University of North Carolina Athletics
Mack Brown Signing Day Transcript
February 6, 2019 | Football
North Carolina Football • February 6, 2019
Mack Brown Press Conference
National Signing Day
Opening statement
"When we started, you're not sure who your staff is, you're not sure the reception you'll get in the state or surrounding states, because we like to recruit from like at least (Washington) D.C. down through Georgia and Jacksonville, Florida and then start looking at great players outside of that. So you have areas that you look at, and in your first year you really just go after players, some who are coaches were aware of and some who had already been identified by Larry (Fedora) and his staff.
But I'm really impressed that the passion is greater today for recruiting than it was when we started than it was after the first signing day and even today. So I've really, really been impressed with this staff. Today was a tremendous day moving forward for UNC football.
We got the four guys who we wanted today who we expected to get. And we've got one more out there who we're waiting on. It's been a tremendous addition to what we started with, the 19 in the first go-around. I also want to thank the high school coaches. We had so much fun rekindling a lot of relationships with those guys. Some of them were students when I was coaching, some of them were young coaches, a lot of their dads were coaching, and getting to meet others.
But I can say 100 percent that the high school coaches were great with their hospitality and helped us as much as they could to catch up on where things are. High school coaches never send a player to you, but they also encourage a guy to look, and that happened with us. We were really excited about that.
I also learned we have a tremendous and passionate recruiting staff. These guys have worked so hard; they've worked their tails off. And they're way ahead on the 2020 group. People were asking me about 2020s and 2021s when I got here, and I said, 'I haven't even met our team. So give me a break, give me a little time here so we can get to know people a little bit before we start making decisions on what we're doing.' Because evaluation is the difference in the success that we have. You've got to evaluate the right ones that fit your place, and it's not just the evaluation of people who fit your place. And our place is unique, it's different, it's very attractive to those who fit here. So we felt like we've done that.
We've got a tremendous class considering a lot of people with early signing day lose the first class. You just don't get a class; you get a few players. And we've got a class. You'll see on your sheets that it's balanced pretty well by position. So we did not lose our year. In fact, we gained some really good football players and that will help us next year as well as going into the future. We'll watch the four new ones here in a minute.
Ten of the guys who we signed are from the state of North Carolina. That number will go up significantly when we're here for a year. And what we want to do is recruit the best players in the state of North Carolina. And if we're not getting them, we want them to go to NC State, to Wake Forest and to Duke and to East Carolina because we want them to stay in our state. That's where they were raised, that's where their families can go see them play, that's where their friends can go see them play and their high school coaches. That will be what we're pushing in every home in the state of North Carolina. Stay at home, play for your home state, and that's important.
And then we'll look for great players out of state, which we did when we were here before, and that formula really worked for us. Out of state is very important to us, but we're not going to take average players out of state. If they come here from out of state, they're going to be great players, and that works and they know that. And then they feel special when we come to see them because they also understand that we're not just out looking for anybody; we're out looking for the best players.
Thanks to our staff for their passion and the success in closing that they had in recruiting. Thanks to the high school coaches. I've been having a blast. We've had such a great time for the two years that we've been here. No, whatever weeks it is; it seems like two years sometimes. But we've been out working hard and having a lot of fun."
On Don Chapman
"Don is a young man who Jay Bateman had on his radar at Army. I think Jay and Army recruited every player in America, and Jay said now some of them will actually come. He met our team and he said, 'I know about 75 percent of you guys and when I offered you, you were nice. And then right after that, you never spoke to me again.' Don Chapman can play all five positions in the back end. We will start him at corner, but he can play nickel, he can play dime, he can play safety or either corner. He's got length with his arms and his height. He's got really good hands. He's got quick feet. I think he's really good.
He was recruited heavily by Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Washington State, and USC was in there to the end trying to get him to come. And he fell in love with the University of North Carolina when he came here to visit. I'm really, really impressed with this young man as a person and a football player. And he's physical. He can run the field and knock people out. See him coming right here where he runs over the running back from the corner. Physical. He doesn't have to stop, he doesn't gather. He hits him and makes the tackle. And he's very bright.
