WATCH: Dave Doeren’s Weekly Press Conference Before UNC (with transcript)

NC State Head Coach Dave Doeren met with the media today for his weekly press conference leading up to the Wolfpack’s rivalry game against UNC this Saturday. You can watch the videos BELOW, and read the transcript UNDERNEATH.

Starting with our game with Georgia Tech, a really hard-fought game between two teams. Both teams really wanted it and came down to the last play and was very proud of our guys, how we battled in that game and had to overcome a lot of adversity. And I love how the guys hung in there and just fought.

A lot of guys made plays. Not having Davin (Vann) the last quarter hurt us, from a pass rush standpoint. He’s really been a presence for us in those kind of moments, in two-minute drives.

He’s doing good, totally expecting to have him this week, so that’s good news. I thought we really played well in the red zone on defense, held them many times to field goals, had the interception down there, which was a critical play. We were physical against a physical team.

I thought we won the line of scrimmage in that game. We ran the ball for almost eight yards a carry and stopped the run until the last drive. Two scrambles in that drive were the difference in that series.

We played really hard, played physical. Our guys didn’t flinch. I hate that Collin (Smith) didn’t have that kick go through.

He had a lot of leg on it. He made a 67-yarder in practice that week, a similar situation, had the wind behind him. Felt very confident, would have been a great story to see a former walk-on that has earned a scholarship here and has just done a great job for us. I would have loved to have seen that for many reasons, but for that young man. But gave him a chance, you know, 22 seconds, you get the ball, and CJ (Bailey) threw a great pass to Dacari (Collins) over the middle.

We had a chance on the next one. If Noah could have came up with that, he extended himself and just didn’t come down with it. I thought the O-line and D-line both played really well.

I was impressed with our three tailbacks. It’s probably the best game the three of them collectively have played. They ran hard. They made people miss. They were hard to tackle. They caught the ball well out of the backfield.

It was probably Justin Joly’s best game without the ball as a blocker. I thought he really improved against a good defensive end.

We made some good catches. The week before, we had some problems with drops, and it was good to see the guys get back to stretching and catching.

CJ (Bailey) made some big plays with his legs in this game. Two big scramble touchdowns, and then the goal line run, so three touchdown runs.

Negatives, obviously, you turn the football over, and two of them, one of them’s a touchdown, the other one goes down to the two-yard line. Two tremendous plays by them, freaky type of plays. The little quick pitch on the quick-motion jets is a pretty safe play.

I’ve never seen that play. Ricochet, quarterback tries to knock it down, ends up on their hands, and they score. Then, defensive end jumps up and intercepts a ball, so two tough interceptions.

The other one he forced in that two-minute drill, definitely a teachable moment for him, but tough. You do everything that you wanted to do in a game to win it, and the two turnovers that I mentioned were the difference, and turnover margin against a team like that is critical. And we did a lot to overcome it and just didn’t have that one play that we needed to win it.

And their quarterback, you got to give their quarterback credit. I mean, it’s a backup quarterback that’s come in for Haynes King, and he was on fire. I mean, he threw two deep balls that were perfectly thrown, well-defended, as well, over the outside shoulder.

Guys made good catches, and so sometimes you play a guy with a hot hand, and unfortunately we did, because our goal was to make him beat us, stop the run, and be good in the red zone, and those things happened.

Moving on, rivalry week, excited about our opportunity this week, the oldest rivalry in the league, and it’s always a hard-fought, emotional game with them, and I know this one will be no different.

When you look at their ball club, offensively very balanced, tremendous running back, have a lot of respect for Hampton. He’s also their fourth-leading receiver. They get him the ball in a lot of ways, not just on screens and swing passes, but in checkdowns, and he’s dangerous. He’s playing really well, and his durability is impressive, as well, for the number of touches and hits that he’s taken and given out with some of the physical runs, but really good football player.

As always, they’ve got good skill players. Number five, Jones, number 8, Paysour, Tight End, Copenhaver, young receiver, Culliver had a really nice kickoff return, and you see some of their younger receivers out there making plays.

