Dave Doeren’s Weekly Presser: Recapping UCONN Victory

NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media for his weekly press conference yesterday leading up to this weekends home opener vs. Notre Dame. But before we look at what he had to say about the Irish, here’s what he had to say about he Wolfpack’s win over the Huskies.

• Great win. Great to be 1-0.
• Any time you can go on the road in your opener and play a clean game.
  • I think that’s the 1sdt opening game I’ve had with only 1 penalty.
• The officiating, I thought those guys let the kids play. It was refreshing to be in a game like that. I thought both sides were able to play physical.
• Only had 1 turnover and it was a stop on downs, so nothing on offense turnover-wise.
  • +1 in the turnover margin with 200 yards rushing.
  • Talk about going on the road, only having one penalty, not turning the ball over and having 200 yards rushing. That’s a great recipe for winning.
• UConn is a much improved team.
  • Their staff did a nice job not only recruiting, but developing their players.
  • They did a lot of new things in the 1st quarter on offense.
• Defensively, we adjusted well after the 1st drive.
  • The next 5 possessions were punts by UCONN.
  • Had three 3-and-outs, 2 sacks, a forced fumble by Red Hibbler.
• It was a good line of scrimmage game. I thought UConn’s front, their offensive line was big and experienced. The defensive line was all returning starters. Big, experienced guys. It was a good matchup inside.
• Their running back [Rosa] was really impressive for them.
• It’s good for me to see how our offense flows and how Offensive Coordinator Robert Anae calls a game.
  • 1st time working with him on a game day so.
  • He was impressive to watch how he calls it.
• We were very efficient on 1st and 2nd down, which gave ourselves a lot of manageable 3rd downs.
• Brennan Armstrong played a good game.
  • Definitely some plays I know he’d like to have back, but had a 65% completion rate.
  • He moved the ball with his arm and his legs, and he competed.
  • Brought some energy. His personality is able to come out when you get to see him compete like that.
• As an offense, it was the best we played when it comes to making the 1st man miss.
  • That area of our game has to be better, and it was better in this game than it had been.
  • That’s how you get explosive plays. That was good to see.
• At the end of the 1st half we had a 2-minute drive opportunity.
  • We drove the ball down the field, got a field goal before the half, which was great to see.
• Our Running Backs, we played a lot of guys.
  • They all ran the ball hard, took care of the football and were productive. A lot guys touched the ball.
• We spread the ball around, got a lot of guys involved.
• We started the game fast with a touchdown.
  • It was a great response after giving up a touchdown on the opening drive defensively.
• We were stopped on short yardage twice.
  • An area that we pride ourselves in and need to be better.
• Did a couple good things in short yardage, a couple of bad things. We have to get better there.
• The drive killers in the game…we had a couple drops.
  • A couple times we could have been more accurate, one where we just missed the throw. Those areas can improve.
• We had a nice takeaway to seal the game with Payton Wilson’s Interception.
• From the 1st game compared to a year ago, we tackled much better in the opener.
  • Things we learned from last year’s opener and applied to this year’s training camp were good decisions.
    • We definitely hit enough, tackled enough to be ready to play a game.
• Defensively, no penalties in the game. We played really clean.
• We gave up an explosive play for a touchdown on the long run. Good job by them, but for us, a couple guys were out of their gaps.
  • They made a motion where we adjusted and didn’t get the proper depth at safety which put us in a bad position to get the guy down as an overlap player.
  • Definitely a play we can learn from, disappointed that it occurred.
• Julian Gray really returned the ball well [kickoffs].
  • He was hard to tackle. He was explosive, and set up the offense twice with good returns.
• Our kicker [Brayden Narveson] missed his 1st try [50-yarder], then bounced back with a 44-yard make right before the half.
  • That was great to see his response.
• It was good having Cecil Powell back on special teams.
  • He was a difference maker for us in our coverage units.
• 40 new players and 2 new coaches.
  • It didn’t look like it was our 1st time playing in a game.
  • The guys did a good job getting the players ready. The players did a good job learning the system for the first game.
  •  I watched a lot of college football with us playing on a Thursday night. Seeing a lot of other people’s first games, I thought we looked pretty clean compared to other people that are doing the same thing. You can tell that our coaches did a good job.”
• There’s things we got to do better like I mentioned: throw location, catching balls, making lay-ups. Things like that.
• We had some shots called [down field] and they were covered, so good job by them.
  • There’s a couple of times we did throw the ball down the field and didn’t connect in the game.
  • We had one called, and it was wide open, and Brennan took off running on that play.
    • That would have been a vertical shot we would have hit. It didn’t work out that way.
  • I know you guys watch Robert’s offenses enough to know that he does like to push the ball down the field. It just didn’t happen.
    • Their corners and their safeties did a nice job of playing with depth on some things and having helped when they needed it.
    • We do need to be able to push the ball down the field a bit more.