NC State Head Football Coach Dave Doeren spoke at his weekly press conference yesterday, after the season opening 21-20 victory over ECU, and leading up to a week 2 matchup against Charleston Southern. You can watch the whole thing here, or check out a bulleted breakdown below.

Opening Statement

• Excited we came out of the game with the win.
  • 50% of the country is now sitting there with a loss
  • In a lot of ways it didn’t feel like a win, obviously because of our 2nd-half performance.
  • It’s a blessing to have a chance to learn such a great lesson, but not have a loss.
  • It’s definitely a lesson in humility.
• ECU competed their butts
  • Deserve a lot of credit for how they played in the 2nd half.
  • Good football team.
•  Couldn’t have started any better. On the road…dealing with crowd noise…second play of the game Tyler Baker-Williams has a great interception.
• Didn’t play complementary football…we played uncomplementary football really for the entire game.
  • Got 0 points after 2 interceptions
  • 4th down stop that led to no points.
  • Thayer Thomas returned a punt across the 50…no points.
  • Punted the ball inside 1-yard line…missed a tackle.
  • Got down to the goal line twice on offense…0 points.
  • Difficult to win a game when you play that way.
• Special Teams was exceptional in punt return and punt block area.
  • Huge part of winning the football game.
  • 177 yards of hidden field position in the game.
  • We started our field position in the plus-30 range from the goal line.
  • A lot of their drives started inside the 20.
• Goal-line series back-to-back were the most frustrating things to me.
  • We had 2 plays called that would have scored and the ball was stopped by the official on both of them, which was kind of weird in its own right with neither of them being a penalty.
  • Had to run 9 plays, but it was really 7 plays.
  • You really don’t have that many when you get that many people down there that close to the line of scrimmage.
  • That’s an area that we’ve got to grow and learn from and be better.
• Been on the other side of this.
  • South Carolina in an opener and we had 500 yards and they had 250. Killed them and lost.
  • Clemson on missed field goal, and had 5 turnovers.
  • Not going to apologize for winning a game on the road. No such thing as an ugly win.
  • Nobody discredits you for winning a football game at the end of the season in any form or fashion.
• Playing from the ranked position and playing from the favorite position, it’s something that’s new to our guys.
  • It’s something that they’re gonna have to learn to embrace and be better.
  • Been the team that has nothing to lose…nobody thinks we can win.
  • Now it’s the other way around, and you do get your opponent’s best shot each week
• Offensively (Good)
  • Offensive line protected well….0 sacks.
  • Performed well on 3rd-and-long
  • Tailbacks ran hard and protected well.
    • Obviously we’d like to not turn the ball over with Jordan Houston’s fumble.
    • Demie Sumo-Karngbaye for his 1st game really showed up.
      • Heard me talk a lot about him, and he showed why we’re excited about him and his future.
      • Hard guy to tackle…tough.
    • Between the 2 of them they had over 70 yards after contact gained.
  • A lot of guys played for the first real significant time on offense: Demie Sumo, Cedric Seabrough, Kam Walker, Darryl Jones first time for us, Julian Gray, Jalen Coit on special teams and Keyon Lesane.
  • Darryl Jones really did some good things.
    • Good to see him out there. Very complete player.
  • Thayer Thomas had maybe just another ho-hum game maybe for some people out there, but I thought he played exceptionally well.
    • He’s worked hard on becoming a blocker as well as a route runner, catcher and returner, and he’s improved so much in that area.
  • Tim McKay on the offensive line shined…did some physical things…led us in pancakes in the game.
    • There was a good rotation going on between him and Bryson Speas at tackle.
  • Derrick Eason also came in and provided some good depth and played well at right guard.
• Offensively (Bad)
  • 5 penalties and 4 of them were pre-snap preventable penalties
  • Started slow.
  • Think we’re better at finishing blocks than we were in that game on the perimeter.
  • Devin Leary did some really good things at times, and then forced some things that he didn’t need to.
    • He just needs to get back to taking what the defense gives him and letting his guys make plays for him.
• Defensively (Good)
  • 2 interceptions
  • Responded well twice with sudden changes.
  • Really liked how Savion Jackson and Davin Vann played.
    • Physical and knocked the line back…making it hard to run the ball.
  • C.J. Clark back out there is a positive.
  • 4 three-and-outs
  • No pre-snap penalties.
• Defensively (Bad)
  • Didn’t handle the QB run game well.
  • Missed too many tackles…maybe a record in a game for us.
    • I take the blame for that…didn’t tackle enough in camp…trying to stay healthy.
    • Top-5 defense in missed tackles last year.
  • Busted red-zone coverage by Derrek Pitts…had his eyes in the backfield in play action.
• Special Teams
  • Punt return and punt block were a bright spot
  • Jasiah Provillon getting out there and blocking a punt that Sean Brown scored on was a huge play.
  • Now scored a touchdown on special teams in five straight games
  • 1st time on the field returning kicks for Julian Gray, and we’re excited about what he can do.
    • He’ll play better and it will start slowing down for him.
    • Handled the ball & made good decisions.
  • Thayer Thomas had a good punt return, and the blocking was good.
  • 1st game with Punter Shane McDonough…he held very well.
    • Punts were good, not great..hangtime can get better.
    • His pinned punt was exceptional& he got better as the game went on.
    • Our coverage will only improve as our hangtime does.
• Charleston Southern is going to come in with nothing to lose, give us a great game, and play hard.