Their quarterback struggled against Boston College, but before that, I thought he was playing really good. He had three good games in a row and has made plays with his feet. He’s not a scrambler, per se, that gets a ton of yards, but he does move around in the pocket and extend drives and has guys around him that make plays.

Defensively, they’ve got a really experienced, big defensive line, a lot of seniors, a lot of guys we’ve played against.

Rucker, obviously, has been a force for them this year, leads them in sacks and TFLs.

Their safety, boundary safety, Lane, leading tackler.

Linebackers are both productive guys, and we’ve played a lot against. Echols, who’s a really fast kid, and you can tell he’s a leader in their defense. They’re both productive blitzers, productive in the run game.

So great opportunity and matchup between two teams that don’t like each other a whole lot, and so there’s a lot to play for and excited, to get up there and win in games like this.

It’s about executing? It’s about making more plays than them and fewer mistakes and not getting too caught up in the emotions of the game, being emotional but not letting the emotions control you, and so excited to go up there and play.

It’s also our last regular season game.

It’s Thanksgiving week, and always want to take time, a lot of gratitude for the people that work here, for my staff, and we have such a tremendous staff.

I have so much to be thankful for with the people I get to work with, our administration, our players and their families and our fans, our coaches and our coaches’ wives. I’m fortunate I get to work with some really awesome people every day and have a lot of gratitude for that, and for my family, it’s going to be fun, when you’re an empty nester, which this was my first year in that role. We go from two in the house to all of a sudden all three sons come home for Thanksgiving to five.

I’m looking forward to spending some time with the boys and Sarah, and I’m blessed to have the family that I do, and looking forward to Thanksgiving with them, and just the gratitude that you have for having such an opportunity. And you take it for granted, and so this is a great week to just take perspective on what we have, and a lot of people focus on what they don’t have, but I do think this is a week for people to really look at what they do, and in college football you have a week to watch rivalry games. Man, it’s awesome, and some of them started last week, the Stanford-Cal game, Montana-Montana State.

There were some teams that already played. So looking forward to being a part of watching some of the historic matchups when we get a chance this weekend.

When you bring in, you know, 40-plus new players over the course of the offseason, could be a lot of these guys’ first time playing in the team. Do you have to say anything to them to reinforce the importance of this rivalry, or do they just kind of get it?

No, we definitely do a history lesson on all the teams, not just this team.

When we’re playing teams where there’s historical information behind the games, that’s one of the things I like to do, is educate them on how long we’ve been playing against the team or if there’s anything of notoriety about the matchup, because I do think that’s one of the cool parts of college football is the pageantry that goes with it, and you do definitely, as a head coach, want to educate your roster about the matchup, and in this case, the oldest matchup in the conference. When we play Wake Forest, the longest consecutive rivalry in the conference, as far as consecutive games played against each other. So, those are things that we bring up and make sure they understand, the history of the matchup, things that have happened over the years, things that they can learn from, and our players do a good job of talking about the game with each other, as well.

When you look at rivalry in college football, with all of the conference realignment, y’all have been able to keep this one so far. What does rivalry really mean to you?

I love it. I mean, everywhere I’ve worked, even going back to high school, they’re big games, man.

They’re bragging rights games with the fan bases. There’s recruiting behind them, the head-to-heads that you have with schools. This rivalry is similar to when I was at Southern Cal with UCLA, when you’re in the same driving vicinity of your rival, it’s even more unique because you run into the fans, alumni, players, even sometimes their coaches at the grocery store.

There’s a lot more bumping into people with this rivalry as there was with USC’s. When I was at Wisconsin, the Minnesota rivalry, you didn’t really run into their people a whole lot.

At Kansas with Missouri, you did. You ran into people all the time. And so they’re not just a game that, ‘hey, next year we’ll beat them.’

It’s a game that gets talked about and you hear about, for the next 365 days sometimes if you’re out in public. And I know the meaning of this one for our fan base. I’ve said this before, in my opening press conference when people were leaving it, there were several people that came up and said, ‘Coach, we’re glad you’re here and hope you beat Carolina.’

