Dave Doeren met with the media for his postgame press conference after NC State beat Duke 31-20 yesterday. You can watch it here, or check out a bulleted breakdown below.

Opening Statement…

• It’s great to be 4-1.
• Proud of the fight and resiliency in our team.
• We shot ourselves in the foot, penalty wise, in the 1st half.
  • We made it really hard.
• We settled in. The defense in the 2nd half was outstanding.
• Losing both our starting safeties, one to the ejection and the other to an injury.
  • I was so proud of Isaac Duffy, a walk-on safety from Clayton High School that’s earned a scholarship here, the way he came in and played. He played well.
  • Devan Boykin coming in and breaking up a pass in the end zone in the end.
• Payton Wilson obviously stood out.
  • Jaylon Scott as well.
• Offensively, we didn’t have a great game.
  • We turned the ball over twice.
  • We were physical in the 2nd half in particular, especially in the 4th quarter.
  • Our run game picked up towards the end of the game.
  • We did some nice things.
  • We made some tough catches.
    • Thayer Thomas’ catch was unbelievable in the end zone.
  • Bailey Hockman stepped in and did some things well and didn’t do some things well.
    • It’ll be a great opportunity for him.
• We probably won’t have Devin Leary for a while.
  • I don’t know the exact injury, a lower-leg injury, but it doesn’t look like we’ll have him for a while.
  • Once I know, probably Monday, I’ll be able to give you the specifics.
  • He’s a tough kid. I hate it for him to get injured like that because I know how much this game means to him, how much this team means to him.
  • So, next man up. Bailey and Ben Finley and Ty Evans will have to be ready to roll for us at quarterback.
• It was a great comeback win, and guys just kept responding.
  • The blocked punt for a touchdown by Levi Jones and Max Fisher was a huge play in the game.
  • Give Duke credit. They had a good game plan. They attacked us and did some good things early in the game that had us behind.

Devin Leary Coming Back to Sideline…

• Well, he loves his teammates. He’s a great young man.
• I feel for him. He’s worked really hard, and he’s playing really well.
• I thought he got concussed when I saw the targeting hit. When I went down there it was his ankle that he was worried about.
  • So, they’ll have to do x-rays and those kinds of things to figure out what it is.
• I knew he’d be back on the field if he could be to watch. That’s what he said. He said ‘tell these guys to finish.’ He’s got a lot of guts. He’s a tough young man.

What Doeren said to Leary…

• I was just trying to comfort him.
• Usually when you get down there, you’re just trying to figure out what’s wrong.
  • I thought he was out, like I said, so I was trying to get out there to see if he was awake.
  • He was wide awake. He was very alert. He said his ankle was bothering him.
  • I was just trying to get him calmed down so they could get a good evaluation on him.
• He was very coherent, very understanding of what was going on. He just started talking about his teammates at that point.

Young guys stepping up at Safety…

• First of all, we’ve got to learn how to tackle with our head not being involved in it.
• It’s hard, you know, when a player is going down.
  • The elevation changes on a runner sometimes, and as a defender you’ve already launched at a certain level and you end up not hitting him where you thought you were going to hit him.
  • That’s a hard play, but we’ve got to really get better there.
• As far as stepping up, I couldn’t be prouder.
  • It was Rakeim Ashford early in the season.
  • Then it was Devan Boykin, and now it’s Duffy.
  • You saw Joshua Pierre-Louis do it.
  • It’s a revolving door back there, but they are getting results.
    • That’s a credit to coach Gibson and the defensive staff, Coach DeForest and Coach Aughtry-Lindsay.
    • Those guys have had to play a lot of guys.
• Duffy was ready. You’ve got to give that man a lot of credit.

Levi Jones’ blocked punt…

• He does have a knack for blocking punts, but this was a called block.
  • Last week was just a return and he was just the guy forcing the punt.
  • This week was a called blocked punt.
• Coach Goebbel had a good scheme.
• Delbert Mimms kind of was working up the field to keep their guy from getting down on Levi, and Levi took a good angle and made a play.
• It was great to see Max Fisher (a guy that played receiver that we moved to Safety because of our injuries there).
  • He’s a guy that’s been selfless.
  • Probably would be getting playing time on offense.
  • He’s had to learn how to play our defense the last 2 weeks, so it was great to see him get rewarded with that touchdown.

His halftime speech…

• It wasn’t a real ‘rah-rah’ talk in there.
• It was very matter of fact, like ‘Hey, we’ve got 8 penalties for 106 yards, and they’ve got one for 10. They’ve blocked a punt for a touchdown. We’ve blocked a punt for a touchdown. The difference is us beating us. If you guys would just play football and quit being idiots, we’re going to win. You’ve got to own it and be a man, and step up and start playing the way you’re coached.’
• They did.
• We’re a young football team.
  • I saw a stat the other day that 66 percent of our snaps are by Freshmen, Redshirt Freshmen or Sophomores.
  • We’ve got to be able to be a little more mature, even though we’re young, with what we are doing on the field. It got fixed in the second half.

Importance of a come-from-behind win…

• Our confidence is really high.
• We handle adversity well. There isn’t any flinch.
• Guys understand that they can come back, and they’ve done that multiple ways.
• It’s a very confident group.
• I know they’ll be excited for what’s coming up this week against another in-state opponent.
• We need to get healthy. That’s my concern right now. We’ve got a lot of guys beat up.

Person & Knight late in games chewing clock…