Mack Brown Interview

It might have been the most optimistic I've been during this entire pandemic. Watching college football in Montgomery, Alabama over the weekend. Watching Austin Peay play and it went down to the wire against the fighting Scottie Pippins at the University of Central Arkansas.

And it has us all ready for the return of the AC. And we're being joined now by the head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heel football program. It's the Hall of Famer Mac Brown who's now with us. But before we get to all that, I got to know how did you celebrate your 69th birthday last week? A happy belated birthday to you. Well, Josh, I got to practice with our team, which is always fun. That's the team and staff are about 150 to 200 of my football family. And then all the guys saying happy birthday to me after the practice. So very few people have a party that good, especially with the pandemic. And then at 730 at night, I had a zoom with all the grandkids. And that was so much fun that we all talked about the pandemic, what we were doing and how we're partying differently than we did before. And so and what we were looking forward to doing as soon as this was all over.

So it was it was a lot of fun. Let's talk about some of the players that you call your football family. And obviously, one of the guys you've been asked about a lot this offseason is Sam Howell. And I remember in the spring, we were talking about, hey, what's the next step for for Sam to take in his progression as a quarterback? You've had you've given him some pretty high praise during fall practice, looking at the way that he's grown. Now that you've seen him, what do you think is the next step for him to take in his second season?

When you start looking at Sam, he's so driven. He's so committed to football, he really doesn't have any hobbies outside of football. It's about his faith and his grades. He's well over a 3.0, academically after a year. And he's just passionate about football.

He's over here every day, he's studying video. He's talking to coach long though and, and he's becoming a lot better leader when he gets more confidence and settled. The other thing I think we'll see from him, Josh is he's, he's gotten more flexible, he's lost some weight because he couldn't run a lot last year with a sore ankle and a sore knee, and we didn't have experienced backup. So I think we'll see him make a lot more plays with his feet and scrambling and throwing this year than we did last year, which is really exciting for us. How does high school football in the state of North Carolina being played in February going to affect the way you recruit?

I'd imagine you have a chance to watch more of these kids, no? Well, I was very disappointed that it got moved back simply because in my 40-something years in coaching, I've always loved checking those scores on Friday night and having Friday night football and all the guys that were recruiting were so excited about playing. So I'm glad they're playing, but it's disappointing that it did get moved back, number one. Secondly, the NCAA right now, the rules are that we have a dead period in February. As soon as the second signing date's over, we cannot go out. So since the North Carolina schools are starting to play February 22nd, let's hope that they'll change that rule so people can come and watch our guys play. Mac Brown with us here, Tar Heel head football coach.

Their opener against Syracuse is September the 12th, and it's so close, coach. And I've told people in radio, usually we spend the month of August just really getting hyped up about the football season. But there are a lot of football fans who are apprehensive in doing so because they don't know a lot that you might be privy to about how safe the parameters are and how solid things are. The testing three times a week, I think, is going to be a pretty big deal. You talked about how big the 24-hour testing is. So now that you have the platform here across the triad, what would you say to a college football fan who's still concerned it might be unsafe for college players to be playing football right now?

First, I would say, Josh, that we've got a lot of medical experts that are looking at this in so many different angles. If anybody felt it wasn't safe for players, for staff, then we wouldn't be playing. Secondly, we've been practicing football now for a long time, more than two weeks, and we feel like that the football part is very safe.

We have not had one positive test come out of football practice or our meetings because we've learned how to do this. We're separating in our meeting rooms. We're social distancing when we get on the field the best we can. We're wearing masks. We're wearing shields. We have their individual water bottles where nobody touches their water bottle but them.

We have all the doors open so they don't have to open and close the door. And we have sanitation, hand sanitizers everywhere. We're sanitizing anything in the weight room that's touched. So I really believe that the people around the country are doing a great job of ensuring the safety of these young guys so we can play football. And our problem's been across the country with students and with football players is when they stay in their bubble, they're fine.

When they go outside of that bubble and they go eat or they're in a group, a large group, whether it's church or a party or a concert, then you're more likely to get the virus. So we've told our players if you want to play this year, and they do, then what you need to do is make sure that you don't have a social life this year like you've known it in the past and that you have to stay around the football players and you have to wear your mask and wash your hands and social distance where you are. So I think that's the biggest thing. And right now our players are doing that, Josh, because I think it's also important for fans to know that we've told every player if you do not feel comfortable coming to meetings, and staff member, if you do not feel comfortable playing, and you want to opt out, opt out for any reason and we'll pay for your scholarship for a year. So I think the guys that are playing are excited about playing and if the fans across the country could see the guys practicing at all of our schools, they would see the excitement and joy that the guys have because they love to play and they can't wait to play in two weeks. Talking about the adjustment of a social life, how would 19, 20-year-old Mack Brown either at Vanderbilt or Florida State had handled it, you think?

