more, but right now, he just plays. He has absolutely no excuses and as I said before, he plays like this all the time. Wants to win, competes but he’s not going to show bad body language, he’s not going to be yelling at kids in a bad way on the field — he’ll encourage them — he’s as special young guy.

In terms of forcing fumbles, have players been in the right place to make big plays or are they not making plays because they’re out of position?

It’s all over the place. It’s interesting that we broke more tackles on Saturday. I think we broke 17 tackles and we missed 15, so they missed as many as we did. Still, when you’re missing tackles on plays like we did on play after the interception on the screen, four or five plays in a row, we didn’t tackle anybody; you sure can’t get any strips. They were in the right place, they just didn’t tackle. On the 31-yard run by their tailback, we’re in the hole and then we get too wide. We had a safety inside-out and all he has to do is knock the guys to the side and that’s when you can get balls knocked loose. He’s a great back and he faked us out and comes back inside and runs for 31 yards down to the 1.

I think it’s kind of all over the place. We’ve had to take every play as an individual play and not say, ‘As a team we’re doing this.’ The other thing you can’t say is, ‘As a team, we’re missing tackles,’ because some guys aren’t missing tackles. What we’re saying is, ‘Collectively, here are things we need to improve. Some of you are doing these things, but not as a team.’

I said once, we got beat in a big game at Texas where we didn’t play well at all. I made the statement in the dressing room that, ‘You guys quit; you just quit. Makes me sick, makes me want to throw up,’ and I slammed the door and I walked out.

I got home that night, Coach Royal, the legendary coach from Texas called and said, ‘Not very happy, are you?’ I said, ‘No sir, they quit.’ He said, ‘No, you’ve got to be really careful. Maybe a few of guys quit; address them. Your team never quits, so don’t tell your team that they quit because you’re addressing everybody in that dressing room and you’re going to be really embarrassed when you get home tonight and watch that video and some of those guys busted their tail and played as hard as they could, so don’t ever say that again.’ I think that’s true. What you do is you address the guys that aren’t getting it done and then you look at, if it’s effort, you usually challenge them but you put somebody in their place; you can’t have a guy that’s not trying. If he doesn’t know what he’s doing, I’ve always said that’s back on the coach and when our coaches say, ‘If he’d only,’ I said, ‘He didn’t, so either change the defense, change the play or change the guy, but let’s don’t play the what if game. If he didn’t, he didn’t and there’s a reason. Is it us, is it teaching time in practice, is it technique or is it him?’ You have to make this thing very, very simple and work through it.

It’s been nine years since Clemson has been here. Would you favor a nine-game conference schedule so teams play more often?

It is what it is. In the Big 12, they play everybody and then they have to repeat a game for the conference championship, so is that good? If last year, Texas beats Oklahoma but then Oklahoma beats Texas in the conference championship game, so who comes out on top? Oklahoma ends up being conference champs. The middle game doesn’t mean as much as the championship game when you’re probably going to have the same teams play for it every year, so that’s what’s confusing.

I do miss Colorado-Nebraska, Oklahoma-Nebraska, Texas-Texas A&M; I do miss those games. I thought it was really strange playing Wake Forest out of conference, because I’d never done that before. Everybody at ESPN calling, all my buddies, kept saying, ‘What’s this? What’s this about?’ When you explain it, it makes some sense, but I think it’s modern-day conference realignment and it’s changed and it takes away a lot of those key rival games.

I’m seeing a little bit of a trend that people are going back and trying to play some of those games now, even though they’re not counting as a conference game. I think Colorado and Nebraska played a couple weeks ago and that was a huge rival for Colorado, at least at that time. I think Nebraska and Oklahoma are going to play again so I think people are trying to bring back some of those classic matchups that we’ve missed because of conference changes.

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