He's also a return guy who is very smooth. He's got smooth speed. He can stop and start. He's got really good instincts. When you can do this and it doesn't look hard, not a lot of people can do that. Most of them run into them. I also like him a lot as a person. I didn't think he'd come that far. I said, 'This is too far for you. You're going to have to go over a lot of good schools to get here.' And he did say – he's a confident young man – when he was in my office, 'I might surprise you.' And I said, 'Well, I hope you do.' And when I got to his house, he said, 'You didn't believe me, did you?' And I said, 'I'm in. I'm good.' So that was good."
"Ray Vohasek is a young man from junior college in Chicago. He's got three years left because he was a predictor out of high school. He's a very physical defensive lineman. He had a shoulder operation after the season, so he's down a little bit on his weight now. But just watch the passion that he plays with. He's quick off the ball, very powerful. Our coaches all liked him.
We also have a tremendous advantage with guys like Darrell Moody and Sparky Woods who can also evaluate video. This guy plays hard, and he plays hard every play. And he will give us immediate depth in the defensive line. You talk about a try-hard this player, that's what we've got. And he doesn't say anything; I mean, he's real quiet. In fact, I said, 'Ray, how did you like it?' And he nodded. He's very, very quiet, but he plays loud. You see he's got quickness, he's a good tackler. You can see the passion that he plays with there at the end after he makes the tackle. He'll give us some immediate snaps."
On Ty Murray
"Ty Murray is a big offensive lineman our of Carrollton, Georgia. He can play all five spots. He wants to play center, and that's what we recruited him for. He's really physical. I mean, this guy, I love watching him play. If I was that little corner, I think I'd duck, get out of the way, go around. Watch him here. That's a big guy, and he finishes.
As an offensive line, you're only as good as your center. You've got to be tough down the middle, and this guy's got toughness. And he loves to play. He's fun to be around. You can see he finishes every block. I know these are highlight films, but about every play he's doing this. He's got good feet. We saw him run, and he can pull. Again, I wouldn't want to play against him. If I was the high school coach, I'm not sure I would've showed our guys his film. And he can get to the second level. All these are pancakes. He fell in love with the place when he came. He's another good student."
"He came over from Africa to play basketball. He played basketball and then he started playing football. He's 6-8, 275 (pounds) and has great feet. He's only played one year of football, so there are some fundamental things he's got to learn. He's very, very bright. But we really enjoyed being around him. You'll see him run in this video. If you just think about a 6-8, 275-280 and that quickness. And he's really a fun young man. I come up to about his waist.
You see here he's a little high, so he's going to have to learn some things. He's got a learning curve that will take some time. But he will be a defensive player when he gets here to start with. The upside for Wisdom is so good. We've had tremendous success with Nigerian and African student-athletes. Look at his quickness. It's hard to believe a guy who is 6-8, 280 can run that fast. And he'll end up being 350. He's still thin."
On how class breaks down
"We did a pretty good job of spreading it out. Now our coaches will go through spring practice and start looking at what's next, where do we need certain players to prioritize who we are because we don't know yet who we are. We've seen a few offseason programs, but we haven't seen a lot. You also go back to Sam Howell. Since I've talked to you, he played in the All-Star game in San Antonio, the All-American game, and he had 167 yards passing, threw for a touchdown and ran for a touchdown. Asim Richards just got invited to play in the Big 33 game in Philadelphia, and that's a huge honor for those young men in the upper east."
