RALEIGH, N.C. – North Carolina lost 39-20 at NC State on Saturday night to finish the regular season with a record of 8-4.
The Wolfpack dominated the first half, scoring on every possession and going into halftime up 26-7. After scoring two touchdowns on NCSU’s first two possessions of the second half, the game was effectively over. The Tar Heels lost every facet of the game, including a 3-0 deficit in turnovers, while allowing 504 yards and committing nine penalties. Drake Maye finished the game 22-for-38 for 254 yards, with two touchdowns and two interceptions while rushing for 106 yards. Omarion Hampton was held to 28 yards on nine carries. Cedric Gray led the UNC defense with 17 tackles.
Read and watch everything UNC head coach Mack Brown said after the game…
“Congratulations to Coach Doeren and NC State, they played great. I obviously prepared our team very poorly. I thought it was very similar to the game against Virginia. We were terrible in the first half – worse than ever before. “We saw each other. We were terrible offensively. We did some good things early on defense and then stayed out too long and let them score.
“Just before halftime they had 12 on the field. They didn’t know there were 12 on the field. They said there is no 10-second runoff in a replay. I’ve never heard that before, but that’s how it is.” Somehow the night passed.
“Give them credit. That’s entirely up to me. Without the head coach doing a bad job, you can’t play as badly as we did in the first half. And of course I had prepared our team poorly.”
“I’ve had a lot of disappointments, it would be hard to sit here and evaluate them, but it’s in the group.”
Given the circumstances and given the opponent?
“It was bad.”
Did you have a feeling beforehand that something wasn’t right this week?
“No. We had a whole bunch of guys that were injured so we didn’t put pads on and that obviously wasn’t a good decision. I mean, we couldn’t practice because we had so many guys getting banged. “We didn’t know how many we were going to play tonight. But that’s no excuse. Everyone is – it’s late in the year, so it’s part of the deal.”
Offensively, Drake didn’t complete the pass until the second quarter –
“I don’t know it. I can’t answer it. I have to check it out. I saw it like you saw it.”
“I don’t think there’s a common thread. I’m always looking for ways to win more than eight games, and we have a chance to win nine more in the bowl game – which is pretty good here. But it was great.” Game against Duke two weeks ago, three weeks ago, whatever it was. So we played against a good team tonight. They are hard to beat here and they played better than us.”
“No, I thought they tried. I prepared this team poorly for the game, otherwise we wouldn’t have looked so bad. And that’s me and a group of assistant coaches – that has nothing to do with the kids because they did their best.” ruins the second half. So that’s it.”
“I don’t know it. We slipped and they didn’t. So …”
KC Concepcion, a dynamic player who had to be stopped. What was wrong with him, or even the in-game customizations didn’t seem to add up?
“I don’t know it. We just didn’t do a good job.”
Why did Drake retire late in the game when the result was decided after it appeared he was injured? Did he just say he wanted to go back in?
“Yeah, that’s Drake’s toughness. That’s just who he is. We wanted to keep him out and he wanted to go back so we let him back in.”
“I don’t know… We didn’t tackle well. I thought it was really throwing the ball more than the other guy – Brennan Armstrong did a great job. We didn’t put pressure on him and he scored everyone. They were all open and he made some great throws. So I have to give him a lot of credit. I thought he played really well since he came back. I bragged about him on Monday because it’s hard for a kid to come to the bench and come back and do what he did. Like I said, this kid is really a tough kid and a confident kid and he did a great job tonight.”
“It probably ended up not being a desirable schedule, but that was done last February and is out of my control. So I can’t say anything about it.”
What happened to the rushing offense tonight where Hampton ran for a total of 28 yards?
“We were so far behind that we couldn’t make it. He didn’t touch it much tonight.”
What’s next?
“They’re going to have the Finals and they’ve got to do that, we’re going to get a few guys healthy, and we’re going to get back into the strength program and figure out where we’re going to go (for the bowl game) and start. “I’m getting ready for that to play better.
“Yeah, it’s going to be a huge week – they start on Monday and every coach is going to sit down with every player and say, ‘Are you going to the NFL? If you’re in that spot (which is expected to be drafted), what happens?’ What does that mean for you? Change? Will you play in the bowl? Are you going to get out of the bowl? If you transfer, will you play in the bowl? That’s why we’re going to ask all these questions this week.
Did you get a sense from Drake – do you think he made a decision one way or the other?
“I didn’t ask him. Drake wanted to win the game. So he hadn’t even talked about anything else.”
“Yes, at the end of the year I ask our players to be honest with us and I always ask our assistants to be honest with us. If you are looking for another job, let me know. ‘Cause if you look, I’ll I’ll look. And I still have a lot to evaluate, so I’m going to look at everything we have and that will happen over the next month.
I think we touched on this last week.
That was the statement from (their communications director) Jeremy (Sharpe).
Yes, I plan to come back. I hadn’t even thought about it until you guys brought it up. Raised every year. If you’re 72, that’s normal – you can just write it down. It’s the Thursday before the last game before recruiting starts, because everyone that’s competing against you – and you all had a dead day, you had to write something, so it all fit in there.
So for the sake of clarity: You’re coming back?
Yes.
Are you expecting any personnel changes?
I just said, if you listen closely, that at the end of every year I sit down and evaluate everything. And if we had won the game we wouldn’t be asking the same questions, I understood that. I’ve been doing this long enough to understand it.