Drake Thomas After Pitt: BULLETED

Sophomore Linebacker Drake Thomas had 6 tackles, 1 sack, 1.5 tackles for loss, and 3 QB Hurries in NC State’s 30-29 victory over #24 Pitt. Thomas met with the media after the victory. You can watch it here, or read a BULLETED breakdown below.

Bend-Not-Beak Defense…

• It’s really key after those big plays where they get a chunk of yards to just move onto the next play and focus on the task at hand.
• They get down in the red zone a couple of times, and we get big stops.
  • We didn’t let the plays before affect the plays that were about to happen.
  • We just had to clear our mind and go out there and do what we were supposed to do.

Playing physical & Stopping the Run…

• Last week we didn’t put exactly what we wanted on the field, and it was really disappointing for us and our coaches.
• We knew that we had to come out and put our brand of football on display.
  • I think we did a good job of doing that.

Pitt’s 1st wide-open touchdown…

• I think it was more that we knew that was just a huge bust in our coverage.
  • We just needed to communicate and lineup quicker.
  • It wasn’t like they beat us deep.
  • It was more that we just needed to get aligned, we needed to know our responsibility and we needed to make a play.
  • We knew that wasn’t that big of a deal.

Secondary…

• You’ve got guys with no backups.
  • You’ve got backups in there making plays.
  • You’ve got a new Freshman Nickel who goes out, and is playing really hard and gets the targeting call, and then it’s the next man that steps up.
  • Taiyon Palmer comes in and has a big pass breakup at the end of the game.
• It’s good to have confidence in literally everybody on the 3-deep, that guys can go out and make plays like that.

Team Confidence after Win…

• It can boost our confidence a lot, but it just proves to us that we are who we’ve known we are.
• We’ve all known that we’ve been capable of this, and we’ve just got to keep a level head and get back to work tomorrow.
• Watch the film, break down mistakes, get back at it Monday and get ready for the next game.