NC State Head Coach Dave Doeren met with the media today for his weekly press conference before the Wolfpack’s game against Wake Forest this Saturday. You can watch the video BELOW and read the transcript UNDERNEATH.
Before we talk about the game, I just want to say that we’re praying and thinking a lot about the folks. The recent hurricane Helene has devastated our state. It’s just been crazy seeing the images more and more coming up with so much damage. Wi-Fi down and people’s phones not working.
And I think the damage is so much worse than people even understand. And all the people, the homes, the businesses, communities, state parks that have just been devastated by this flood. It’s really sad and tragic.
And so we are here praying and thinking a lot about the folks in the western part of the state. It was this weekend, my son Connor’s team ETSU was driving from Johnson City to the Citadel and their bus got stranded. Their entire team had to sleep in the bus that night.
They couldn’t get off the road. So they were flooded in at a gas station. We were trying to calltrying to get a hold of coaches in the county where they were stranded, seeing if they could get into a church or gym to sleep.
And none of them had power. Most of the people we got on the phone couldn’t get out of their homes. Thankfully, their team was able to get out and you see what’s going on in Boone.
Obviously, I have a son there and talked to Coach Clark up there today. They have player apartments that are condemned and they’re trying to find housing for players. And they got two coaches whose homes have been condemned.
And so just a really tough time in the state. Saw pictures of Chimney Rock wiped off the map and Lake Lure, which is just a beautiful, beautiful spot. It’s just full of lumber and boats and debris.
It’s really tough. The town of Asheville, power outages and contaminated water and businesses and everything. So I would ask that everybody pray for those folks.
I know there’s still folks missing. And sounds like everybody’s working really hard to help those communities. And we have players on our team, Aydan White’s family in Asheville, Zack Myer’s family in Asheville, Isaiah Shirley’s family in Boone, and their families are safe.
But I know that was a scary time for them. And so before we talk about football, I need to talk about that. And today, Davin Vann’s family reached out.
They own a moving company and Davin and his family are putting together a truck that we’re going to send over, that they’re going to send over to provide relief for those in western North Carolina affected by Hurricane Helene. And we’re going to park a truck by the Close King Indoor. It’ll get here today at 3 p.m. and we’ll leave sometime tomorrow in the evening.
And we have a bunch of items. I know we’re going to list this on social media as well, but drop-off times on Monday from 3 to 8, Tuesday from 12 to 8, and Wednesday from 12 to 8. Cases of water, electrolyte drinks, baby formula, baby wipes, hygiene products, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, feminine products, hand sanitizer, diapers, shampoo, flashlights, lanterns, batteries, blankets, sleeping bags, shelf table food, stable food, and pop-top canned food. Anything that anybody wants to bring over, we would love to have to fill this moving truck to take over to those folks.
And really proud of and thankful of Davin and his family. Davin probably just came off the best game of his career as well. And for that to be what’s on his mind today I think says a lot about that young man and his family.
Joyful Movers is the name of the trucking company that the Vann family owns. And they’ll gather the goods and then they’ll be delivered to Durham Rescue Mission for dissemination. So with that I’ll move forward here and talk about the game.
I thought it was a really good performance by our football team. It was a heck of a team win against a really good football team. I have so much respect for Thomas Hammock and his staff and the way his players compete.
That was an old school football game. It was a defensive battle. It was a very physical football game.
And we won because we won the turnover margin and the field position. Our offense ended every drive with a kick. And there weren’t always field goals and touchdowns, but there were no turnovers.
And that was paramount. The way Caden Noonkester punted the football, seven of eight punts inside the 20, two inside the 10 for a 48-yard net. It was maybe the best performance I’ve seen by a punter.
He was a weapon. We had a fake punt that continued to drive that led to our first touchdown. And our defense was dominant.
They played really good football, man. They set edges, which we didn’t do the week before. Something we really worked hard on.
We played where we were supposed to play. Guys were fitting the run. They had good eyes.
We played a lot of players. We were stripping the football. I mean, we had two more that we could have got.
And one of them bounced into the end zone and they recovered it for a touchdown. Another one somehow landed in offensive lineman’s hands on Davin’s second strip. But to force four turnovers and score our third touchdown on defense was awesome.
