WATCH: CJ Bailey After NC State’s Loss to Duke (with transcript)

True Freshman Quarterback CJ Bailey met with the media for the postgame press conference after NC State’s 19-29 loss this afternoon. You can watch the video ABOVE, and read the transcript BELOW.

Obviously a frustrating result for the team overall and the offense on the day. Just your assessment of your game and the offense’s performance today?

Of course we could have played way better. Especially I could have played way better, but it’s just that finishing point again, we couldn’t finish in the redzone when we had those chances and we missed a lot of shots.

I missed a lot of shots, a lot of throws that I wish I could have back. But our offense, we drive the ball every time, every game we move the ball. We just got to finish.

That’s going to be our negative. We’ve got to finish the drive.

What was Duke’s defense doing inside the redzone that limited you guys so much and kept you out of the end zone for the most part throughout the day?

Defensively they were just going zero.

In the redzone, they’ll go 41, slide zero. We had a pass play, we had to slide the line and try to protect me and everything. But they were sending more than we could block when we got down there.

Inside zone wasn’t working because those guys were making plays on defense. So we could have done way more things to finish those drives. We wish we could have it back.

It is what it is.

KC Concepcion only had four yards from scrimmage today. What did Duke do to limit him today?

Duke didn’t do anything to limit him. We did it ourselves. Me and him, I missed him a lot.

He didn’t make a couple plays for me as well. So it’s both of our faults. Duke didn’t do anything.

I’ll say me personally, he did what he had to do to get open every time he was open. We just couldn’t finish. We couldn’t connect.

How tough was it to not get that win and see some of your senior teammates leave the field for the last time, knowing that the offense had opportunities?

Yeah, it was really tough.

That game was really important for those guys who went out. All week, that’s all we had in mind was to get the win for those guys and we couldn’t finish it. So that really hurts.

Like Coach Doeren said, we’ve got to dig a little deeper. That really meant something to those guys. This is their last game here at the Carter.

They ended off with a loss. That’s just not good. Offensively, I feel like we’ve got to change the game in so many ways and help those guys out to get a win.

You’re not done with the season. You still have opportunities to send them off with success. How much hope does that give you, knowing you still have at least two games ahead of you?

Yeah, that’s a good thought.

That’s a good question. We know that we’ve got more to do. We’ve got more to accomplish.

We send those guys off with a better message. We’ve got two or three more games and we could get a good finish for those guys.

You talked about finishing and not being able to do that. What do you guys need to do to be able to capitalize in the redzone from your point of view?

My point of view, we’ve just got to dig a little deeper once we get down in that redzone. We bust our ass the whole drive.

I know some of our guys are tired. I try my best to tell them, ‘let’s keep fighting. We got down here for a reason. We’re not just going to waste our drive.’

It happens. Things happen. Games happen like this. Just knowing our offense, knowing our team, period, we overcome this and finish with a good season.

I know there were a good amount of drops in this game. What are your conversations like with your receivers when mistakes like that are happening in a game like this on the sideline?

There’s been a lot of drops and there’s been a lot of misthrows from me as well. I make it hard for those guys to catch the football, but the main thing is that we’ve got to make our layups, frame catches and everything.

Most of those drops that we had were because the ball was probably too low. It was probably too high. It was hard to catch for those guys.

I put it in a high position, but the easy layups that we had, we could have made those layups and finished the catches.