WATCH: Dave Doeren Meets with the Media After Practice Before Wake Forest

NC State Head Coach Dave Doeren met with the media today after practice leading up to the Wolfpack’s game against Wake Forest this Saturday. You can watch the video ABOVE, and read the transcript below.

Preparing for Wake Forest’s unique offensive scheme

Yeah, it’s really hard to duplicate what that looks like in practice with the scouts. And we’ve tried really hard, giving it a good shot.

I mean, game day is gonna be the tell. It’s a unique offense, as we all know, and they’ve got good receivers, quarterbacks playing with confidence. Their running backs run hard.

They’re doing a good job on offense. That’s not been their problem. They’ve had some tight losses, one possession losses, and they are moving the football, they are possessing the football, they’ve got explosive plays.

So it’s always a challenge, and you gotta pressure the match point, and you gotta mix it up, and you gotta make plays on the ball. And then you’re gonna have to tackle in space. The timing of defending their blocking schemes is unique, because as a linebacker or DB, you get used to what it’s like.

When someone runs outside zone or inside zone, where the ball hits, how fast it hits there, and sometimes now you’re hitting your fit, and the ball’s not there, and so what do you do? You wanna chase and pursue, but the ball’s still coming. And so you gotta be really disciplined in your fits when you play these guys. Our guys are gonna have to be disciplined.

Has the message on offense changed handling stuff with CJ in the backfield.

There’s a lot of things when you’re breaking in a new quarterback that are unique, but the message is always the same. We wanna end every drive with a kick, not turn the ball over, which we did a great job of last week.

We wanna win the line of scrimmage, which means minimal tackles for loss and no sacks, and we wanna make explosive plays. And we did not make explosive plays a week ago, and that is why we were off the field so many times. So the message doesn’t change.

The execution of what we’re doing has to improve. And obviously, looking at play selection and things like that, that’s on the coaches. What can we do to help with that, with formations, with personnel, with motions? And so we’re always evolving, always.

And CJ’s (Bailey) third game, he’ll be more experienced, obviously, than he was in his first and his second. And so you can grow on the things that he’s experienced in those games.

Winning the battle in the trenches

Yeah, they’re good players (Wake’s D-Line).

I have a lot of respect, not just for their players over there, their D line coach, I’ve always held to a high esteem. I think he’s a really good football coach. Their guys are sound.

They play hard, they use their hands, they understand back sets and tight ends and locations and splits of O linemen. And you can’t have tails, and we had some. Our guys have had to do a better job of holding our O linemen accountable and our backs on tendencies and things like that.

You gotta be really, really good with your self scout when you’re playing a team like Wake, because they’re good at understanding if the back’s here, the tight end’s here, if this lineman’s in a three point or a two point. And all those things matter, and so it’s gonna be a strain fest inside. Got to play with really good technique.

And you got guys playing against each other that have played against each other. They know each other. They’ve gone up against each other, they got film against each other.

And so it’s fun, it’s fun seeing those guys compete against each other. And same thing with me and Coach Clawson, and we’ve had a lot of games against each other. So I enjoy the back and forth, the competition, just like our players will.

You mentioned CJ, going to his third start. Have you seen him grow on and off the field through each week?

Yeah, I think just his confidence in practice. He understands he’s in charge of things.

He’s got a certain mentality about himself. He’s always carried himself with, not a free spirit, but he loves football. Like when he shows up, he’s smiling, he’s happy, he likes playing the game.

And that hasn’t changed, but I think just his demeanor and his approach and how important practice is, and now not just taking care of yourself. You gotta start looking around you and seeing, ‘hey, I need you to practice harder. Hey, I need you to be here instead of here on this route,’ and taking command of the other ten that are in there with you.

Caden (Noonkester) was named the Ray Guy Punter of the Week. He was. How nice is it to have a weapon like that on special teams?

Yeah, he had a great performance.

I mean, one of the best I’ve seen out of a punter. Now we just want consistency, and not that we expect a 48-yard net every week. I mean, that was exceptional.

But our goal is to be over 40 in net yards every week. When we have opportunities to down teams inside the 20 and 10, we want to be successful in those areas, and that’s the standard. And I’m proud of him for responding, because he’s one of the guys I challenged two weeks ago.

I didn’t feel like he was playing up to his ability level, and he did. He had great practice today.

Dante Daniels has been playing more and more snaps. What have you seen from him?

Yeah, coming from Canada to the junior college level, and then to power four football, it’s been a learning curve for him. And so he’s getting better. He’s a big guy that can run.

He can catch the football a lot better than people know. And he’s physical. He’s starting to play lower.

When you’re 6’7″, it’s hard sometimes to play with leverage. And so he’s understanding now how important that is. And he’s earning trust is what’s happening, and that’s why he’s getting more and more reps.

I’m excited for Dante. He’s making the right progress as the season goes on.

When Davin (Vann) wanted to do the donation drive, what were your thoughts of him taking that on with his family and wanting to do that?

His mom texted me about the whole thing. And I was really thankful to them. It’s an uplifting deal that they’re doing, obviously, and now it’s just multiplied into a lot of people being involved in it.

And so a lot of our players have been helping, a lot of our staff, our recruiting staff, our ops staff, a lot of hands on deck loading trucks. And people in the community coming in, dropping off things for all the folks that need it. And so that’s the one thing you see really statewide.

There’s a lot of people pitching in to help all the folks in the mountains. And man, it’s disheartening when you see the photos and videos.

One of our really good supporters, Zeb Hatley’s helicopter. He’s flying around with people rescuing folks, and dropping off things, and pulling people out of wreckage. And it’s just amazing to see some of our people in the state just stop work, go help people right now, and that’s awesome.

It’s a tragedy, and it’s, for all of us that have been there, it’s such a beautiful place. I have no idea what it’s going to look like when we go back. But my first trip to the state of North Carolina was to Lake Lure.

And I went there on vacation with my family, Sarah and I, and we went back another time, and what a beautiful place. And now to see the videos of that, and how bad it looks. It’s sad. Chimney Rock State Park’s one of the most beautiful places in the world.

I’ve been told it’s completely wiped out. I haven’t seen images of that yet, but that’s sad. And so I’m thankful for Davin, that’s a long answer.

It says a lot, and a lot of our players have chipped in. We’ve raised a lot of money out of their pockets just to help out in any way they can.

How sports can rally people together for good

Yeah, sports definitely, over the years through all the tragedies, even remember COVID, it was the only thing that brought happiness for a while was people watching the games because they couldn’t go.

And it’s always been that glue for our country, I think, in different sports. And especially locally when your team’s playing well, you see that pride in your city. And sometimes it takes a tragedy maybe to get everybody out of what they thought was important. They’re pissed off that we’re not scoring enough, like that doesn’t matter compared to this.

Like let’s get into the real world here for a minute. So it’s good to see people helping other people in a time where you don’t see that very often.

Do you have an update on Ja’Had (Carter) or Hollywood (Smothers) going into this week?

No, I’m not gonna talk about injuries.

I don’t have to do that, and I’m not going to do that.

On if this is a big game

I think they’re all big games. I mean, I don’t understand how people say that. Every game we play, you’re only as good as your last performance, that’s it.

I mean, with you guys too, ‘I’m the worst coach in the country when we lose, and then when we win, I figured it out.’

Like every game matters, this game matters, the last one mattered. So yeah, they’re all important right now, there’s a lot of football.

And there’s eight weeks of football left, and nothing’s been decided in our conference right now.