WATCH: DK Kaufman After NC State’s Win Over NIU

Senior Safety DK Kaufman met with the media after NC State’s win over Northern Illinois today. He had 4 tackles, 1 sack, 1 tackle for loss, 1 forced fumble, 1 pass breakup and 1 touchdown. You can watch the video ABOVE, and read the transcript BELOW.

I know you were on the block last week when Cade Klubnik went off on that 55-yard touchdown, and I could tell by your body language that you weren’t happy about it. You came out with so much more energy today. How much did last week affect your mindset today?

Definitely a lot, but first I just want to thank God. You know, without Him, none of this is possible, but last week, it was embarrassing.

There’s really no other way to put it, and it’s sad that it had to be that way for me and others to come out with that fire in us. You don’t ever really want to get hit in the mouth first, and then fight back, but last week definitely proved pivotal for us. We knew what we had to do.

We knew we had to start fast. We’ll be talking about this all year. Today, we just finally did that, and we’re going to have to keep building off of that.

Like Coach said, we’re trying to go on the run. That’s one down. We got seven more to go.

You talked about wanting to start fast in the past four weeks, but the defense hasn’t been able to do that. What’s been the biggest difference today in actually being able to do that, other than just having the energy that you guys had on the field?

Practice.

I started practice. We always try to keep energy at practice, but this week, it was different. Like, it was definitely different.

Everybody talking, communicating. Everybody really holding everybody accountable. So really just being held accountable at practice is where it all started.

First, when was the last time you had two touchdowns in a season? And second, what do you think is going well for you that’s leading to all of these turnovers?

Last time I had two touchdowns in the season was my senior year.

And as far as what’s going well, I don’t know. It’s God. Like, I’m just right place, right time.

You know, trust the play call. Really just doing my 111 and trying to make plays while doing what I have to do. Other than that, I really don’t know.

Like, it just happens. Some things, they just happen.

How do you guys carry this momentum you guys had on defense today into next week and the weeks after that?

We have to come back and really do the same thing, but amplify it by 10 next week. We got a little momentum, and like you said, we got to keep it. You know, that can be hard sometimes.

People like to relax, but we can’t relax. Coach said that today. We can’t relax.

This is not the time to relax. We’re not anywhere near done for what we trying to go get. So we just can’t relax.

We got to do the same thing next week in practice. We’re going to put this to bed, watch that, then get ready for our next opponent in practice. We have to turn it up again.

I don’t know if you can tell us, but on the scoop-and-score, was that a designed play or just a read that you were able to make?

No, no.

It was a designed play. Yeah, I’m not that wild. I ain’t go that crazy in blitz, nah.