That was the one thing that was repetitive, repetitive, repetitive from donors and fans my first day on the job. During the same week, the athletic director at that time was Debbie (Yow). She told me to make sure I never wear those colors, and so I knew in one week’s time just what this meant to the school and to the fans.

Seeing teams vying to get in the College Football Playoff. What will it take to get you to that level?

Like I said many times at the ACC media days, I think the greatest part of the 12-team playoff is the increased access for teams.

You went from four teams having access to 12 and 11 of them being really in the power four, when you look at how they’ve set this up. Your odds are better at being in the mix.

How do you get there? You’ve got to get in the ACC championship game. You’ve got to handle your business. For us, we’ve got to quit turning the ball over and win these one-possession games.

We’ve had a bunch of them this year. That’s the difference between winning five and ten games. You’re going to have six to eight one-possession games a year.

Turnover margin has a lot to do with winning those games, and we’re minus five. There’s a big reason that our record looks the way it does.

We’ve got to be better in that area. To take this program to another level, that’s what it is. It’s simple to say that and hard to do.

11 of the years I’ve been here, we’ve been really good in that stat. This year, not the case. Some of them have been pretty fluky and some of them haven’t been.

It’s been poor ball security on our side. So that’s the answer to your question. I mean, you’ve got to find a way to win these one-possession games by making a play or two and not beating yourself with costly turnovers.

Seeing new teams contending for the Playoffs

I think preseason rankings are way overrated. You saw it last year with Washington. They had a hell of a year, and no one was talking about them before the season.

You expect that, particularly in today’s world of athletics, not just football, with the portal and how many new players change rosters that are experienced guys that are going to be impact players at certain places and vice versa. Teams that lose impact players are going to be different. And these rankings so often go into what the team did the year prior.

I’d be in favor of getting rid of them until October at least. I just think it’s complete fabrication of what these teams are.

You’ve got to earn it, and it’s a long season. I’m not surprised one bit that there’s two or three teams that nobody was talking about. I was watching Indiana’s season.

Obviously Coach Cignetti’s got a background at NC State, so really paid attention to his season, was pulling hard for them. You see what Dillingham’s doing down there at Arizona State. We pay attention, especially guys that you’ve coached against or know and see what their programs are doing.

I think it’s going to be a fun month. This last week, there’s a lot of implications still, and with what just happened in the SEC this past weekend, it shook it up again. So it’s going to be fun to see how it comes out here in the end.

I’m sure there’ll be a controversy around the final, one or two teams that get left out or get put in. I wish I was in the conversation. We didn’t earn the right to be this year, but I’m excited to watch it.

Keeping players level headed for this game, with bowl implications

I’m a little different. I don’t treat it as a normal game. Rivalry games are different.

They’re the same in that you go out in your practice and you have to execute. But, to me, there is more on the line when you’re playing a game against your rival. And they are emotional.

For me, it’s more about using the emotions properly and pouring that into executing the right way. You don’t win the game because you’re fired up to play it. You win the game because you play better than the other team and you make fewer mistakes.

That, to me, is where our focus is. And I’ve always said that. People are like, do you want your guys to be emotional? Yeah, I do.

But I want them to use the emotions the right way. And so that’s our focus. The guys know we’ve got to win a sixth game to get to a bowl.

It just happens to be against them. That’s not really the conversation at all. It’s more about the X’s and O’s, the fundamentals of the game, the game plan, the opponent, the things that we need to really work on fundamentally to put ourselves in position to win a game.

Brandon Cleveland 

I thought he really played well last week. That’s as good as I’ve seen a nose guard play in our defensive scheme.

He was very productive. He beat a lot of blocks. He made tackles.

He was disruptive. Got his hands on a couple balls in the pass game. Brandon’s done a really good job of taking care of himself this year. When you play nose guard, I mean, you’re getting contact every snap you’re in the game.

And so it’s a lot of wear and tear, potentially. The way he eats, the way he takes care of himself, the amount of rest that he gets, he does a really good job getting himself into a position where he can play at a high level in November and training and all the things. So he deserves the credit for it.

You’re playing against one of the best running backs in college football. If you’re strong up the middle, that helps. And so he’s got a big week for us this week, and we’re looking forward to seeing him continue to stack games like he has the last two weeks.