On what else has been happening
"Our players love what they've seen with our offseason program with Brian Hess. It's been a tremendous reaction from them. He has said that all six of the early enrollees have gotten off to a great start and that they're good athletes and they're doing well. Tonight, when we get through here, we've got over 500 Rams Club members and season ticket holders who will celebrate our signing day up in the Blue Zone tonight. Our six early enrollees will come and get to meet the fans and be introduced. Our staff will be introduced and there's going to be a panel with some of our coaches. Both Phil Longo and Jay Bateman are going to talk a little bit about philosophy, and then I'll finish up at the end of it. Season ticket sales are going so well. There's a tremendous amount of progress, enthusiasm, excitement, right now. We've told people you better get on because this train is taking off. We're having a lot of fun."
On the process of recruiting a balanced class
"The thing you start with with the early signing day, because I've never done that before, is trying to figure out who you are, who is on campus, how do you get your staff, where are the players – especially the ones that you need because you're not sure of your needs, and you're also not sure who you're going to hire. Initially, you have to look at the ones you've already got committed. Are they guys who fit what you're doing? Because it's not fair to them to bring them in if they're not.
And the second part of that is how do you hire coaches and get out on the road immediately. I was hired immediately and I had to have a press conference, take a recruiting test and get on the road that night. So it's a little bit overwhelming because you have so much to do in such a short period of time. But we knew that we needed some defensive backs. We knew we needed some linebackers. We knew we needed more receivers because of the type of offense we're going to run; you'd like to have 12-14 and I think we had 10.
So we understood and we were lucky that we had Robert Gillespie on offense and we also had Tommy Thigpen on defense who could tell us a little bit about who we were and what we needed. We've had time to watch some video, but not a whole lot. And we had Corey Holliday here, too, who was around the players all the time. So some of those guys could help us and let us know what we've got. Just looking at it at the end, the coaches did a great job of moving around and trying to find guys in some cases who weren't highly recruited at some point but were really good players and in other cases just trying to flip somebody who was already committed."
On his thoughts on the early signing period
"When I was the president of the AFCA, we wanted early signing period for two things. We wanted it for early enrollees because they didn't have a signing date at that time and we also wanted to do it for legacy kids. So if you were only going to take one visit, then he could go ahead and sign. Well, the NCAA took it a step further and said everybody. So it's a little bit different than what the coaches thought. Now I think there's 80-something percent who sign the first time.
I think it's very, very unfair to new coaches. I was lucky because Bubba (Cunningham) hired me so quickly, but for some schools that the day before signing day or three days before signing day, it's impossible. You just lose a recruiting year and you have to start over after everybody's signed. You find the guys who don't sign early are really heavily recruited because you've got entire staffs recruiting four or five guys in that second group. It's a lot harder to sign some of the guys the second time because of the attention they draw. And if you're recruiting them, everybody jumps on them. So I would think that after signing day, it's really healthy and good for college coaches. But for a new coach, the early singing period is really tough. I don't know what we can do differently for that.
And now the other thing with the numbers is the portal and transfers. When you get here as a new coach with the early signing day, who is going to the NFL? Who is in the portal? Who is quitting? Who is transferring? You have no idea about your numbers. Even now, when we look at this bunch of graduate transfers, you've got a lot of people calling you saying, 'I'm in the portal. I'd like to come.' So you have to start evaluating that, as well. I think there's a lot of different situations that occur now than before without the early signing day."
On where the class is now compared to what he initially expected
"I think we're so far ahead of where I anticipated us being. I like our players. I've met for the last two days with about 30 of them, and I'm meeting with each one of them individually just to find out who they are and what they feel about our situation here. So that's been fun for me. I like our staff. You never know when you put a staff together. There's a reason you hire every one of them. But then it has to mesh with the other guys. So you've got to have good chemistry and at the same time, good discussions and good competition. So we don't argue and fight, but we have really good, strong discussions. And that's happening right now where we're getting into the offense and the defense. Evaluation, like I said, is very difficult. So one coach may love him and three don't like him, and then you're fighting over it and then I have to step in and make the final decision. But these guys have worked together really well.
