Monday morning was Mack Brown’s weekly meeting with the media, as he attempted to provide some answer on what exactly we saw in Boone on Saturday. Just prior to that, the team announced that three players will be game time decisions for the team’s game against Georgia State.
Wide receiver Josh Downs will once again be a question mark heading in after he missed this weekend’s game. Rumors seem to indicate that he is dealing with an MCL sprain, hence the thought last week by some that he could miss multiple games with what the team has left labeled as a lower-body injury. Kobe Paysour’s performance on Saturday will certainly ease the paranoia of whether or not he can go, but the Tar Heels would certainly like to have their preseason All-American back sooner rather than later.
Running back Caleb Hood, who had a nice day on Saturday, is dealing with a lower body injury of his own. He ran for a career-high 87 yards against the Mountaineers but will now have to try to shake off yet another injury, something he has seemingly been doing since he arrived to Chapel Hill. The hope is that he can return to build on his performance on Saturday alongside the freshman duo of Omarion Hampton and George Pettaway, who for the time could receive a bulk of the carries.
Offensive tackle Spencer Rolland is the final member of the group that will be working through a lower body injury this week. He had a bit of a rough performance on Saturday, allowing two sacks and six quarterback pressures, but has graded out as one of the team’s top run blockers so far this year. If he is unable to go, that would likely mean William Barnes would have to kick out to right tackle and Jonathan Adorno would take over the snaps at right guard. While Adorno is more than capable of handling the starting role, this does leave the Tar Heels a little bit thinner depthwise moving forward until Rolland can return.