Mack Brown: UNC going remote helps seal football team's bubble

North Carolina coach Mack Brown downplayed the university's shift to full-time remote learning as a result of rising coronavirus cases among the general student body, saying the move does not affect the football team in any tangible way.

If anything, he believes it will help. Brown said in a call with reporters on Tuesday that his team had a spirited morning practice, noting his players "see there's a great chance that we're going to play."

"Even with not going to classrooms, that helps us create a better seal around our program and a better bubble," he continued. "The NBA model's working. They've had very few distractions and that's what we're trying to do is 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 season."

On Monday, North Carolina announced all undergraduate courses would be moving online after various clusters of coronavirus infections started occurring -- one week after the university began classes. The university announced Tuesday that 177 students are in isolation, with another 349 in quarantine because of potential exposure.

Brown said most of his players were already doing online classes, and pointed out they are used to remote instruction because that is all they have done since March.

Asked how it was safe to play football when being on campus is not safe for the student body, Brown said, "That's not my charge. I've got a lot on my plate, that's not one of them. I was told we're moving forward. Most of us were online anyway, and we've still got our graduate students going to class, but I'm excited that we're still moving forward."

Brown said he remains confident the season will kick off as scheduled. North Carolina opens the season Sept. 12 against Syracuse, and Brown said he has made sure to over-communicate and be transparent with all his players and parents. North Carolina held a video call on Monday for players' parents, which included the team trainer, doctor and player personnel director to address any concerns. Brown said his players feel safe with the weekly testing they are currently undergoing and all the protocols they have in place.

If anything, Brown was not surprised to see the positive cases. The North Carolina athletic department went through something similar when coaches and players returned to campus, with 37 positive tests in July, forcing the football team to pause workouts for a week.

"After watching this thing for six months, I'm a little surprised that people are surprised that students are going to have some positives. It's happening everywhere in the country. I look up and I see these universities with students downtown on the strip and there's hundreds of them that don't have masks and they're hanging out -- maybe they're not taking tests. Everybody on our campus that I see is wearing a mask and if we've got 19,000 [undergraduate] students and 150 have shown positives, I thought that was a rather low number for initially coming back.

"What I've learned is when people have positives and there is publicity like we've gotten, now they'll be more careful and it gets better faster. You cannot be comfortable with this virus because it will jump up and grab you. You've got to wear your mask and you need to stay around people that are wearing a mask and you've got to wash your hands. Our players have understood that now and they're doing really well with it. Students coming back, this is all new for them and you can tell somebody all you want to wear the mask and wash their hands but until they get sick or have a friend get sick, it's probably not going to hit them as easily as it does after it becomes reality."