Brian Hess has been a home run. He was a little bit under the radar at Army, and everybody we talked about was head over heels. He's individualizing each position with his strength program, and the players absolutely love him. I said, 'Well, he must not be working you hard enough. I've never heard of anybody who likes their strength coach.' And they said, 'No, he's wearing us out, but he's helping us get better and stronger and doing different stretches and he changes it up every day.' And we asked Brian yesterday, 'So you tell us how the players are responding to you.' And he said, 'These players have been as disciplined and worked as hard as the Army guys I had. Nobody is missing. They're all doing every little thing right.' So it's going to be fun now for our coaches to start working with them.
We signed a better class than I would've ever dreamed that first night I sat here and said, 'Oh, my gosh, we're so far behind. It's amazing.' So to be able to keep some staff and coaches, to be able to hire a new staff and coaches – Billy High was a huge hit for us coming in from Auburn. He's helped us get more organized for 2020. He wasn't as big a factor right now. But we're so far ahead. I'm excited about this class instead of like, 'Eh, we did OK.' It's fun and it's good. I can't wait to get out on the field. The offseason program that I've seen, I've seen some good-looking players running. I think we have a chance to be good. We've just got to coach them up."
On role of consultants like Darrell Moody and Sparky Woods
"First, Sparky [Woods] and Darrell [Moody] are senior analysts to me. Darrell and I worked together a long time, maybe 13 years or so, and Darrell was a pro scout in the NFL for 18 years. A lot of our success will be dependent on how well we evaluate. Well who better than a guy who's evaluated football players for 18 years? That's all he's done. To sit back there and look at every video of young guys coming in and he also has been so helpful with us because he breaks down all of our players and tells us exactly where he thinks they are. And then he can help the players by telling them, 'Here's where you would fit in the NFL right now. If you were in the combine, here's what you do well, here's where you're struggling. If you want to play in the NFL, you've got to do better in these areas. He'll also handle all the pro scouts. He'll handle Pro Day. He'll work with the other people we already have in place to do a lot of the NFL stuff with agents and such. Then he'll be an analyst for the offense so he'll actually break down the defense's video and a lot of people are doing it with really young guys. I thought we'd do it with some guys with some experience. They don't want to be called old, they want to be called experienced and that's okay. I can go for that because I kind of like the same thing.
Sparky — you go back to Sparky. He and I worked together at Iowa State, he and I worked together at Appalachian State. When I left there, he became the head coach at Appalachian, he became the head coach at South Carolina and he was the head coach at VMI. Recently, the running back coach at Richmond so he's recruited Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina for many, many years. And what Sparky will do, he'll do the same things that Darrell's doing. He'll be more involved with the special teams than he is offense or defense, but at the same time he's going to run all of our camps, all of our clinics, he'll work with the officials in the conference about the officiating and then he'll break down everybody's kicking game and talk to us about the advantages and disadvantages we would have coming in. But he as well as Darryl sits in that room with John Mark Hamilton who's high school relations and Billy High and guys that are on the road can send them video, have them break it down and give them an idea about an area coach — saying 'Yeah, let's get it to a position coach because I think there's something here that's important. I like this guy.' And they all separately evaluate every young man and what they're doing and that's so valuable to us.
Stacy Searels, I had for three years at Texas. I thought he was great — he wasn't good. He recruited the number one class in the country with our offensive line there. I'd already hired him from Coach [Mark] Richt once from Georgia, so when I got here he would have been the first guy I would have hired, but I didn't think I could call Coach Richt back. He's so loyal I didn't think he'd leave Mark to come so I didn't call him, and then when our guy left to go to Houston and Stacy was not working because Mark had resigned, that was easy for me. And he's another guy with seven years of experience at Appalachian State in this state recruiting so he's a no-brainer. He's recruited Georgia for Georgia and he's recruited South Carolina. He's recruited Virginia for Virginia Tech so it was an easy hire in my mind.
