Connect with us

Today I continue our series called “Losing Their Shirt” where I will look at the Redshirt Freshmen on the NC State football roster.  Fans can be so focused on the stars they have returning, who they lost on their roster, and the incoming freshman recruiting class, that they forget entirely about the class of redshirt freshmen.  Allow me to help introduce you to the NC State redshirt freshmen.  The second player featured in “Losing Their Shirt” is Defensive Tackle Coult Culler.

A lot has changed since Coult Culler first committed to NC State back on December 6th, 2013.  Back then Culler was a linebacker for Laney High School in Wilmington, North Carolina.  The three-star recruit tallied 135 tackles his Senior season, and earned All-State honors.  Culler chose to run with the Wolfpack over offers from in-state foes East Carolina and UNC.

Coach Doeren had this to say about Culler after he signed his national letter of intent in February of 2014:

“I know a lot of coaches down in the Wilmington area are glad he’s gone.  You talk to them (and they say) he’s a tackling machine.  He had multiple games where he had 20-plus tackles,” said Doeren. “We’re really excited about what he brings, not only as a player but his attitude, his demeanor, the way he was raised, his toughness. He’s going to do a lot of things for us here.” (FayObserver)

Culler redshirted last season, and within his first 6 months of being a part of the program, he gained 30 pounds.  This winter the NC State coaches decided to move Culler from linebacker to defensive end.  Between the winter and Spring ball, the coaches had changed their minds once again.  Culler was sitting at defensive tackle on the 2-deep depth chart for the Kay Yow Spring Game in April.

Coach Doeren explained the decision to move Culler to DT at Media Day, and spoke very highly of the redshirt freshman:

“We moved him from linebacker to defensive tackle.  He’s doing really well.  He’s getting better and better.  He went from 240 to 285.  A lot of eating and a lot of lifting.  He spent last year as a redshirt.  He played linebacker, and it was just apparent at the end of bowl practices that he wasn’t moving like a linebacker anymore.  We thought he was an aggressive tough kid, and I think he was trying to keep his weight down a little bit. We told him that we thought that we needed to let nature take it’s course. He’s a big guy. His dad was a big man. He bought in right away. When I recruited him he told me ‘I’ll play wherever you want me to play. You’re my coach, and I’m your player. What do you need?’  I appreciate that about him. He has a great team attitude. He’s done a lot of good things. In the Spring he was thinking a lot, but you can see now he’s just being aggressive. He has a smile on his face and it’s fun to watch him” (Media Day)

Junior Year Highlights

Matthew is Publisher and Co-Owner of Pack Insider. He is also the Lead Pastor of The Point Church in Cary, NC.

Click to comment
Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NC State Football

WATCH: Tamarcus Cooley After NC State’s Loss to Duke (with transcript)

Published

on

Redshirt Freshman Tamarcus Cooley spoke with the media after NC State’s 19-29 loss to Duke this afternoon. You can watch the video ABOVE, and read the transcript BELOW.

First of all, for you, obviously a frustrating game overall, but what was that moment like right before the end of the first half to come away with that football and give the team life?

I really feel like I let my teammates down. I feel like I gave up on that play, knowing I was supposed to score.

I know this is a frustrating result for y’all and an emotional day for the seniors and the upperclassmen. What was the mood in the locker room after this one?

It was quiet. I mean, of course it’s going to be quiet after a loss like that.

We’ve got two games left. We’re going to take advantage of our opportunities, be bowl eligible, and that’s about it.

How frustrating is it when the defense has the type of day that it did overall for nothing to come out of the other side of the football with the exception of that fourth quarter touchdown?

No blame on the offense, no blame on the defense.

It’s just, we’ve got to, our captains have got to step up. Me as a starting nickel, I’ve got to step up and make better plays and better decisions.

What was Coach Doeren’s message for you all after the game?

Go down the street and beat the blue school. Beat Georgia Tech. Take care of those.

What do you feel like are the biggest things overall that this team needs to do to turn things back around and get bowl eligible over the next two games?