And especially when you’re coming off of maybe our worst performance the week before defensively, to see them respond that way made me really proud of those guys. And as a team, it was complimentary football. It really was.
NIU’s defense has now held three teams under 200 yards. I don’t know if I’ve seen that in today’s age. And so that’s an impressive thing that they are doing on their field.
And obviously a lot of things we need to get better at and we’ll continue to work at. Positives on offense, obviously we didn’t turn the ball over. We were 100% scoring in the red zone, two touchdowns and a field goal.
I thought Dante Daniels went in the game and did some good things for us at tight end. Jacarrius Peak played his best game on the O-line. And we started with our first possession score and a touchdown building a lead, which was positive in that game against a ball control offense to have a lead in the game.
And we maintained the lead throughout the game. From a negative standpoint, we’ve had some penalties and they’re calling more holding now than I’ve ever seen. And we’ve got to be able to play well within that and know how they’re calling it.
But we had three in that game, holding penalties that were drive killers and getting yourself into, especially when they’re positive plays and you have a 15 or 20 yard gain and now it’s instead of first and 10, it’s first and 25, first and 20, second and 15, whatever it ends up being, it’s a drive killer. And so we’ve got to be better fundamentally and not having our hands in positions where we’re getting called for those.
I was disappointed we didn’t get points in that first drive of the 2nd half and just not enough explosive plays. We got to be better there. Third downs obviously were atrocious for us, one of 11.
And a lot of that’s the down and distances that we’re playing in. And that goes back to efficiency, which you’ve heard me talk about a number of times. There’s a lot of positives on defense in that game.
Four takeaways, setting edges, tackling, playing with passion, pressuring quarterback, and making plays in their backfield. We had what we call bombs, 16 plays, 12 tackles for loss, and four quarterback sacks, which two of them ended up being fumbles. Three of them, excuse me, were fumbles.
Special teams wise, it was a great game from a field position standpoint. Caden Noonkester responded, did not punt the ball well the week before. He’s a returning starter.
Challenged him to be what he is, and a really consistent guy that can kick the football, and he did a great job. Our coverage units were good. Guys tackled and pursued.
Colin Smith continues to get touchbacks for us. I thought DK (Kaufman) had a nice kickoff return. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get our punt return game going.
Their punter just did not kick the ball to us, and so that was kind of a non-factor.
Now on to in-state rival Wake Forest and Coach Clausen. We’ve played against each other a long time.
Got great respect for Dave and his staff, and a lot of continuity. All the same coaches he’s had for a long time. They have systems they believe in, and they’re good at operating them.
They play hard. They have a lot of returning starters on their team. I think their defensive line in particular is very tested, and has played a lot of football.
It’s a game that goes back long ways, and traditionally these are close games. They’re a unique offense. It’s been talked about for a long time.
Experienced receiving core. I think their receivers are a strength for them. The running back got banged up in the game.
I’m not sure what his status is, number one, but he’s a really impressive guy on film. He’s fast. He has patience.
He’s tough. Offensive line’s big, and their quarterback’s a transfer. Only have four games on them there at Wake.
I thought he had a good game last week. You can see that he has a good understanding of their offense. He can move around in the pocket and make plays with his feet.
Defensively, like I said, their front is really impressive. Their defensive end, number 30, has 23 career sacks and over 100 quarterback pressures. He’s a force on the edge.
Their inside guys, 91 and 55, been there a long time. They’re tough. They’re disruptive.
They play with really good technique. Their defensive line coach does a really good job developing defensive linemen. Kids play really hard.
They play square. Their kids force a lot of turnovers. They always have.
They’re good at punching the football. We got to be really good at protecting the ball in this game. As a team, I think we’ve learned a lot about ourselves and challenged our guys.
It’s been stated, and we’re getting better. I look forward to another week to get better again and grow in places we need to grow. There’s a ton of football.
October starts tomorrow. We’ve got seven games with two bye weeks and two months. It’s going to go really fast.
We just got to stay really mission focused on the day we’re in and have a great week of practice. I’m excited to get back on the field with the guys, see their energy. They were really good in the team meeting yesterday.
They’ve learned a lot. Like I said, this is a team that had a lot of new players on it. We’ve had to embrace growing together.