• Trent Pennix
  • Injury is non-surgical…4-6 weeks…he’ll be back this season…depends on the healing process.
  • Not going to get into the details of what it is
• Payton Wilson
  • MRI came back completely clean
  • He’s sore, but there’s nothing that’s damaged as far as the shoulder goes
  • Hadn’t played football in over a year that way, and so he’s gonna need time
  • Day-to-day recovery.
  • Been through so much…knees…shoulders.
  • One of the most elite competitive spirits that I’ve ever coached
  • The way that he looks at the game, the warrior’s mentality he has for playing the game, the physicality that he likes to play the game with, he’s different than other people
  • It hurts him not to be able to play the game the way he wants to be able to play it, too.
  • As far as when he’ll be back, I don’t know. I’m not going to rush that.
  • I want him to be at peace and ready and feel like he’s not worried. I’ll let him tell me when he’s ready to go, and the doctors and trainers.
  • In my office a little bit ago, and he’s not in a sling. He’s walking around normal and all that good stuff.
• Goal-Line Offense
  • A lot of issues.
  • They put a lot of people at the line of scrimmage that we had to block.
  • At times you’ve got to run over a guy to get in, and we didn’t do that…
  • Didn’t get enough movement.
  • It wasn’t one person. They were different plays. Each play it was someone different.
  • It’s tough because the quarterback sneak that we called would’ve scored, and they blew it dead. So, that changes things a little bit.
  • The one play-action pass we ran I think Devin could’ve thrown to Jordan Houston and we would’ve scored from that.
    • He chose to throw it away because he didn’t want to create a turnover.
  • It just comes down to executing…clearly as coaches we can do a better job
  • You kind of 2nd guess every call as a coach that didn’t work, just like you guys 2nd guess us.
    • We do the same thing. ‘What could we have done differently? What could we do better?
  • In my career I’ve never had something like that…7 plays on 2 different drives and didn’t get any points. It was definitely disappointing.
• Lack of tackling in camp
  • We did tackle…2 full scrimmages, like always.
  • Some of the guys who have played a lot of reps, like the Isaiah Moores and Tanner Ingles, didn’t play the entire scrimmages for obvious reasons.
    • Wanted to get guys more reps that hadn’t gotten game reps.
    • I do think that that hurt Tanner.
      • Watching him tackle, he was not himself.
      • Much better tackler than he showed in that game, and he’s inspired to show everybody that. He’ll tell you that he was as embarrassed as anybody watching himself miss those tackles.
      • He’s one of the best tacklers in college football when he’s doing things like he normally does.
      • I just think it’s time between this competition and the last. It’s a balancing act, man.
  • You guys know how many players I’ve had hurt in the past couple years, so we were very cautious.
    • Probably too cautious, like I said, to make sure that we had everybody healthy for game 1…we did…mission accomplished.
    • The price we paid maybe was not having enough contact that would have made us a little better.
    • I would still go with what happened.
    • I’d still rather have a healthy team in the opener.
  • We need to study it getting into next year…we may have missed more tackles in game 1 than we did in 3 games last year combined.
    • It’s an area where we’ve got to improve. You guys remember how we played a year ago…we are capable of making a lot of plays we didn’t make Saturday.
    • That won’t sit well with our D staff. It won’t sit well with our defensive kids, and they will get out and fix it.
• Demie Sumo getting more carries
  • Yeah, I think so, but I think him and Jordan will still rotate in there.
    • Last week it was probably two-to-one. Now it will probably be a little more balanced on reps between those 2 guys.
  • Both of them played well, other than Jordan’s fumble.
    • Both averaged over 4 yards per carry…ran hard…broke tackles…made people miss…caught the football.
  • It’s a long season, and it’s not a 1-player position anymore…need to have a rotation to stay healthy.
  • There were a lot of questions about who our running backs were going to be and how they were going to play, and I think there’s probably a little bit of excitement about that position now coming out of the first game.
• Going for it on 4th rather than kick a field goal
  • The analytics tell you to go for it inside the 3 every time.
    • It’s because if you don’t get it you’re giving the ball back to them in a position where you should be able to hold them in and get the ball back in good field position again.
    • Odds of scoring on 4th-and-1 are very high. When the odds of getting seve points are very high you’re going to take those odds.
    • I also believe as a head coach that you have to show trust to your line.
      • If you get a 4th-and-1 on the goal line and don’t go for it, if I was an offensive lineman and my coach did that to me I wouldn’t be very happy. That’s just not how I look at things.
      • I need to give those guys a chance to earn it. And we didn’t. So they owe me one. They know it.
  • Not a cautious guy when it comes to going for things…didn’t get to be a head coach as young as I was by being cautious as a coach.
  • We’re going to be aggressive in this program. Sometimes it’s not going to work. Not everything is a guarantee.
  • When it comes to trusting who you are and sticking with your vision and trusting your guys, I’m going to be that kind of coach. If it doesn’t work, at least I’m going down swinging.
• Doeren didn’t even want to talk about the upcoming opponent, or the fact that backup QB Jack Chambers transferred from there.
  • This week is not about Jack Chambers and his time at that school…It’s not about that school.
  • Because of how we played this week…I don’t care if we’re playing Clemson or Charleston Southern, this week is about us being the best us that we can be.
  • We did not showcase that in week 1. Our players would tell you that they were embarrassed. As coaches, it was not the product we expected.
  • This game is going to be about getting that done and handling our business.
  • We need to bring our best to the field…need to play the game the way we know how to play it…That’s what this game is about.
  • The fact that Jack went to school there is a sidestory more than anything. I’m more interested in how we play this football game than any of that.
• Lack of defensive pressure in the backfield vs. ECU
  • Had several opportunities.
  • Not sure sacking the quarterback is something that matters as much as forcing him to throw off time, throw incomplete passes, maybe more interceptions because he’s pressured.
    • Getting our hands up and tipping balls. He did get rid of the ball quickly. He did scramble a lot to get away from guys.
  • We did lose contain twice on blitzes that I feel might have been sacks had we not lost contain.