Do you have any favorite UNC matchups from the 12 years you’ve been here?

I don’t know if I have a favorite? I mean, obviously, all the wins we’ve had in these rivalry games are special to me.

I don’t know if there’s one that I would take over any of the others. They’ve all been special. I think maybe the one that sticks out is the comeback. We scored 14 points in 90 seconds or something like that.

That was pretty cool, that game with Emeka’s touchdown, Chris Dunn’s recovery, and then Emeka’s touchdown. That was a pretty awesome ending to a football game, not just a rivalry, but just a comeback win, period. I thought that was a really cool game to be a part of that.

Do you have former players talk to the team about the rivalry?

No, there’s conversations being had, and if you look at even just who’s working here right now and around the program every day, I mean, between Dantonio Burnette and Freddie Aughtry-Lindsay and Isaiah Moore, who’s around, Tyler Jones is around, Dee Dee Hoggard’s around. We’ve got a lot of guys that have been here and played not just for me, but played at NC State for the other head coaches, and so there’s always conversation, and it’s not just this week.

Those guys talk about their history here with them all the time. And then getting other coaches, Coach Avent was at practice today, it was great having him out there, and he wished the guys luck. I mean, the brotherhood of the coaches at NC State is cool, and hopefully we’ll get a few others over here during the week. It’s kind of fun when you turn around and you see some of the other head coaches at practice.

It was great having Elliott here today, and appreciated him wishing the guys luck after practice.

Obviously you haven’t had Devan Boykin this year, but Bishop (Fitzgerald) just seemed to play a steady role, but how has he just successfully played at safety and done so well?

He’s been very consistent.

He’s had maybe 2 of the 11 games, I would say, that were not his best, but outside of that, he’s played really well. He’s been in the right places. He’s communicated well.

He’s made plays on the ball, had a key interception in this past game and a pass breakup. He’s tackled well. He’s been very steady week in and week out, and he’s taken ownership not having Boykin out there, that communicative guy that lines people up.

Devan’s a very good communicator, and so I think Bishop knew that was something he was going to have to pick up, with DK (Kaufmann) being new to the program and with Tamarcus (Cooley) being a new nickel in the program. It was really on him to be the vocal piece back there, and he’s taken that role on and done a really nice job.

Coach, you mentioned that you sort of approach these games a little differently. How do you think that’s helped you?

Yeah, I mean, the results speak for themselves.

I’m not perfect at all. They’ve beaten me. The first two years, Mack was there.

He beat me, and Larry got me a couple times as well, but we’ve played well in this game, and it’s a meaningful game. Every coach has a different approach. My approach is to make sure they understand the value of winning games like this.

It’s something that matters deeply, not just to Dave Doeren. It matters a lot to the former players. It matters a lot to the alumni, to the donors, to the administration, everything, and so not that the other games don’t matter.

They do, but this one runs deeper, and so I take pride in educating them about that, making sure they understand that, and there’s guys in our locker room that haven’t played against them. There’s guys in our locker room that have played a lot against them, and so getting them all on the same page with what this game is, because it is. It’s the oldest rivalry in the ACC.

It deserves that kind of attention, in my opinion.

The possibility of selling the naming rights to Carter-Finley Stadium

Well, those are the times we’re in.

I know Boo spoke personally to both families to get permission before this was even a possibility, and so he’s done it the right way, but athletic directors and athletic departments need to raise money with this new legislation and the amount of dollars that revenue sharing has put on their plates, and so I think it’s good business by him. I think that’s what he should be doing is finding creative ways to move the ledger, and it’s very kind of those two families to allow him that opportunity. It doesn’t mean we have a deal in place yet, but those are the things ADs have to do now.

You have to find ways to increase your cash in, so that you have the ability to compete in this space. The courts say that you’ve got to come up with X amount of dollars. They don’t give you the dollars.

You’ve got to go find them, and so these are the creative things that the new legislation is putting on ADs’ plates and completely in line with Boo, whatever he needs to do to make these things a reality to keep our programs all competitive. I know he’s going to compete to do that.