WATCH: CJ Bailey After NC State’s Win Over NIU (with transcript)

True Freshman Quarterback CJ Bailey started his first game in Carter-Finley Stadium today, and the Wolfpack won 24-17. Bailey met with the media after the game, and you can watch the video ABOVE, and read the transcript BELOW.

How important was Punter Caden Noonkester in today’s victory?

Oh, it was very important that he got those punts down, pinned down, because we had a lot of drive killers with the flags and everything, but it was very, very crucial to set us up in those pin positions because our defense made plays because of the punts that he made.

So that was really good of him. I appreciate him as our punter and everything.

How much energy did the defense give you as well?

Oh, yeah, they gave me a lot of energy with those turnovers and those fumbles and those plays they was making. They turned the whole Carter family up, and that was really big. With them making plays and everything, it translated to our offense having success as well.

So it changed the momentum of everything that we had going on. We had a lot of people, that weren’t all the way up, weren’t 100% energized, and, you know, that defense did what they did, so it really pumped us up.

This is your first start in front of the Carter-Finley Stadium crowd, so just wanted to get your impressions of that and what this atmosphere was like for you.

I can really say that the atmosphere at Carter-Finley is literally the same every time I step in here, like, starting from Western Carolina, even though I wasn’t starting.

That’s the first time actually feeling a big, loud presence, and that was really important that I had. It was in the games before that happened at Carter-Finley because now I can feel like I can just play off of their energy. They had so much energy, so now it pumps us up, and we have to make plays so we can keep hearing those screams and everything.

So it was really fun out there having my first start here, and I really enjoyed the moment.

With your first home start, what did you like about your performance, and where do you want to see yourself improve?

Of course I got a lot of stuff to work on, a lot of stuff to improve on. I’ll say I did a decent job, and I wish that we could have finished way more drives and kept it going as in the first half. We kept putting points on the board, but at the end of the game, our defense needed us, and we weren’t putting up any points, even losing, getting in the red zone.

I’ll say I need to do better with it. With the Carter Family pumping us up, I got to try my hardest to pump the offense up because I have good energy, but I don’t feel like it’s translating to everybody on our offense. So if I could get everybody going, we’d probably get way more points than we had today, so.