Mack Brown spent offseason focusing on key area at UNC: red zone offense

Despite having some talented teams with excellent quarterback play in his first three years at North Carolina, Mack Brown‘s Tar Heels squads have been plagued by inconsistency in one key area: the red zone.

UNC’s offense simply hasn’t been great at turning red zone trips into touchdowns.

In Brown’s first three years in charge of the program, the Tar Heels converted 100 of 154 trips into the red zone into touchdowns. That’s a little less than two of every three trips resulting in seven points. Not bad, but certainly not elite; the Tar Heels’ touchdown conversion rate ranked in the 80s nationally in 2019 and 2021, while it ranked No. 15 in 2020.

So far this year, the Tar Heels are trending more toward that 2020 result, thanks to a huge emphasis placed on red zone scoring this offseason.

“We have worked so hard on being more physical and moving the quarterback in the red zone,” Brown said. “That was one of the keys to improving our offense. We scored a whole lot of points. But we’ve also kicked too many field goals in my estimation.”

With new playmakers emerging, UNC staying dangerous

One of the biggest challenges for Brown and his Tar Heels this season is simply finding new guys to carry the load offensively.

Gone is star quarterback Sam Howell. So too are several of the receivers that made his life easy and helped him throw for 10,283 yards while notching 109 total touchdowns from 2019-21. Those weapons helped mask some red zone inefficiencies, even though, as noted above, the numbers and Brown both show the execution could have been better.

“When you had Michael (Carter) and Javonte (Williams) you were just scoring anyway,” Brown said. “And you were scoring a lot of points from Dyami (Brown) and Dazz (Newsome) out in the field and it wasn’t as noticeable last year.”

All that said, UNC sits at 2-0 in 2022 in large part because of its red zone execution so far this year.

On paper, the Tar Heels rank 28th nationally in touchdown conversion rate, though that stat is obscured by a drive ending in the red zone as time ran out in a win over FAMU in Week 0. For all intents and purposes, the Tar Heels have been perfect in that crucial area of the field this season, with all eight non-garbage-time drives entering the red zone hitting pay dirt.

Continued execution of UNC’s red zone offense vital

There’s always room for improvement, though.

Even if the numbers from UNC in the red zone have essentially been perfect so far, Brown isn’t content just yet. One third-quarter drive against Appalachian State sticks out to him.

“If we had scored a touchdown after (Cedric) Gray intercepted the ball on Saturday, the game probably wouldn’t have gotten back close,” Brown said. “But we kicked two field goals in a row that helped them cut the lead.”

Sure enough, after Gray picked off a pass up 38-21 with two minutes to go in the third quarter, UNC’s ensuing offensive drive stalled out at the Appalachian State 24-yard line.

The Tar Heels went into the fourth quarter leading 41-21. And though you’d think that would be plenty big enough a lead to coast the rest of the way, a wild fourth quarter that saw 62 combined points scored showed otherwise.

Brown also pointed to settling for a field goal instead of a touchdown in last year’s 34-30 NC State loss as a pivotal moment in the game. He wants to see continued execution in the red zone going forward.

“The whole point of emphasis starting in January of pure sacks, which we’ve done; pure tackles for a loss, which we’ve done; and score touchdowns in the red zone, and really they’re eight out of eight,” Brown said. “So we’ve got to continue to do that, continue to grow on it. But we have worked more on short-yardage, goal-line, red-zone situations, two-point plays than we’ve ever worked on because those are things that we had not done well in our first three years.”