Mack Brown reveals how DeAndre Boykins exemplifies UNC's new defensive approach

Mack Brown isn’t satisfied with how North Carolina played in their Week 0 victory, but he did single out Tar Heels defensive back DeAndre Boykins during his post-game press conference with some praise.

While Brown’s squad found victory, he recognizes there’s plenty of work to be done to reach their full potential. Still, Boykins received a rousing compliment, where his coach revealed how he exemplifies their new defensive approach.

“He loves to play,” began Brown. “He loves to complete. Our players came out and decided what they wanted to be. They wanted to be passionate, they wanted to be accountable and they wanted to be tough. He’s all three. That’s really important. If you look at it, Storm Duck hadn’t played in a long time. Dontae Balfour hadn’t played. So there’s a lot of guys out there that hadn’t played. Noah Taylor, we’ve never seen. So three sacks is good. We expect more.

“I do think that we’ve got some work to do, but those defensive staffs never had a game together. Coach [Gene] Chizik hadn’t called defenses for five years. So I will, I think we’ll all see a tremendous amount of improvement in a short time, because I knew they weren’t very happy there, in that late second quarter either.”

Next up for DeAndre Boykins and the Tar Heels after defeating Florida A&M is a date with Appalachian State. North Carolina will be hoping to stay undefeated and avoid upset in Week 1.

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Continuing, Brown addressed the defense’s performance during the opener’s postgame. He said they had some positives but would need to improve based on where they started with this weekend’s effort.

“I’d rather shut everybody out. They’ve got good players…They’re a talented offensive team,” said Brown. “I was disappointed that we didn’t get more pass rush but we had three sacks. I think we gotta get better on defense. We’re not gonna walk out there and shut everybody out.”

The Tar Heels paired their three sacks with three additional tackles for loss, 63 total tackles, three pass deflections, an interception and a fumble recovery. Overall, the defensive statistics show an active, productive outing. However, the Rattlers totaled 335 yards of offense and three touchdowns.

North Carolina’s schedule will only get more difficult from here. While he wants to see better from his defense moving forward, Brown gave a ton of credit to Willie Simmons’ team for their offensive performance.

“We knew nothing about this quarterback. I thought they had a good game plan,” said Brown. “They didn’t go deep, they were gonna get it out of his hands, and they were gonna run a little zone read. I thought they did a good job.”