Really nothing. We’ve got to strain more, catch balls when balls come our way, tackle when the ball carrier comes our way, and just do our responsibilities.

Continue Reading

NC State Football

WATCH: CJ Bailey After NC State’s Loss to Duke (with transcript)

Published

on

True Freshman Quarterback CJ Bailey met with the media for the postgame press conference after NC State’s 19-29 loss this afternoon. You can watch the video ABOVE, and read the transcript BELOW.

Obviously a frustrating result for the team overall and the offense on the day. Just your assessment of your game and the offense’s performance today?

Of course we could have played way better. Especially I could have played way better, but it’s just that finishing point again, we couldn’t finish in the redzone when we had those chances and we missed a lot of shots.

I missed a lot of shots, a lot of throws that I wish I could have back. But our offense, we drive the ball every time, every game we move the ball. We just got to finish.

That’s going to be our negative. We’ve got to finish the drive.

What was Duke’s defense doing inside the redzone that limited you guys so much and kept you out of the end zone for the most part throughout the day?

Defensively they were just going zero.

In the redzone, they’ll go 41, slide zero. We had a pass play, we had to slide the line and try to protect me and everything. But they were sending more than we could block when we got down there.

Inside zone wasn’t working because those guys were making plays on defense. So we could have done way more things to finish those drives. We wish we could have it back.

It is what it is.

KC Concepcion only had four yards from scrimmage today. What did Duke do to limit him today?

Duke didn’t do anything to limit him. We did it ourselves. Me and him, I missed him a lot.

He didn’t make a couple plays for me as well. So it’s both of our faults. Duke didn’t do anything.

I’ll say me personally, he did what he had to do to get open every time he was open. We just couldn’t finish. We couldn’t connect.

How tough was it to not get that win and see some of your senior teammates leave the field for the last time, knowing that the offense had opportunities?

Yeah, it was really tough.

That game was really important for those guys who went out. All week, that’s all we had in mind was to get the win for those guys and we couldn’t finish it. So that really hurts.

Like Coach Doeren said, we’ve got to dig a little deeper. That really meant something to those guys. This is their last game here at the Carter.

They ended off with a loss. That’s just not good. Offensively, I feel like we’ve got to change the game in so many ways and help those guys out to get a win.

You’re not done with the season. You still have opportunities to send them off with success. How much hope does that give you, knowing you still have at least two games ahead of you?

Yeah, that’s a good thought.

That’s a good question. We know that we’ve got more to do. We’ve got more to accomplish.

We send those guys off with a better message. We’ve got two or three more games and we could get a good finish for those guys.

You talked about finishing and not being able to do that. What do you guys need to do to be able to capitalize in the redzone from your point of view?

My point of view, we’ve just got to dig a little deeper once we get down in that redzone. We bust our ass the whole drive.

I know some of our guys are tired. I try my best to tell them, ‘let’s keep fighting. We got down here for a reason. We’re not just going to waste our drive.’

It happens. Things happen. Games happen like this. Just knowing our offense, knowing our team, period, we overcome this and finish with a good season.

I know there were a good amount of drops in this game. What are your conversations like with your receivers when mistakes like that are happening in a game like this on the sideline?

There’s been a lot of drops and there’s been a lot of misthrows from me as well. I make it hard for those guys to catch the football, but the main thing is that we’ve got to make our layups, frame catches and everything.

Most of those drops that we had were because the ball was probably too low. It was probably too high. It was hard to catch for those guys.

I put it in a high position, but the easy layups that we had, we could have made those layups and finished the catches.

Continue Reading

NC State Football

WATCH: Dave Doeren’s Press Conference After NC State’s Loss to Duke (with transcript)

Published

on

NC State Head Coach Dave Doeren met with the media for his postgame press conference after the Wolfpack lost 19-29 to Duke this afternoon. You can watch it ABOVE, and read the transcript BELOW.

Congratulations to Duke on the win. It was a hard fought defensive game by both teams.

When you look at the statistics, they were 0-9 on third down. I think the game came down to us kicking field goals and them scoring a couple more touchdowns than us. We gave them a short field with a turnover in the red zone, which really hurt.