When we started looking at Scott Boone, I didn't know Scott. And Scott was at William & Mary for a long time with Jimmye Laycock, so he's recruited northern Virginia and the upper D.C. and on up the coast for many, many years. And then he went as the defensive coordinator to Nevada with Brian Polian and then he was the linebacker coach for Rich [Rodriguez] at Arizona when they got let go. So I started talking to people about special teams coaches and Jay Bateman was adamant that he needed a special teams coach that could also coach defense. And Jay has known Scott for a long time, so we felt like he was an analyst for special teams and offense at Wake Forest, but in talking to Brian Polian and Jimmye Laycock, all the guys feel like he's really, really good with special teams. And also he'll coach the outside linebackers now for Jay because they've known each other a long time. And we'll have Tim Brewster and some offensive guys involved with kickoff return and extra point field goal and then Scott and the defensive coaches by-in-large will do all the other special teams."
On how much fun he has had getting back into recruiting
"I had a blast. I think I missed it more than I thought I missed it because I didn't feel like I was out of the game because I've learned a lot more in the last few years than I did while I was coaching because I got to see what everybody else was doing. When you're in a place as the head coach, you don't look around much. You've got your little walls and you do what you do and you send your coaches out every now and then, but not a lot changes. I was able to see so many different things in those years and talk to so many coaches and that was good for me because I'm a better football coach today than I was the day I left Texas.
The second part of that is you don't ever know. Everybody talks about how hard recruiting is and 'Oh man, it's miserable and these kids narrow it down to ten and they change their minds,' and all that. We have a great time. Kids were good with us, high school coaches were good with us. We were honest with the kids — if you don't want to come, we'll go get somebody else. So we've had a blast. I'm having a lot more fun than I ever dreamed I would have because at the end of the Texas stint I didn't have as much fun because winning got so important.
Coach Royal told me at one time — who won three national championships at Texas —I said, 'Why'd you quit at 52 years old?' And he said the pressure to win got so big because we won the three national championships, he said, 'A win would become relief and a loss was devastation,' and that's what I got. We were 25-2 and I was mad all the time because we lost two and that's just not the way it should be. And I wasn't fair to those coaches and team. I remember beating Colorado one day 38-14 and walking off the field, I was so mad because that wasn't gonna beat Oklahoma and wasn't going to beat USC and that wasn't going to beat Alabama. The coaches are looking at me like 'Are you nuts? What's wrong with you?' So I'm back to having fun. We're gonna win, we're gonna work really hard, but we win any game — I'm going to be pumped because winning's hard. I'm not going to go back to that hole I was in."
On what has worked so well for him over his decade of recruiting
"Well number one, you've got to have a good product and we have a great product here. It's one of the best academic school sin the country, we have tremendous facilities. I get to sit and look out that window and there are blue seats in that stadium all day every day that I'm here and it's just so much fun to sit there and just look at where we're going to play. We have a state full of athletes where football is important and good football coaches so that starts it.
The second thing is I come in with a history of winning so it's easy to walk in there and tell the kids that 'Are you going to win Coach? How fast are you going to win?' Well, we have. They were 4-7 at Texas before they got there so let's look at recent history. It's been pretty good.
And the other thing is that we are really honest with the young people. We ask them hard questions and I think they appreciate that because recruiting changes so much depending on the staff and I want to go in and say 'Here's what we see that you can do for us,' because they want to know that. 'Why do you want me?' and then 'Here's what we can do for you. We can put you in one of the best academic situations in the country. You can get a degree from North Carolina that matters when you get in line to figure out where you're going to be in the job cycle. And at the same time, come and help us fix this.' Fixing things is more fun than — I used to use the word maintaining at Texas after we won so many games and that's an awful word because you've got to keep moving forward and when you win 13 — that's why we don't see a lot of people repeat as champions — it's hard to win 13 every year. And that's the expectation of you and your fan base and your administration at that time so we've got something here that we can fix that is very passionate to Sally and I. So they know that.
