Mack Brown gives first thoughts on matchup with Virginia

No. 10 North Carolina will try to remain undefeated and move to 7-0 this weekend against Virginia. While the Cavaliers may only sit at 1-5, though, Mack Brown isn’t going to let the Tar Heels overlook or disrespect them.

Brown had good things to say about Virginia during his press conference on Monday. First of all, he’s excited for the matchup considering what it means to both schools and how far back this series goes in their histories.

“Virginia is a great game for North Carolina. The two universities are so similar,” said Brown. “I know we’ve been playing for a long time.

Secondly, he turned his attention to the Cavalier’s leader in Tony Elliott. While he is just 4-12 as a head coach so far, Brown has a high regard for him not only based on what he has gone through as an individual but also because of the colleagues and friends that they have been together over the past few years.

“I’ve got great respect for Tony Elliott. His life story is unbelievable. If you haven’t read it? You should. He has overcome so many unbelievable things in his life to get where he is today,” said Brown. “I admire him, I respect him. He’s an outstanding young coach.”

“I’m a friend of his,” Brown continued. “He sits with me at the ACC Meetings because he said he’d been with Dabo (Swinney) so much that he doesn’t want to sit with him anymore. So I save a seat for him every year.”

As a Top-10 team in the nation, UNC could very easily overlook a Virginia team whose only win this season came before their bye against William & Mary. Still, with them coming out of an idle week, Brown anticipates that the Cavaliers will look to give them a game and knows they can if North Carolina isn’t ready to go on Saturday.

“They’re going to play hard, they’re going to play great,” said Brown. “Their record is not near indicative of how good their team is. They’ve had a chance every week to win. They won two weeks ago and they had a week off so they’ll be totally prepared. We’ll have our hands full coming in this weekend.”

“Virginia beat us four times in a row and then we’ve been able to pull it out the last two years. So this should be a great game this weekend,” said Brown.