Defensively, we played good enough in that game for us to win. We just didn’t connect offensively enough. I heard CJ (Bailey) talking.

He threw some good balls that were dropped. He threw behind a couple guys. He threw high too, and we got to make some play calls in certain situations to help.

But collectively, it’s not good enough. It’s a we, us and ours business. There isn’t any blame other than everybody.

It starts with me. Disappointing more than anything just for our seniors. Like I’ve said, I take it really personal to send them out with a win.

I thought we prepared well and didn’t get it done. Duke has a good defense. Statistically, they’ve been really good all year.

They showed that today. They made it hard on us offensively. We just weren’t able to capitalize when we got the ball across the 20.

Every time we got down there, we didn’t get touchdowns but once.

You mentioned the struggles in the red zone. We asked CJ Bailey about it a little bit, but I wanted to ask you as well. What did you see from Duke that led to those struggles in the redzone?

Different drives. They zero blitzed us in one drive three straight times, we didn’t manage it.

Didn’t do a good job. We had a good play call in one. One of the receivers slipped.

Dacari (Collins) came out one-on-one on the guy. We thought we went there and he slipped. Other than that, they covered us.

They rushed us. They stopped the run. We didn’t get it done.

We got outplayed in that area of the field and there’s nothing magic about it. It’s tight windows and they made more plays down there than us. We didn’t finish drives in that area of the field.

We were able to get down there quite a bit, but you got to finish. It’s not about being 100% scoring if they’re all field goals. You got to get some touchdowns and it’s execution more than anything.

It’s not one thing. There’s multiple things that happened. There are a few missed passes by Bailey tonight, but a lot of drops, especially in the second half.

What is your assessment of that impact on the offense as well?

We talk about being efficient. What I mean by that is on first down, you get four yards or more, whatever the down and distance is. On second down, you get half of it and get yourself into manageable third downs.

Then you operate on third down over 60%. When you hit a guy wide open on a slant or a square in on first down, it’s going to be second and three and it’s dropped. It’s now 2nd and 10.

Those kind of plays are impactful. They are no different than when you have a 30-yard run and there’s a holding penalty. Those are impactful plays that hurt your offense.

I thought we had gotten past that kind of stuff. We’ve caught the ball well all year. This hasn’t been an issue.

We’ve had really good stretch and catch plays by receivers and tight ends and backs. It’s frustrating that it happened tonight because that hasn’t been something we’ve done this year. I thought our guys throughout the season have really caught the football well, but that wasn’t the case tonight.

Earlier this season, you talked about shortening the season into a five-game stretch and that’s how you recalibrated the team’s expectations. Going into another bye week here, what’s the key to focusing on these last two games and recalibrating expectations again?

Yeah, I said this in the locker room.

We have two games left. We have a short bye because we play on Thursday the following week, go down to Georgia Tech and then come home and play a rival. We have two opportunities to finish and that’s what they’re going to remember is how they finish.

We need to do a great job one at a time. Obviously, it starts with the corrections from this game, getting the guys back in the right frame of mind and getting back to work.

You’ve talked about finishing in the redzone previously this year. How do you guys try to go about fixing that instead of just settling for field goals when you have to do that?

Yeah, if I had the answer for you right now, I’d give it to you, but I need to look at it. I thought we had corrected that coming out of the last bye.

We were much better, but today we were really bad down there. We get in the film room with the staff and see what’s happening, how we’re getting attacked and what the shortcomings are. It’s been a lot better, obviously, than it was tonight.

It’s not as bad as it can get because there’s other games this year where we’ve turned the ball over down there multiple times. We got points, but you need touchdowns to win a game like that.

From your perspective, what have teams done this year to limit KC Concepcion?

It’s been double teams.

It’s been re-routes with the man over the top. At times tonight, it wasn’t. It was just they put their best DB on him, and sometimes he covered him really well.

Sometimes he didn’t. At times, we threw the football to him. He had two drops, but most teams have leaned to safety his way, which is smart.

