GoHeels Exclusive: Monday Notebook

By Pat James, GoHeels.com

Reflecting on North Carolina's 43-41 six-overtime defeat against Virginia Tech on Saturday, Mack Brown said he determined that loss is among the toughest he's suffered in his 41 years of collegiate coaching.

As hard as it was on him, it also took a toll on his players.

"We had a loss earlier in the year," Brown told reporters on Monday, "and I walked in, they were all laughing and cutting up and, and I said, 'This isn't right. If you're laughing and cutting up and OK with the loss, then you probably didn't put enough into it because it's got to hurt you.' And, and on their way home Saturday night, they were devastated. I walked into this room and they were whipped. They were just, 'Come on, come on, man. What do we have to do to win a game? And I felt the same way. …

"Usually seven plays in a game (determine the outcome). This one had 10 or 15 that we win the game if we make any of those plays. So, that's what I told them. 'Let's (not) feel sorry for ourselves. Let's play better and get rejuvenated here for Duke. We haven't had a good record against Duke the last seven years. I think we're 2-5. So we need to pick it up and start worrying about next week.'"

Before facing the Blue Devils at 4 p.m. Saturday at Kenan Stadium, Brown held his weekly press conference on Monday. Here are five notes from what he, Jay Bateman and Phil Longo had to say:

2-point talk

After failing to convert on both its mandatory 2-point tries in the fifth and sixth overtimes on Saturday, UNC is 3 for 6 on 2-point plays this season. The three successful conversions are tied for the second most among FBS teams, but the Tar Heels obviously wish one of those came against the Hokies.

"We had a 41 percent chance of making it on Saturday," Brown said, "because analytics give you what your chances are against the team you're playing each week – whether they're right or not, that's what they do. But we've still got to improve in those areas. I thought when we got Michael Carter one-on-one in space, that's pretty good. I'll take those odds, and the guy tackled him out there. But that's something we can still improve on, especially with the new rule with overtime."

Longo explained his playcalling on both 2-point conversions.

"I rolled the dice with the quick pitch and they tracked Michael," Longo said. "I was upset about not getting the facemask call, which was obvious on that. But from a playcalling standpoint, I rolled the dice on it. We didn't get it. They tracked Michael. You would expect or try to influence it inside. Watching film, he got influenced with run-action going the other way and we thought we'd get the edge kind of like we did earlier this season; I think Miami we ran something similar, not quite the same play.

"And then the shoot route in the end zone, I don't know that we ran that well. That was there, we had a 2-for-2. It did not open up. They undercut the route. Sam (Howell) had to scramble because the route wasn't there. That was the second 2-point shot."

Longo said the offense practices 2-point plays regularly. Because of the new overtime rules, he figures that he takes a few more 2-point plays into each game than he did in past seasons.

Bateman also detailed how his unit approaches defending 2-point conversions and how it held up Saturday.

"We have a handful of things we kind of go to," he said. "I kind of tell them going out, 'I'm calling this because I'm expecting this.' The first 2-point play was a red zone coverage alignment that we use a lot. And I thought we did a really good job. Storm (Duck) made a great play.

"And then the second one, we kind of thought they'd be in quarterback run and credit to them, they blocked us a little better than we got off blocks and we kind of got one of our best players free at the ball and just didn't get a tackle. So, I think we were in the right call both times, they just executed better than we did."

Clock questions

Among the most-discussed topics after Saturday's game was clock management. Brown heard some of the criticism about that and addressed it on Monday.

"There were some question marks with time management right before the half," Brown said. "They had an inexperienced quarterback in the game with a bad leg. So, we did not want to give him more time. We wanted to press him. I thought by calling timeouts to try to save time for us, we were allowing them, with him with a sore leg, to do a better job of organizing how to score. So, that's why we hold those timeouts in our pocket.

"Time management at the end of the game, I'm always going to hold the timeouts in my pocket, if I can. They were fourth-and-1 1/2 with a running quarterback who we hadn't stopped. There was probably a minute and something left in the game. They were lining up to go for it. We didn't know if they were going to try to pull us off or go for it. I didn't want to stop the clock and give him a minute left, if he makes the first down, to go down and kick the field goal and win the game.

"But with our timeouts in our pocket – we had three – and 38 seconds from 75 yards away is plenty of time to get down and get a field goal because you've got your whole playbook. You can throw the ball across the middle and call timeout. In college football, 38 seconds is longer than you think because you make a first down and the clock stops, unlike the NFL. You get out of bounds. Phil was conservative at that point. He checked with me; he had a pass called and it was a quarterback draw if the quarterback didn't like the pass. So, that's why Sam ended up running the ball.

"But you want to save all your timeouts. You've got to have one left now because of the 10-second runoff. That changed coaching, for sure. You can't be without a timeout in your pocket because the 10-second runoff can lose the game for you. But you never want to have 10 on the field, nearly a delay of game. I didn't think the field goal was going to be a delay of game – that was in overtime – or I would've taken our timeout there. But you don't want to waste your timeouts."

