WATCH: Jayland Parker’s Press Conference After NC State’s Win Over WCU (with transcript)

Well, it was just – I’m just glad to have the opportunity to be out there with the guys.

Guys like Aydan (White), (Devon) Betty, Sean (Brown), Davin (Vann), guys that I came in with and came in after me. Just to share a moment like this with them, it means a lot to me. I appreciate them for trusting me to be out there with them tonight as well.

Oh, well, in our room, Betty’s been saying it all summer, no matter what happens, we can’t have a drop-off, always the next-man mentality. So I just used that tonight and tried to play my best ball, play fast, play physical, and play hands-to-head game plan tonight.

When you get your chance, make sure that you’re around the ball. You know, I wanted to make sure I was around the ball tonight, because Doeren says when we make a snapshot, he wants to see how many guys are around the ball. So I just wanted to make sure I was around the ball, made as many tackles as I could. 

Betty and Sean had to calm me down. My coaches pulled me to the side and just told me to breathe, you know, just relax. I was a little timid at first, but as the game progressed, I can say that my nerves and things calmed down for sure. 

Once Caden (Fordham) got off the field, we had Sean (with the headset). We’ve been working with multiple guys, this Fall camp, having the headset just in case anything happened. So I think we were prepared for whoever was not out there to call it. So we were prepared, and we did successful with it tonight as well.

Parker finished with a career high 7 tackles. Prior to tonight, he had only recorded 2 career tackles from the line of scrimmage.