Because of that, you’ve seen us be able to get the ball to other guys. Justin Joly has been a benefactor of that. Some of the outside receivers have been a benefactor of that.

If you watch their game plan in the second half in particular, they took their corner that was playing on the outside in the first half and put him on him the entire second half when they were playing man to man with the safety over the top. It’s hard when that’s going to happen. It’s really an outside-inside look.

In zone defense, you have an underneath player with a zone player over the top. There’s a lot more tension on him. Last year, coming out of the bye, it became the show.

People weren’t as in tune. They had the whole offseason to listen to how good a player he is. Obviously, they’re paying attention.

They’re doing a good job. They’re defending him well. That’s why we’ve had to spread the ball around.

And it’s about players making plays. That’s how you win games. Bottom line is, we didn’t make enough of them.

Duke was held to 0 for 9 on third down. They barely averaged a yard per carry in the running game. You won the turnover battle, time to possession, but ultimately still come away, unfortunately, with a double-digit loss. What else do you think, aside from the redzone stuff, sticks out to you to where you want to really key in and improve in order for you guys to reach that bowl-eligible status in these next two games?

Drops and penalties. We had 8 penalties, and I don’t have the number here. It’s not on the stats, but drops and penalties would be the other two things.

Continue Reading

NC State Football

The Redzone was a Nightmare for NC State in Their 19-29 Loss to Duke

Published

on

The redzone was a nightmare for NC State in their 19-29 loss to Duke this afternoon.

The Wolfpack offense was able to get to the Redzone 6 times, and only managed to get the ball into the end zone only once. On the other 5 times, NC State settled for 4 of 5 field goal attempts.

True Freshman CJ Bailey looked like a True Freshman, playing the worst game of his collegiate career. He was 16 of 39 for 184 yards with 1 touchdown, 1 interception and 1 lost fumble. His completion percentage was 41% and his passing efficiency rating was 84. Prior to today, his lowest completion percentage in a single game was 64%, and his lowest passing efficiency rating was 120.5.

I don’t have the stat numbers on this, but the Wolfpack Receivers dropped pass after pass. Could Bailey have thrown more accurate passes? Sure. Nonetheless, every one of those drops could have been caught. A drop by Justin Joly ended up in the hands of a Duke Defensive Back, which led to a touchdown three plays later.

The Wolfpack defense did more than enough to win the game. Don’t let Duke’s 29 points fool you into believing the blame for this loss falls on their shoulders. NC State held the Blue Devils to 276 yards of total offense. I would argue that 12 of Duke’s points don’t fall on the shoulders of the Wolfpack defense. Obviously, 2 of those points are the Safety on NC State’s first offensive possession. Then, Duke started on the NC State 32 yard line and 20 yard line off of the Wolfpack’s 2 turnovers, which resulted in 10 points.

The NC State defense held Duke to 1.1 yards per carry.

The Blue Devils were 0-9 on 3rd down.

The Wolfpack offense simply couldn’t finish.

Sophomore Wide Receiver Kevin Concepcion looks like a shell of the player he was last year, dropping at least 3 passes. He finished with 0 receptions, and 1 carry for 4 yards.

NC State’s offensive line looked like porous rock. Duke’s defense was in Bailey’s face all game long, and held the Wolfpack’s rushing attack to 2.9 yards per carry.

The current state of the NC State football program is nothing short of disappointing. The Wolfpack started the season ranked 24th in the AP Poll, and there was even hype about this being a team that was a dark horse to make the College Football Playoff. With all of the skill players that were added this offseason, expectations were sky high.

Did anyone expect Grayson McCall to retire from football? Did anyone expect CJ Bailey to have to put this team on his shoulders? No.

Is it hard to get 40+ new players to gel? Sure, but every team is having to deal with that reality in the era of the Transfer Portal.

There is no excuse for this team to be fighting for bowl eligibility with two games remaining. To be frank, where things currently stand, this is the most disappointing season of Dave Doeren’s tenure.

 

 

Continue Reading