Mack Brown on 2022 season: 'Absolutely see the chip on our shoulder that we've created'

Mack Brown believes his North Carolina squad has a chip on their shoulder for the 2022 season.

The Tar Heels were among the most disappointing programs in the country last season, and their coach knows it. However, joining Greg McElroy on the Always College Football show, Brown stated that North Carolina is extraordinarily motivated entering the 2022 season.

“I absolutely see a chip on our shoulder that we’ve created,” started Brown. “We had it the first two years. We lost it last year. For whatever reason we sat there, and I could feel it, but we couldn’t do anything about it.

“You know when you’re sitting here as a coach, and everybody thinks that you’ve got coach speak anyways. People say, ‘Well, you’re eighth in the country.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but we don’t deserve that. We haven’t earned it.’ And then you don’t want to tell your team you’re not any good. That’s a hard thing. Then you don’t want to lie to the public, but I could see in practice. There just were things that weren’t working and weren’t as good. I wasn’t happy.”

Moreover, Brown saw the writing on the wall from the beginning, as the season was a whirlwind from the moment Enter Sandman blared through the speakers while facing Virginia Tech on the road.

“Virginia Tech on the road is a hard place to play, and then we get a center hurt. Then the second center sprains his ankle on the first part of the first quarter,” harkened Brown. “So, it was just a year that we had everything happened good for the first three years. We lost some close games, but last year it was our fault. We should’ve done better.

“Greg, we’ve got to win games on the road. That’s something new programs have to do. We haven’t done that well. And we’ve got to win close games. We won all the close games at Texas. And we haven’t done that since we’ve been here. So, those are the two things that we’ve got to do to take the next step to where we want to go.”

While Mack Brown possesses immense disappointment for the performance of his program last season, he knows what North Carolina needs to fix. With a chip planted firmly on their shoulder, many will be watching to see how the Tar Heels respond in 2022.