CHAPEL HILL — No time for sugarcoating from Mack Brown.
The North Carolina football team’s search to uncover answers for the worrisome parts of its season-opening loss has had the Tar Heels coach posing pointed concerns and raising critical questions to his staff.
“We’ve had really hard discussions with our coaches about everything,” he said Monday. “And I asked the same questions fans asked.
“Why didn’t we have these few things fixed? Why do we have communication issues? Why do we have sacks? Why do we have penetration on offense? Why aren’t we separating more with our receivers and defensive backs on offense? Why didn’t we catch uncontested balls on both sides of the ball? Why don’t we have more sacks? Why don’t we have more turnovers? Why didn’t we get more punt return yardage?”
There has been a laundry list to address, analyze and assess while the Tar Heels work to regroup for their home opener Saturday night against Georgia State. North Carolina’s national ranking tumbled on Tuesday from No. 9 to No. 22 in the USA TODAY coaches poll, and from No. 10 to No. 24 in the Associated Press poll.
As the Tar Heels loaded up to depart Virginia Tech last week, Brown said uncomfortable days would be forthcoming around the North Carolina program, after the Hokies hounded star quarterback Sam Howell into one of his worst performances and delivered a 17-10 victory that sent waves of spectators storming the Lane Stadium field in celebration.
North Carolina arrived featuring their best preseason national ranking since 1997, their selection as the preseason favorite to win the Coastal Division in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and Howell’s status as one of the most visible players in college football. He was named ACC Preseason Player of the Year and is considered an elite prospect in the next NFL Draft class.
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Howell said Virginia Tech “played harder than us and really dominated us all night long” during his postgame comments immediately afterward. Brown said Monday if the rallying Tar Heels had managed to force overtime and eventually escape with a win “we probably wouldn’t be addressing things as hard as we are right now.”
Virginia Tech led 14-0 at halftime and 17-7 in the fourth quarter. It became an inspired effort from the Hokies, who feasted on North Carolina’s misfiring offensive line and swarmed Howell for six sacks. The junior Howell threw three interceptions for the first time in his 26 career games as the Tar Heels’ quarterback.
“If we had played a poor team at home and blown them out, you probably don’t fix things,” Brown said. “So it’s a shame we lost, but probably the best thing happened to us. We’re not the 10th-best team in the country. We got back down to earth. We’ve got a lot of work to do, and a lot of those things were exposed on Friday night that have to be fixed.”
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Brown and offensive coordinator Phil Longo said Monday that communication breakdowns along the offensive line have been identified as a primary area in need of improvement.
Brown blamed himself for the move that flipped Joshua Ezeudu (from guard to tackle) and Asim Richards (from tackle to guard) on the left side of North Carolina’s offensive line against Virginia Tech. Brown said the absence of Brian Anderson’s veteran leadership at center, where Quiron Johnson made his second career start, proved to be glaring. Anderson has been hampered by injury.
“We’ll probably go back and move Josh back inside (to guard) and Asim back outside (to tackle),” Brown said, “at least until Brian gets back. That was part of the communication issues, I think, and that’s my fault. I think our best offensive lineman is Josh Ezeudu, and I thought he would be a superstar at tackle.”
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Howell didn’t duck the shouldering of responsibility or hesitate to evaluate himself in a clear-eyed manner as the Tar Heels began to digest their season-opening defeat Friday night.
“I think at times I was getting frustrated and I was trying to do too much,” he said. “They were doing a good job on defense. We made a lot of mistakes and I just feel like I just tried to do too much at times. I was pressing a little bit, just trying to make a play, and I ended up putting my team in a bad position.”
Moments later, Howell added: “We won’t let this game define us. I’ve got to get better personally. There’s a lot of things I could’ve done better in (Friday night’s) game, and I’m going to get better. My team deserves better from me and I’m going to give that to them. So that’s just kind of our mindset moving forward.”
Adam Smith is a sports reporter for the Burlington Times-News and USA TODAY Network. You can reach him by email at asmith@thetimesnews.com or @adam_smithTN on Twitter.
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This article originally appeared on Times-News: UNC’s search for answers after season-opening loss starts with Mack Brown’s hard questions
