Mack Brown, 'Players Expectations are High Like Our Fans and People Around the Country'

Chapel Hill, N.C. - Expectations are high in Chapel Hill as the Tar Heels open up the season 1-0 for the first time since 1996 during Brown's first stint as head coach of North Carolina.

Brown opened his weekly virtual conference with praises for defense and offense during the Heels victory stating that it's much easier to coach a victorious team.

Highlights from the conference below:

Immediate thoughts post-game:

I felt like after reviewing the game that it's exactly what I thought on Saturday. It's the perfect opener for us because you wanted to stay healthy and, and we were able to do that, and at the same time, we've got a lot of things to fix. So a lot of positives should gain some confidence, but you can coach your guys so much harder. Usually, after a loss, they're down, and they're struggling, and you've got to pick them back up. Their expectations are high, as our fans and like college football people across the country.

Offensive Notes:

Offensively, we played 31 players throughout the game. We had the 463 yards, 31 points; all came off of drives. We didn't have many short fields. The one shorter field was a punt return by Dazz Newsome 5-5 in the red zone for those touchdowns. The other one, we threw a fade that was out of the back of the endzone. Then Sam has to scramble on second down; he had sacked on third down. That's the only time we kick the field goal and don't score. I do think the second quarter that was probably scored so quickly in the first quarter, that the guys probably felt a little good about themselves figured it'd be an easy day. Still, at the same time, we didn't have the ball, and the Syracuse front and secondaries were good.

Defense Notes:

I think we've improved on defense because of our confidence, our depth, and we're stronger in the secondary. We've got more people who have played, and they're more confident and can play more man coverage. And when you get pressure as we did, you don't have to cover as long. We would like to see more force turnovers. We had one fourth down stop on the Tomon Fox's tremendous play on the zone read with the veto. And that's like a turnover. But also we only had the one other turnover, which was the interception by Gio Biggers.

Players of the week:

Players of the week Chazz Surratt could be the player of the game every week but the defensive coaches went with Tomon Fox because he was so disruptive up front. The week's offensive players were both running backs (Javonte Williams and Michael Carter) because they're as good as anybody. Those two guys are outstanding. They block, they catch, and they're very unselfish. We're very proud of them. Our special teams Player of the Week was Dazz Newsome.

Ratings:

Anytime we see the ranking, I told them after practice yesterday, you were ranked 12th and 11th. Good for you. Congratulations. You did that because you finished well last year, and you were ranked that way because you played well Saturday and beat an ACC team by a large margin. The only way that stays is you keep doing that. And you have to keep doing it week to week because people still aren't sure about you. You're the new kid on the block. So they're going to wait and see; if not, then it's gone. We do not mention it again. Sunday and Monday are our time, or really Sunday, to discuss ratings, talk about college football, and the program's state. Afterwards, we say let's drop it and go to work.

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