Kicking changes

Brown praised Ben Kiernan for his performance against Virginia Tech. The freshman averaged 39.6 yards on seven punts. Four had to be fair caught, one was downed inside the 20-yard line and his longest went 52 yards.

"For a freshman, he and Drew Little, the snapper, both were committed by Coach (Larry) Fedora when we got here," Brown said. "I talked to Larry the other day and he asked how they were doing. It's unusual to sign a punter and sign a deep snapper; I'd never done that except for Justin Tucker – he's the only guy we signed ever at that position. We always took walk-ons, and the ones who played the best ended up getting scholarships.

"In this case, Ben has sure been worth his scholarship. We should've gotten another ball inside the 2 that Javon Terry got his feet in the end zone and batted it out. That was a great kick, just a great punt for us."

Brown said last week that Michael Rubino was dealing with a sore leg. The graduate transfer from Appalachian State kicked off after Carolina's first touchdown on Saturday, but after that kick was received at the Hokies' 6-yard line and returned 21 yards, Jonathan Kim handled kickoff duties the rest of the game. All five of his kicks resulted in touchbacks.

On Monday, Brown said Kim, a walk-on freshman, will continue doing kickoffs. He'll also kick field goals.

"We're 10-of-16 on field goals, three of those being blocked," Brown said. "But still, we've got to do a better job. When we get down to that last-second kick, we've got to make it."

Recruiting momentum

Due to NCAA rules, the coaching staff can't talk about specific recruits until they've signed a national letter of intent. But Brown said on Monday that "we're having a fantastic recruiting year."

"People can see we're really close," Brown said. "They can see it's happening and they're wanting to be a part of it. So, we'll get more depth in the future and, hopefully, better players each year that we recruit.

"I remember Woody Durham sitting on the other end of the field one night when we were struggling when we first got here and he said, 'So, what do you think? Are we going to be OK?' And I remember saying, 'It's not if anymore. It's when.' And that's the same thing I would say now. We're going to be good – and we're going to be really good. This train is taking off. I'm really excited about where we're going."

Bateman said Brown is a significant reason why UNC is experiencing success on the recruiting trail. He added that it also helps being at "a really cool school."

"And I think when you've got a really great school and you've got a really great head coach, kids are attracted to it," Bateman said. "And our fans have been awesome. The home games have been awesome."

Bateman also discussed what is resonating with defensive recruits.

"When you walk down that hallway, you see some of the people who play defense here, it's pretty impressive," Bateman said. "And Coach Brown has made that known to recruits that you can come here and be as good as anybody. Two of the best players to ever play this game went here, and played defensive end and outside linebacker.

"We were recruiting a safety, and he was talking with Coach Brown in his office with me, and Coach Brown says, 'Who is your favorite player?' And he says Earl Thomas. And Coach Brown says, 'Yeah, I coached Earl Thomas.' It's just like, 'Hmm, pretty cool.'

"When we get them in with Coach Brown and he can talk about his career and what he's helped kids do, and you look at the academic reputation of the University of North Carolina and how great the fans are, the commitment to facilities, I just think the momentum is really special and will continue."

Scouting Duke

Duke enters Saturday's game at 4-3 overall and 2-2 in the ACC. The Blue Devils are coming off a 48-14 loss at Virginia on Saturday, but Brown said his team shouldn't expect a similar showing.

"They're usually going to take care of the ball and they're usually going to kick it well and punt it well and they're usually going to make sure they have the fewest penalties in a game," Brown said. "They're coming off a tough game with Virginia because those things didn't happen for them last week. And my experience is that we're going to have to pick it up because we're disappointed with a tough loss and they're going to pick it up because they're disappointed in their performance on Saturday at Virginia."

Longo said David Cutcliffe's team "is going to be one of the very best-coached teams that we play this whole season."

"You can tell they're coached hard and they're a high-effort, high-pursuit football team," Longo said. "They squeeze space well. I think they play a lot of people, especially in the front seven. They play a lot of multiple coverages. They'll play three or four different coverages, but look the same pre-snap.

"One of our coaches made the comment, 'It looks like we're watching NFL film.' And it does. When you watch NFL film, there's a lot of standard alignment and then they're going to play a multitude of things after the snap. That's really how we view Duke. They do a really good job of disguising man and zone and box coverage and invert and those things, all out of the same alignment."

Bateman said Duke shows multiple looks on offense, as well.

"I texted (Army head coach) Jeff Monken yesterday, who I used to work for, and I said, 'Duke's running the double-slot stuff," Bateman said. "And he goes, 'Really?' And I had told him a couple of weeks ago when I first watched it, I said, 'It's their second-most used formation behind empty.' That's pretty good coaching right there when you can get that done.

"They are very multiple. They do a really good job. I've been defending them the last few years. I've had some good days and some bad days. Hopefully, we'll have a good day on Saturday."

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