What Mack Brown said after loss to UVA: ‘We didn’t have them prepared’
All week leading into Saturday’s game against Virginia, UNC football head coach Mack Brown warned his team not to eat the cheese in a trap game in Chapel Hill.
But it seems as if everyone ate the cheese and now, UNC finds themselves 6-1 on the year. The loss does eliminate any hope UNC would have at making a run to the College Football Playoff and dents their hopes at a New Year’s Six Bowl as well.
Following the game, the Tar Heels talked about what happened out there in what felt like a game where they had no juice from the start. And head coach Mack Brown and the coaches took responsibility.
Brown told reporters that the coaches didn’t have the team prepared.
“A disappointing loss for us obviously, congratulations to Virginia. They coached better than us, and they played better than us,” Brown said via Inside Carolina. “When you give up 228 yards rushing and only rush for 143, usually you’re not gonna win the game. And we had chance after chance, but I think you’d have to say that we as coaches didn’t prepare them very well. We’ve talked about the poison cheese and we ate it.”
Let’s take a look at what else Brown had to say.
Rest of opening statement
“And so we didn’t do a very good job with them tonight. We didn’t punt the ball well. Offensively, we were inconsistent and we didn’t score in the red zone when we needed to. We were only 4-of-13 on third downs. They were 8-of-18 on third down. We had our chance to win the game twice late and didn’t do it. So I mean, again, on critical plays, they made the plays and we didn’t.
“So proud of the six wins, disappointed tonight… It was not a great effort. Kids tried hard, we just didn’t make plays, not like we have been. So now we’ve got to go back to work and go to Georgia Tech next week.”
via Inside Carolina
On what was missing from the team
“I think the edge is probably it. You don’t drop that many balls if you have an edge and the problem is some did and some didn’t. There’s some that played great and that’s what we’ll see when we look at it. Some played their hearts out and are really disappointed and some who weren’t as prepared and didn’t play as well. And this is a team game. You see upsets all over the country every day and it’s just disappointing. When you see it, you try hard for seven straight days to make sure it doesn’t happen. And then it does and that team (Virginia) didn’t have any confidence coming in because they hadn’t played very well.”
Via Inside Carolina
On why loss is on coaches
“Because it’s our job. It’s our responsibility to make sure. These are 20-year-olds, and their lives are like this (up and down). We’re supposed to do the things that we need to do to get them excited to give them the edge and put them in the right positions and we obviously didn’t do any of that tonight.”
via Inside Carolina
On where UNC goes from here
“Yeah, I’m really excited that we’re 6-1. And that’s one of the best records that we’ve ever had at this school at this point. I’m not gonna let this ruin what we’ve got going. We’ve got a really good team that didn’t play very well tonight. So we’ve got to get back to work and try to be 7-1 next week.”
via Inside Carolina