I feel like this team is doing that. It’s been definitely a challenge, but a fun challenge for me and our coaching staff. I appreciate the willingness of this team to continue to fight.
As far as injuries go, I’m not going to discuss anything. I don’t have any updates. We meet with our trainer today at three o’clock.
We came out of the game pretty good. Most of the stuff in our game was cramping. We’ll see where we’re at when we get out of our staff meeting this afternoon.
I know you just said you don’t have any updates, but I was just curious about Grayson (McCall) and his status for this weekend.
Yeah, I’m not going to discuss it.
When he’s ready to play, he’ll be out there and that’s where we’re at.
As for a non-injury question, you’ve said multiple times just now that you guys have learned a lot through these first few games. What is the biggest thing that you feel like this team has learned?
Our brand of football. You get 40 some new players in and they come with all their habits. Some of them are really good.
Some of them aren’t, how they practiced, how they went through their game routines, what the demand is from our staff, what the expectations are, what the former players have established as an identity here. And sometimes you think you know what a guy is about, but game day is where you really find out. And so we’ve had to challenge some guys to be tougher, to fight harder, and they’ve responded well.
I mean, we just played a really tough football game and our guys that we challenged stepped up, and so I think it’s a different time in college football, you know, and you can do as much as you want to do in the offseason to build the chemistry off the field, but the on the field chemistry takes games, it does. And sometimes those games don’t look good. And for us, there’s been two that haven’t and three that have and the kids know what we’re about now, and I think that’s the best thing that you can have is an identity.
And it took a while to get it, and now it’s about consistently being that way. And for us as coaches, knowing what guys are doing well, and now, ‘all right, how can we get that guy the ball in a different way? How can we do this? You know, this guy’s doing this, we didn’t know he could do that. This safety is a really good blitzer. Let’s find some ways to bring him.’ We’re learning about these guys every day. We are.
But game day, boy, it’s the biggest eye opener for all of us. And as coaches, we have to evolve. I think the best thing we did last year was evolve, as the course of the season went on, and we’re going to do the same this year.
I know in the offseason, you said you made it a point to retool your wide receiver room, and you brought back KC. Through five games, how would you evaluate what you’re getting from those guys?
Yeah, it’s pretty hard to evaluate our pass game. It hasn’t been what I was hoping for. I think part of that is what’s transpired having a quarterback and not blaming CJ (Bailey) at all.
I think CJ’s getting better. But you can’t put the entire system on a freshman either. And so you are a little bit more restricted in his first start at Clemson, and what you’re going to ask from him.
And then last week, like I said, we played a really good defense. And so those guys did some good things that made it hard. But their pass rush, we had some guys open, he couldn’t get the ball to them.
And there were some throws that he could have made that would have been better. He did some good things too. But I think that’s a work in progress right now.
It needs to get better. We need to find more ways to spread the ball around and let those kids make plays for us. I’m really impressed with the outside receiving cores blocking.
I think that’s an area that we’ve never been this good in. And that’s going to help them in the pass game. And so that’s an area of our team in general that, and it’s not the kids fault, we just need to play better collectively so that we can get those guys the ball more.
You referenced Davin’s game earlier. It seemed like a lot of guys in your front had better games or gave you more than they’d been giving you. Did you guys kind of evaluate it like that once you watched it back?
Yeah, it was a really good game in the box. I mean, it was a phone booth game. That’s just how NIU’s offense is.
So there was a lot of plays in the box that they can make. A lot of times they’re playing hard, they’re doing good things, but the ball’s out on the perimeter, or the ball’s thrown quick. And they’re not as much of a factor in games like that.
And this game where it was more between the tackles with drop back play action passes that take some time to develop, the D-line was able to get some things going in there. And I thought they were really disruptive. It wasn’t one player. I mean, Davin obviously shined with his statistics, but I thought Isaiah Shirley, Noah Potter, Travali Price. All four of our defensive ends were effective in this game. Brandon Cleveland continues to do good things in there. Chaz (Wallace) went in there and gave us some valuable reps as well.
But the front strained, man, and it was a game that if you didn’t play that way up front, it could have been ugly. They’re a really good football team in the box. What they do running the football with all the misdirection and, 14 personnel, 22 personnel.
