On Saturday against Florida A&M, Mack Brown walked the sidelines for the 406th game as a head coach.
During that time he's made countless critical decisions and is undoubtedly one of college football's most seasoned veterans.
However, even with an impressive rolodex of football situations locked away in his memory to reflect upon, he still leans on analytics to help him and his team improve.
At his presser following their 56-24 win over the Rattlers on Saturday, Brown shared how some information that his analytics guys dug up about first downs across college football are impacting the Heels coordinators on both sides of the ball.
"We got with some analytics people and they said , that last year in college football, if you made more than five yards you got a first down 60% of the time, but if you got less than five you got a first down 50% of the time."
"Therefore, defensively, it would be just the opposite."
Winning third downs are obviously important, but Mack has found a renewed focus on winning first downs, thanks to analytics. Winning on those early downs makes getting off the field (on defense) or staying on the field (on offense) much, much easier.
Hear more from Mack in the clip.