I don't know. I probably wasn't disciplined as much as I'd want these guys to be at that time, Josh, but right now the 69-year-old me and Sally, we are basically quarantined our house. We come here to the office, we're around the kids, we're around their coaches, and we go back. We haven't eaten with anybody, we haven't been out, so we're being very, very careful because what an awful thing for me to be out socializing, catch the virus, and take it back to our team.

So I'm trying my very best to make sure that I keep Sally and I at a very low risk so we won't hurt our chances of playing. It's North Carolina football coach Mack Brown with us here on Sports Hub Triad. I'm always interested, Coach, in how coaches talk to their teams about goals, setting expectations. Last year you said, we want to be a winning football team, we want to go to a bowl game, and you did that. In the spring you were talking about, this year we feel like we can win the Coastal Division. Well, now the Coastal Division isn't a thing in 2020, and I'm looking at, without the Big Ten and without the Pac-12, if you adjust the AP preseason poll, you'd be the number 12 team in America, and it seems the door is opened up for you guys to potentially be a title contender. Do you talk to your team about that, or do you look that far ahead? Josh, we have our goals in place every year regardless of what changes, and number one, we tell them not to put any stock in preseason polls, because that's basically going off what happened last year, and returning starters.

We haven't proved anything yet. We also have told them our number one goal is to win the opener, and then we would like to beat all the teams in North Carolina that we play, and then you continue that to it would have been the Coastal, and now you want to have a right to play for your conference championship, so you could get to the playoffs and then have a chance to win the national championship, and that's who we are, and that hasn't changed. The only difference would be that the Coastal is not part of that this year.

I want to close on this, talking about why things are different, and the fact that the Coastal no longer exists. You're a big fan of college football more than anything else. You love the history of it.

I love picking your brain about the history of it in our past visits. So I'm interested in what you make of Notre Dame being in the league, and not only that, Notre Dame being on your schedule this year, because as long as you've been a coach, correct me if I'm wrong on this, I've looked at the years that Notre Dame's played Texas in North Carolina, and even Tulane or Appalachian State going way back when. Am I wrong that you've never faced Notre Dame in your coaching career? Number one, I have not, so this will be exciting, and we actually play them the next three years. We've got them in Chapel Hill twice and once in South Bend, so that'll be a wonderful experience for our players and our fans. Number two, they're one of the better brands in college football, and they do it right.

They go by the rules. They have great young people. I'm a fan of Brian Kelly and the type program that he runs, and they're really good every year. So I love them being part of our ACC plan this year, and I think it'll bring more exposure to us. I would also love that they join the ACC because of who they are and what they are and what they stand for, and everybody in America would feel the same way.

So Notre Dame's just a great brand and something that everybody would be proud of when they're associated with it. We're less than two weeks away from your season kicking off. Did you get a chance to watch some college football Saturday night? I did. That was so exciting. What'd you think? I think that's the best rating that Central Arkansas and Austin Peay will ever have. There's no question about that because it was a fun game. It was good for our staff.

I challenged them to watch what was going on on the sideline and look at how people were handling the game, and no fans in the stands or very few. So I just felt like that this is something that was kind of a little preview of what we're going to be looking like in two weeks, so it was good to see it. We look forward to watching football this weekend.

I don't know about you. I was worried about it. Like, okay, what's it going to sound like without fans? My expectations are so high for college football. And then even though there were only 2,000 fans there, it reminded me a little bit of high school football, and I love high school football just like I love college and love the NFL. So it really exceeded my expectations. I know you're piping in crowd noise because you guys aren't going to have fans for the first month of the year, but did it exceed yours?

Josh, it really did, and we were talking about it this morning. I got into the game, so I didn't even realize there weren't fans there. So I'm hoping that's what happens. We've had our two scrimmages in the stadium without anybody here, and we told our players this is what it's going to be, so you better bring your own energy. Because we had such a great advantage last year with our fans at home that it was a real home-filled advantage, and we're not going to have that this year. There will be no home-and-away differences, so teams are just going to have to get ready to play and play because they love it and enjoy it. Josh, I would like to say, too, that I know we're about ready to get off, but 70 percent of our season ticket holders have either donated their money this year or rolled their money over for the tickets for 2021.

So 70 percent. I'm not sure anybody else in the country has done the same, especially when we're not allowing them to come to the games in September. So thank you, North Carolina fans. You stood up last year, and you did a tremendous job.

You're doing the same this. That's tremendous. Thanks for sharing that with us, and thanks for sharing your time today. Good luck preparing for the Orange. We look forward to watching, Mac. Thanks, Josh.

You got it. That is the head coach of the Tar Heels, Mac Brown, spending some time with us. And since I'm in the college football spirit, I put together, Robert, my top 10 teams of the college football season coming up this year. You got the AP poll, but as Coach Brown said, that's based on a lot of things that have to do with last year versus what this season's going to bring. So I got my top 10 college football teams of next year, and I'll tell you who they are ranked next.