Dave Doeren’s Postgame Press Conference After NC State’s 24-23 Win at Cal (TRANSCRIPT)

Dave Doeren met with the media for his postgame press conference after NC State’s 24-23 win at Cal this afternoon. Check out the transcript below.

Really proud of our players, staff, and thankful for their grit, their perseverance, the way that they finished and didn’t give up. A lot of things went wrong there, turnover-wise. It put us in a tough spot defensively, and the offense got going.

Once we got behind two scores, it was great to see that back-to-back, and we started playing complimentary football with a scoring drive, make it one possession. Defense gets a stop, another scoring drive. And we needed some luck, and we haven’t had any all year.

Thankfully, they missed a kick, and it still was a game. We weren’t able to close it out. It’s disappointing we didn’t finish with a first down there and put our defense back on the field.

But resilient bunch of guys, man. Gritty, tough, banged up. Time for a bye week.

Excited we have one. It’s a long trip out here, so looking forward to getting home and having a little break before we finish these last four games.

What did you see from CJ (Bailey) today, especially when you guys were down multiple scores? Didn’t seem like he got too panicked and was able to help lead the offense back like that.

Yeah, he doesn’t flinch. He believes in himself.

He believes in his teammates. He believes in his coaches. He stays positive, and he’s just got that “it” factor when it comes to how he manages things and overcomes, even when he makes a bad play, it doesn’t rattle him.

And it’s tough. He’s going to be a hell of a player, and he’s tough. Even in the first half, I mean, it was 11 to 13.

We didn’t have a lot of points, but he was doing a good job, and getting used to what they were doing on defense. And that’s a good defense. They were only giving up 17 points a game.

One of the top defenses in the country with takeaways, and I thought CJ really played well today.

Davin (Vann) was just talking about how whenever you get new players, whether it’s a freshman or a transfer, you guys try to instill that type of resiliency that Davin called foundational to your culture here. What did it mean to you to just see the younger guys embrace that and personify that in this win?

Proud of them. The identity of our program is hard, tough together, and that’s way before I got here.

Obviously you know the story of Phillip Rivers, giving that speech to our team back when I was here, and it’s something that’s resonated, and we look for it in recruiting. Sometimes we fail. Sometimes you got to teach it to them.

You’ve got to ingrain it to them. You rely on the staff, the strength staff, and the captains and the leadership council and everybody. The Wolfpack’s not for soft people, and sometimes we don’t play the way that we need to, and it’s on me to get that right, and you saw that after the Clemson game.

I thought our identity came out in that NIU game and really thought we were about to go on a run, and we’ve had to endure some tough things injury-wise over the last two weeks with Grayson (McCall) and Caden Fordham, and so, really proud of this team, man. I mean, they stepped up today and did some really special things, and it’s a great win.

In the second half, skilled guys made skilled plays for you. Hollywood (Smothers) with the touchdown, he made a guy miss. (Bishop) Fitzgerald, he made the tackle on second down. That could have broke and maybe got a score, and (Sean) Brown also with a tackle, I thought, on that punt. Those skilled guys made skilled plays. How rewarding was that for you to see, and to see it at the back end of the game when it really mattered?

I mean, you said it. Are you a player or are you a playmaker? And in these kind of games, players got to make plays to win, man, and you saw some of those things happen. You saw Justin Joly making some plays.

I thought that play by Hollywood, it was a great play call, first of all, by Robert (Anae). They were bringing a lot of pressure in that down and distance. CJ did a good job buying time and delivering a good football to Hollywood in the flat.

It was a pick-match concept, and he did the rest, and that’s what we’re hopeful for with some of these guys that we’ve recruited is that they can be explosive players, so that was great to see.

I know at times as the season progresses, you have to adjust goals, and some of the hopes you have for the end season. How have you adjusted the goals for the end of this season? Are you looking at it maybe trying to get a bowl, or are you are saying win five games and just win out? How is your approach to this back end of the schedule going into the bye?

Just turned it into a five-game season, and how good can we be for five weeks with two byes? Showed them where we were at statistically, and some of them were very pretty, and, you know, let’s take another picture of this in five weeks and see what we really are.

And if we do things the right way, we win the turnover margin. If we continue to improve, we make plays like you saw us make in key moments in that game. I felt pretty good last year winning five in a row, but you got to win the first one to get there and have a chance.

We got the first one, so now a little break, and now we’ll go for another one and just keep one week at a time trying to get better and finish games and see if we can get on a run again, but it’s easier said than done, and we’re a beat-up football team. We need to get healthy right now before we even think about the next opponent. That’s the number one thing is get these guys some mental and physical rest.

You mentioned how there were certainly things that did not go well in that game. Your immediate reaction, what do you think played into some of those issues? Do you think the mental aspect, do you think that was the biggest reason for some of those mistakes?

No, I don’t. I don’t think dropping a punt has anything to do with mental. I mean, it’s Jalen Coit, a really dependable punt returner.

He’s never muffed a punt in his career, so it’s just a tough play. The ball hung up there in the wind, and sometimes those things can happen, so, it’s just a bad break, and field position-wise, that put us in a bad spot.

What kind of toll does this level of travel during the regular season have on your team and preparation?

It’s a long flight, man, five and a half hours, 45-minute bus ride. It’s a lot of travel.

I’m glad we have a bye week on the backside of it. I feel more sorry for Cal and Stanford, to be honest, because they got to do this a lot more than we’ve got to do it, going to all their games, but it’s tough. It’s a lot of travel.

The time change really didn’t hurt us. I thought that was kind of being able to come out on Thursday. It was great, and I’m thankful for that, but I didn’t feel like that was a factor as much as just the amount of time you’re sitting on an airplane, sitting in a bus, things like that.

But the guys obviously did a good job. Our staff did a good job. The nutrition & strength staff, everybody pitched in, and players sucked it up.

We got to give them a lot of credit.