Davin Vann’s Postgame Press Conference After NC State’s Win Over Cal (TRANSCRIPT)

Senior Defensive End Davin Vann met with the media in the postgame press conference after NC State’s 24-23 win over Cal today. You can read the transcript below.

First of all, to close out those games with the sacks, just speak to those plays and how vital that was and how happy it must have must have made you.

I mean, that was just something that me and Coach Doeren have been talking about a lot this season, just having the ability to close out games. So have an opportunity to do that.

And being able to do that. I’m very proud of that. That’s good. To the bye week now.

I know it’s fresh, but you go four and four, you guys have now a better chance of getting to a bowl game. I know you talk about winning it out to get to that with this, I guess, good mojo from this game. How vital was that too?

It was very vital, especially going into the bye week.

You never want to go into the bye week with a loss. So that was something we’ve kind of focused on all week was not rushing to the bye week and making sure that we took the necessary steps to beat Cal.

You’re one of the senior leaders of a team that’s relying on a lot of underclassmen. What does it mean to you to see these younger guys grow up and improve and have that result in a critical road victory?

It means a lot. And it definitely gives me hope for, you know, Wolfpack for the future.

A lot of these guys are young, sophomores, juniors, freshmen. So just them having the ability to mature throughout the season and make the plays that are needed to be made. It just makes me very happy.

And I’m very hopeful for the future of this program.

You were banged up. How important was it for you to get on the field? And just now the relief of a win, what are you feeling right now?

I’m a little sore, but coach always says it hurts a lot less when you win. So, that was kind of just the mindset, not wanting to lose. I was going to be hurting regardless.

So wanted to get that dub.

I know you’re on the other side of the ball what does it say about a guy like CJ (Bailey) to be down multiple scores and stay composed and to be able to kind of help lead the offense back once you guys got rolling on defense and could get some stops going as well?

Yeah, it says a lot about him. He’s young and it’s very hard to keep composure, especially when you’re getting sacked so many times or things just aren’t going your way. But his ability to keep composure is just very impressive. He just continues to show me why he has the ability to play at this level and is going to succeed at this level and beyond.

I know y’all are not satisfied with where you’re at right now, but does finally getting that win kind of take a little pressure off, or are you able to breathe a sigh of relief?

In a way, yeah. Winning is hard.

So being able to come out here on this long trip and secure a win is very great. I don’t know if I’d say a sigh of relief, but we still have four games left that we’re trying to win out. Kind of trying to stay locked in on that.

What do you think makes this team so resilient?

That’s just kind of always how we’ve been. It’s in our DNA.

Whenever we get new guys, coach tries to drill that into us. All the new guys, that’s just kind of who we are and what we’re about, you know, hard, tough together. That’s just one of the stepping stones or foundation of what makes Wolfpack football…Wolfpack football.

What was the difference between that first half and second half? You had two sacks in the second half.

Kind of just taking pride in the game being on our back. It was a close game and defense was out there for majority of the end and kind of just taking pride in finishing out the game and being there for our brothers on offense.