NC State Head Football Coach Dave Doeren met with the media after practice today leading up to Saturday’s Top-25 matchup between the #21 Wolfpack and the #20 Demon Deacons. You can watch it above, or check out a BULLETED breakdown below.

• It’s a really good opponent [Wake Forest].
  • We’re playing a team that’s coming off a tough performance, which I know personally speaking, when we don’t play well you, you want to get back on the field, and bet the bad feelings out of your mouth.
  • So I know they’re going to be inspired, not that they wouldn’t be anyway, with it being an in-state game.
  • But we’re excited to play it.
  • It’s been oddly enough a 45-42 [final score] 2 years in a row, with us winning one, and them winning one.
    • Kind of a weird score and hopefully we don’t give them that many points.
  • But it’s a very good football team, Clawson’s done a great job to build a program there.
  • We’ve got a lot of respect, and I know that they’ll come in here and play hard.
  • It’s been a good week, really good week of practice.
• Excited for MJ [Morris], he’s really practiced well. He’s been good, really good.
  • It’s not just what he knows, but how he interacts and his positivity and his energy. It’s been impressive to watch.
  • I mean, in September he was just trying to learn the offense.
    • Now he’s running an offense, so it’s different.
  • He didn’t know his teammates; probably didn’t know after names [when he arrived].
    • He got here in the summer, so he’s 1 of many now, whereas before he was kind of like alright, ‘Who’s that guy again?’ and ‘What’s that mean? What’s that play? What coverage are you talking about?’
    • Now, he knows it, he sees it.
  • The thing that impresses you the most about him is he’s very, very coachable.
    • Like, you tell him something that he can transition from a conversation to the next play, and that’s awesome at that position to have.
  • I told him last week, ‘You’ve got an opportunity to make this yours.’ You know?
    • Like, go out there and…I’m not going to use the words I said…but go out there and make it yours. And he did.
    • And I told him, ‘I’m proud of you, man. Now, just take it to the next level. Like it’s your group. Let them know what you expect, and they’ll follow you.’ And he’s done that.
• Obviously, we want to do that [maintain the offense from the 4th Quarter against VT].
  • I think there’s this feeling that we wanted to not score touchdowns for 10 quarters. That’s not the case. [Laughs]
  • We want to be in the end zone. We feel like, for 2 weeks there, it was tough.
    • You lose your quarterback, you go play in a very tough environment and you couldn’t hear anything up there.
    • So that made it difficult, regardless of who was playing the position.
  • Then we figured out who our guy was, and he sparked us and got it going.
  • So, we hope to build on that 4th-quarter performance.
    • Hope to bring that obviously into this game and we’ve been able to expand the offense a little bit since then.
    • So, each week it’ll grow now that we know who we’re playing with.
• I think that’s so uncharacteristic of them [Wake turning it over 8 times against Louisville].
  • They’ve been Top-3 in turnover margin in our league for a long time.
    • So one game doesn’t make a team, you know?
  • Obviously we want to get takeaways on defense, and that’s part of what we strive for each week…2 or more…really 3… when you’re playing a team that’ll have this many plays in the game potentially.
  • So anytime we can punch a ball out or strip a football or tip a ball that creates a pick or go up and get one, we know that sets up our offense.
  • That’s what complimentary football is all about. That’s how you win games, setting up the other side of the ball.
• It’s big to get that pressure [finishing sacks against VT].
  • It’s momentum play for one.
  • Hitting the quarterback’s great, but when it’s a 7-yard loss, or a 10-yard loss, or a fumble that comes out, those are big plays.
  • We were able to get to the quarterback last year, and there was a few times we were that close.
  • So we need to be able to continue to keep that pressure on, and not make it easy for Hartman. He’s a really good player.
• We’re gonna do what he’s [MJ Morris] capable of, but you saw in the 4th quarter we were running our offense.
  • So it’s more of, ‘What do we have that fits how we want to attack the opponent we’re playing? Are they a man team? Are they a zone team? What do they do in their front? What are their pressures? What fits that’s easy for him to see?’
  • Then making sure that we’re running plays that fit the quarterback.
  • It’s not about simplifying because of him, it’s about giving him the best plan to be successful.
• You have to really be patient [against Wake’s offense].
  • You have to get off of blocks.
  • You have to get to the level of the ball or it will end up spilling out into your gap or bouncing out in your gap.
    • We had 10 of those against them 2 years ago when we beat him, where the ball got off the edge late because a player ducked into another gap wondering where the ball was at.
    • That discipline in the run game is critical. Getting off of blocks, which Louisville did a great job of, is critical.
  • And getting our hands up, too.
    • The quarterback, 1 of the things about walking the ball up into the line like they do is he’s very close to the line of scrimmage a lot, and he throws, and he’s not a tall guy.
    • So trying to get some of our hands up helps us there too.