It was like a Big Ten old school offensive game. And so the box is where it was at.
Schematically, is Wake Forest similar to what they’ve always been?
There’s not much of a change schematically for them.
In the run game schematically, a little different, more zone and gap schemes. In the past, you’d see a lot more pullers up front, maybe. But the mesh and the RPOs, the receivers are really good.
He’s had a good receiving core for a while now. His kids are experienced. And Donovan Green and (Taylor) Morin are both really good receivers, proven guys.
Their tight end does a good job. It’s the same stuff. Obviously, Hartman was in the system forever.
And so it was like clockwork with him, and now there’s a different quarterback. We’re still learning about what he is. Don’t have as many games, obviously.
But systematically on defense it’s four down. They stem their front. There’s a bunch of games inside, quarters coverage, cover three, cover two, and no blitz.
On third down, they have a bunch of different things that can happen, and they do a good job being multiple on third downs. But you know who you’re getting. You get a team that plays really hard, plays really fundamentally sound, that knows what their systems are.
They do a good job punching at the football on defense. And so they’re going to be in the places you think they’re going to be. You got to go make plays.
So many pundits and fans follow stars and recruiting and such. What is it in terms of traits and characteristics that teams like Wake Forest tend to do well every year, but maybe don’t get those kids. What is it about them that they have that make them successful despite maybe not getting those?
Well, they develop players. They have a good system of identifying the type of body types they want.
As you know, kids that go to school there, they go there not just for football because of the degree and their retention. Even though they do lose kids to other teams, they retain a lot of their players. So they’re able to develop guys and play them.
And the kids know the system inside and out. You see that with their D line. Those guys have been together a lot.
They’ve played a lot of snaps next to each other. And so they’ve been able to develop guys. And they’re good coaches.
I mean, they get guys in the right positions. They teach them what to do. They show them what the strengths and weaknesses are, their defenses, their coverages, and they play to them.
And they play really hard. And I think there’s just a standard of play similar to us and other teams that have been able to sustain success over time. They have systems they believe in, and their kids are coached well in them.
After the game, CJ talked about maybe the offense wasn’t matching his energy that he had on the field. Is that something you saw when watching it back? And how do you kind of try to correct that or improve that, you know, moving forward?
Yeah, it’s hard for me to say.
I mean, I didn’t feel like our performance was a lack of energy on offense. Bigger problem is beating ourselves with penalties. And the penalties we’re getting aren’t because guys are cheap-shotting people or throwing guys on the ground.
The guys had their hands inside and pancaked somebody without turning them, twisting them. Icky (Ikem Ekwonu) would have had 100 holding penalties if that was a hold back when he was here.
And so just they’re calling it more. And that’s, for us, we just got to know that. Like, we got to be able to play within what they’re calling.
And drive-killing penalties, they’re real for us right now. I mean, we’ve got to get out of our own way that way. I didn’t see an energy thing.
Guys were playing hard. I mean, those guys want the football. They want to run hard.
They’re trying to block hard. But we’ve got to make sure that we’re not beating ourselves. And there’s no doubt CJ has great energy.
That kid has that every single day. And I appreciate that about him.
Tamarcus (Cooley) stepped up in a big way Saturday. He’s obviously from right down the road. What does it mean to you? What does it mean to this program when you bring in a guy from Raleigh, the surrounding area, and have him contribute in a meaningful way to winning?
Yeah, really proud of Tamarcus.
Played really well in a lot of ways. In the box, sat in edges, fit in the run. But then in coverage, had a number of pass breakups.
Obviously, had the big interception at the end of the game. Did a good job fitting a lot of formations and surface areas. There was a lot going on there communication-wise on motions for a young guy to have to manage all that.
It was impressive. And to your point, it’s great that he’s a local guy. Again, when you’re recruiting, guys have opportunities to leave our state all the time, but when they see their guys they grew up with, that they either went to school with, trained with, were on seven-on-sevens together, ran track against each other, and they see them staying home, making plays in their backyard.
I mean, that’s good for recruiting. It is. And for the young men that get to do that and have their families close by watching it, their coaches, their mentors, it’s good for their quality of life that they can get so many people around to watch them that don’t have to fly and get hotels and drive all over the place to see them play.
