Mack Brown: UNC has an upside we haven't even scratched
North Carolina pulled off a come-from-behind win against rival Duke this weekend defeating the Blue Devils 38-35 thanks to a go-ahead touchdown pass from quarterback Drake Maye to receiver Antoine Green with 16 seconds left in the ballgame. Tar Heels head coach Mack Brown is happy with the play of his squad and believes they’ve improved since the start of the season.
“They’re playing really hard to the standard I want now, we didn’t at the first of the year all the time, they’re playing with confidence, they didn’t get bad body language and give up,” Brown said. “But we’ve still got so many things we can fix and we can play so much better, and that’s the fun part of this team.”
Their win over Duke extended the Tar Heel’s win streak to three games, all to conference opponents, which has them sitting as the No. 1 seed currently in the ACC Coastal division. UNC may be rolling right now, but Brown still believes there’s room for growth for his team.
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“There’s an upside here that we haven’t even scratched and we’ve got to continue to get better in the running game, we got to continue to not take sacks, we’ve got to stop the run better in the first half,” Brown said.
There may be room for improvement for the Tar Heels, but their offense has already reached amazing heights. North Carolina’s offense is the number one in total yards and points per game in the ACC, putting up an average of 506 yards and 41.7 points per game. They also have the conferences most lethal passing attack, led by Maye’s conference-leading 2,283 yards in the air and nation-leading 24 touchdown passes.
The Tar Heel’s defense hasn’t exactly been their strength, but they have been playing winning football, led by linebackers Cedric Gray and Power Echols who rank first and second in the ACC in total tackles.
The good news for UNC is that they now head into their bye week, getting some much-needed rest and extra preparation for their next opponent in Pittsburgh, as they look to continue to put the conference and the country on notice in two weeks.
“So there’s just boxes that check and it’s easier to do it with two weeks now before we play Pitt. We’ve got a lot of things we can work on but we do have their attention,” Brown said.