When you take Tommy Thigpen and Dré Bly into a home and it's a little embarrassing when they're sitting there saying 'This man took care of me. This man was hard on me. Here's what he told me. Here's what he did,' it helps and it matters because you've got Rick Steinbacher sitting right here that I recruited and he loves this place and he's passionate so he tells them 'Here's why I came and I came from out of state.' Tommy came from out of state, Corey Holliday came from out of state, Dré Bly came from out of state and all of them tell their story and they're still here. So it's either a four year decision or a forty year decision and with them, it's been a forty year decision that's worked. And I think that's what works for us."
On how much he pitches his success at Carolina to athletes who are too young to remember
"It's just like Julius Peppers. They know Julius Peppers. They go back and study Natrone Means and I've got all those first round draft choice pictures in my office and I say 'He was a first round draft choice and he was a first round draft choice,' and just go through that. But a lot of the current players have said, 'What was it like when you were here before? Tell us what happened.' And they've heard the stories of the Florida State game that the people were in the stands hours before the game and all of that. So there's a blueprint of what it can be and that's why we came back. We want to get it back to being better than it was before. So get it back to where we were, but now you can win a national championship here. We couldn't before because the BCS was more difficult, but Clemson has shown if you win this league and you can beat a team like Clemson who is the best team in the country, then you can win the national championship. And that wasn't the case before. It is now."
On how much easier his pitch is now due to his previous experience
"I think it's been a huge help. Not just a little help. The fact that the high school coaches either knew who I was or knew me. The fact that a lot of the faculty was here. In fact, a lot of the administrators on our campus were students when I was here before and they can go back and say '94 and I'll say 'Yep, I remember it.' And the fact that we understand the university has helped us so much. We know what is the right way to do things here and it's unique. It's different here. We don't fight everything. we understand who we are. Sally loves this place. She could have built four neighborhoods in the community, she's got more friends here than anywhere else in America so all those things are fun for us. It has been a true blessing for Bubba [Cunningham] to give us this opportunity because we didn't realize how much we missed it until we've gotten back."
On comparing North Carolina talent back in the day and now
"There's so many more players here now than there were before and it's because of the growth. Georgia's grown so much, all these places are growing, but Charlotte now there's players all over the place. And there were some players before, but not near like there are now and still I don't think people give credence to eastern North Carolina. There's so many players over there and a lot of people don't drive that far and I've been on some of those roads so I understand that. But we're gonna go find them again and like the guys that we had that were great players before, that there are a lot more players in this state now than there were. We had trouble finding offensive linemen the last time we were here in state and now they're all over the place. So I think this job is better now than it was when I left it before because of the number of players in the state. When we first got here last time, all the out-of-state guys were coming in and gettin' 'em so what we've got to do is make the in-state guys stay at home and we'll do that. And that's when we'll start being more successful."
On how signing five of the top-25 in-state recruits shapes his vision for the future of in-state recruiting
"I feel a lot of the young players in this state want to come to North Carolina and they grow up wanting to come to North Carolina. And it's our job to make this place special enough that — modern day, right now — that they can see themselves here being successful and that's why we need fans in the seats. I mention season ticket sales a lot. That's very important because we need it full for prospects. We need it full for our players to feel like the fans are all pulling for them, but more importantly, prospects need to see that our fans really, really care so that's something that we constantly talk about pushing.
But I think it's evident with the 2020 kids that they're all very interested and we're in on about every prospect in this state. In fact, I don't know of one that we're not right now and in some cases the kids wanted to come when we got here this year in November, but they'd already committed. And their parents felt guilty and they felt guilty that they'd given their word which I totally understood because I don't like flipping guys so the only thing we said is, 'Your situation's different. You've got different options now than you had two weeks ago so you're not changing your mind as much as you're looking at your options.' But I feel so good about our future because of the way that the in-state guys are reacting to us right now."
On whether he has an interest in changing the field from grass to turf like he did at Texas
"We've talked about it some. I can remember when we were here before that we had some grass issues and we had them at Texas and we changed to turf because we were going to have a fast team and also you never lose a game because of weather and I think that's really important. Bubba [Cunningham] and I are in talks about that possibility and I obviously like it."