Tar Heels don't talk much about the past, but perception is helping to shape present motivation

Brown, Carolina know who's picking against them every week

Gambling is among the most unforgivable sins in sports, but rest assured, Mack Brown usually has an idea of the point spread.

“People always bring them up to you,” he said. “Obviously, we don’t gamble, we don’t touch it. I never think about a point spread during a game — people have asked me that before — because you can’t; it’s just not the deal. Usually, you’re aware.”

And all of that stuff that coaches try to spin about not caring what anyone outside the locker room has to say about the team?

Not at North Carolina.

“What we talk about is who the experts think are going to win more than the point spread itself,” Brown said. “You always look to see, ‘Who do the people out there like?’ Kenny Browning, coming in this morning, heard Mark Packer and Mark Richt pick Wake Forest, so I told the team that today; ‘Here’s Mark Richt, who’s a really good football coach and he’s done a lot of great things and he saw you beat his old team last week and he picked Wake Forest. I hope he’s wrong.’”

Brown said that the Tar Heels have quickly built a culture of honesty since he returned. He’s been around too long to think his players don’t see what’s being said and written about them. With a 24/7 network dedicated to the conference, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, it’s impossible to ignore, even while trying to avoid it.

With that in mind, Brown believes he can turn that sort of thing into motivation for his team, although, it’s not necessarily tough to find it for a team that went 2-9 last season, consistently had its toughness questioned and went through a coaching change.

“When you have struggled like they have the last two years and people have been so critical of them, I think every day is a ‘Chip on your shoulder’ mentality,” Brown said.

Now, the challenge is keeping that chip there after a surprising 2-0 start, where the Tar Heels have become one of the darlings of the college football world thanks to Brown’s folksy style and a few scrappy comebacks.

For all the love they’re getting on the studio shows and in highlights, Brown reminds his players that those same commentators and analysts didn’t believe in them before.

“I told them, ‘You were told you couldn’t beat South Carolina and you did. You were told you couldn’t beat Miami and you did. Now, you’re an underdog to Wake Forest, everybody is saying you’re not going to play hard, you’re not going to be good,’” Brown said. “That’s the challenge.”

The new Air Raid offense has produced points and highlight-reel plays while Jay Bateman’s aggressive, attacking defense has come up with big stops when it needs them most, but more than anything, Carolina has looked like a football team with renewed energy and focus this season.

Brown said that he and the staff don’t talk extensively about last season. Instead of telling players what they hoped to adjust and improve from last season, they instead focused on the new standard — regardless of what happened in the past.

Still, it’s hard to imagine Carolina would be in this position without the past shaping the perception of the present.

"The biggest thing we try to do is, I tried to explain today why the Mark Richts of the world would pick Wake Forest and let them understand this is real stuff," Brown said. "‘People don’t think you can play with that much energy and toughness three weeks in a row. Wake Forest is a team that has very minimal mistakes; they do a great job of coaching. So, if you’re not as ready to play as you were the last two weeks and you make mistakes, that’s how you get beat in this game.’"