'I am confident that we will play': Mack Brown ready for season after UNC moves online

Despite UNC’s decision to move all undergraduate classes to an online-only format, the North Carolina football team is still gearing up to play this fall. 

“Most of our guys were online anyway so yesterday’s announcement doesn't change much for us,” head coach Mack Brown said in a press conference on Tuesday. “And at the same time, play football. There’s going to be a time here where we’ll be kicking it off against Syracuse, and you do not want to be the guy who wasn’t prepared because you had so many distractions.” 

On July 8, UNC athletics announced 37 positive COVID-19 tests among players, coaches and athletics staff members. Since then, the University has not released testing results within the athletic department. Four players — junior Bryce Watts, senior D.J. Ford, sophomore Javon Terry and redshirt first-year Triston Miller — opted out of the season in response to COVID-19 trends, UNC announced on Aug. 7. 

The team was proceeding as usual at practice on Tuesday, even with the uncertainty at UNC and across the landscape of college football, Brown said during the press conference. 

“This was our best practice because they were upbeat and they had fun,” he said. “I think they see that there’s a great chance we’re going to play.”

The Big Ten, Pac-12, Mid-American Conference and the entirety of the FCS, NCAA Division II and Division III postponed their respective fall sports seasons before any games were played. 

Brown said he has been told the plan is still for UNC to play, even with the University’s decision to achieve “de-densification” in on-campus housing and facilities. The team’s first game is slated for Sept. 12 against Syracuse in Kenan Memorial Stadium.

“That’s not my charge, there’s a lot on my plate and that’s not one of them,” Brown said. “I was told we’re moving forward, and most of them were online anyway. We’ve still got our graduate students that are going to class, but like I said, I’m excited that we’re still moving forward.” 

The University’s decision to move to online-only classes could help keep the team safer and create a bubble similar to the NBA restart in Orlando, Florida, Brown said. 

“Not going to classrooms, that helps us create a better seal around our program and a better bubble,” he said. “The NBA model is working, they’ve had very few distractions and that’s what we’re trying to do. Make sure that our players and our staff understand that we’ve got three months here where we cannot go outside for social reasons or to eat or anything else if we want to have our football season.” 

Brown, now entering his 32nd season as a head coach, said UNC will continue to test its players once a week on Monday until the season starts, at which point testing will shift to either Wednesday or Thursday. 

Brown said he doesn’t expect the four reported clusters among students in Chapel Hill to derail the plan to play football.  

“Number one, I am confident that we will play and our people have moved forward with that thought,” Brown said. “Number two, I’m a little surprised that people are surprised that students are going to have some positives. I mean it’s happening everywhere in the country.”  

“Everybody on our campus I see is wearing a mask, and we’ve got 19,000 students and 150 have shown positives, I thought that was a rather low number for initially coming back,” he said. “When there is publicity like we’ve gotten, now they’ll be more careful. And it gets better faster than if you get comfortable with it. You cannot be comfortable with this virus.”

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