You talked after the Clemson game that you felt like your captains didn’t really step up. Saturday was a completely different game. Was that something that you specifically challenged them with? Or, you know, was it just something that you expected them to do because they were captains?
Yeah, I mean, your best players, whether they’re captains or not, and your most experienced players on good football teams, they play that way all the time.
Sometimes they give speeches that help with that. Sometimes it’s just in their day-to-day, how they hold kids accountable, and they’re showing and leading the way. And I think anytime you lose a game the way we did that day, nobody led well enough, starting with me.
I’ve got to demand more from them. They have to respond, which they did. The players around them have to support them and not put all the strain on them.
There’s a lot of different types of leadership, and if you’re not a leader, then you need to follow the right people. And that’s what we do as coaches. You try to mentor that, you try to grow that in your program, and sometimes failure occurs.
And you use that failure as a lesson for growth, and we did that. And I’m proud of those guys for how they responded. They’ll keep learning and growing. That’s what this is.
DK Kaufman, he’s come in and made some big plays for you guys, multiple games. What’d you like about him when you were evaluating him in the portal?
Oh, you can tell he loves the game. He’s very competitive, very intelligent. He loves studying the game.
He loves talking the game. I didn’t know he would play as hard as he does. I mean, in practice, he’s 100 miles an hour.
He’s a high effort guy, and you don’t learn that in the portal. It’s something you get after the fact. But just in the conversations with him, his mind was in the right place.
He was looking for the right fit, and he had a lot of questions. He wanted to go through a lot of things. It wasn’t just, ‘hey, they called me,’ you know.
He and his family were very, very intuitive, asked a lot of good questions, great eye contact on the visit, and just enjoyed being around him. You could tell day-to-day he was going to be a fun kid to coach.
I believe you guys blitzed more against Northern Illinois than you had in the past few games. Was that just a product of winning more on first and second down and keeping them in third and longs, or was there anything else you guys noticed that you could take advantage of?
There were so many run fits in that game. We felt like you can slow your guys down, just being base, base, base, base. We wanted to be aggressive.
We wanted to chop up the runs. We wanted their big alignment to have to block movement. And so some of them were blitzes.
Some of them were stunts. But that was definitely part of the game plan. We knew that we had to take away the run game to have a chance, because play action is not very good when the run game is not working.
And with all the bootlegs and play actions that came off those runs, we felt like pressuring them would give them less time to get open on some of those down the field shots that they had. Obviously, it was a good game plan. It worked really well.
You talked about Kaufman, but Kerry Martin Jr. stayed ready and he stepped up. Ja’had Carter has been in and out of the lineup. What is it like to have these older defensive backs who you know you can call upon when you need them, but they also stay ready?
Those guys have come in and they’ve dealt with some things injury wise since they’ve been here. So it’s been harder.
Opposite of DK, who’s done a good job, or had better luck, maybe if staying healthy. But yeah, it’s nice when you’re in a competitive situation in the lineup with the guys you mentioned, because they have a lot of experience that they can get in the game, and they’re not big eyed about playing. Having that rotation, because we’re going to need it.
Wake averages over 80 snaps a game on offense with their tempo. We’re going to need that depth and that rotation. The depth chart can change pretty fast sometimes when guys go down.
So that was the whole point of recruiting some older guys. We feel like we have some really good young players in the secondary behind our starters, and we needed that bridge to get those kids ready. When you look at some of the freshmen, Ronnie Royal, Brody Barnhardt, Jivan Baily, and then linebackers Elijah Groves and Zane Williams, there’s some good freshmen on defense that are down there.
And it’s fun watching them, and they’re getting better and better, but when you go from a starter to the true freshmen, sometimes you have to suffer through that. And that’s why we added some experience, not only to become a starter like DK and Ja’had in some games and Kerry in this game, but to have competitive depth every day.
And if there’s an injury, a guy that can go in that’s tested, and we felt like we had that in some position rooms, but not others. And in the secondary with Boykin being out, we really needed to add that age in that latter part of the recruiting stage. So that’s why we did that.
And obviously, it’s nice from a coaching standpoint to have that luxury.
A little light on the analysis?