Hollywood Smothers’ Postgame Press Conference After NC State’s Win Over Cal (TRANSCRIPT)

Redshirt Freshman Running Back Hollywood Smothers met with the media during the postgame press conference after NC State’s 24-23 win over Cal today. You can read the transcript below.

The touchdown you scored, you made a guy miss and the skill guys today in general were making plays in open field, defense and offense. Could you just speak to that and the importance of that?

Coach Doeren really just held us to the standard.

If you are a playmaker, go out there and make plays. That’s what we’re supposed to do. And we’re given an opportunity.

And especially in my situation, we were down, we needed a touchdown right there. Coach Doeren said, if you’re a playmaker, go make plays. And I feel like that’s what our playmakers were able to do today.

Could you just speak to what it was like on the sideline at 23-10 when you guys were chasing?

Just keeping each other going, depending on our brothers. Defense kept us in a ball game where they were getting stops. We’ve just got to execute every drive, in the red zone, score points. We just came together, leaned on each other and were able to make it happen.

How much has CJ (Bailey) grown in these starts? It seemed like today, even though you guys were down, he didn’t really panic. He was able to lead you guys back to this win.

Yeah, CJ is getting better and better every game. Everybody believes in CJ.

CJ’s got it. Like, he’s got it. It’s natural.

It comes natural to him. We just got to keep believing in him, believing in him. He’s going to get the job done.

But CJ’s got everything he needs to be great.

You guys made it very clear that despite whatever adversity you guys face, you guys just aren’t going to quit. What is it about this locker room, this group of guys that makes it such a resilient group?

Just sticking by each other. Sticking by each other.

Like I said, it’s a brotherhood here, and we’ve just got to lean on each other. Like I said, we drop blood, sweat and tears into this together. We watch each other go through the ups and downs.

Even through adversity, we’ve just got to stick together. And I feel like that was shown on the day.

I know this is fresh, but could you just speak to the vibe this is going to send you guys into the bye week? And you got four games left to chase for bowl eligibility. You need two wins. Just how vital was this win in general?

Every win for us is vital right now.

We’re tired of losing our games. It’s one-in-a-row, and we just had to do what we had to do. We’re going into the bye week, but that wasn’t our plan, to rush into the bye week.

We’re trying to finish the rest of these games out. Go 5-0, get us a good bowl game.

What does this say about this team, to only rush for 29 yards, but still able to find a way to win just going through the air, whether it was you or Justin. A lot of different guys had more than four catches today. What does it say about this team to be able to find a way like that?

Like I said, we got playmakers all over the place.

So we put the ball in the air. And like you said, CJ has it all, and able to open up the passing game and get it to the right guy. So we were able to come through for him when he got us the ball.

It wasn’t the prettiest game for y’all. But a win is a win. What’s the biggest immediate takeaway for what you kind of want to work on in the bye week?

Through pretty much everything. Of course, we’re gonna go back, reflect, watch film on this and see what we didn’t do so good. We weren’t able to get the run attack going.

We’ve got to do better. See what I’ve got to do better.

Really just going to reflect and keep getting better week-by-week.

Each of the past two weeks, you’ve been heavily involved in the receiving game. I was just wondering if the chance to come to a school where you’re going to be used as a rusher, but also receiver and line up all over the place. Was that part of the reason you came to NC State?

Um, no, but you know, Coach Anae and Coach Goebel were able to see I was valuable in the passing game, and they just put me in the right positions to catch the ball and make plays. So get in a space.

The run game wasn’t working. So they were able to get me in space with the ball. That wasn’t part of me coming here.

That was just a coach decision, for part of the game plan.