WATCH: Freddie Aughtry-Lindsay Speaks with the Media About Being Named Interim Defensive Coordinator at NC State

For the past 5 years, former NC State Linebacker Freddie Aughtry-Lindsay has been the Nickels Coach for the Wolfpack. On Monday, NC State Head Coach Dave Doeren announced that Aughtry-Lindsay would be serving as the Interim Defensive Coordinator for the Wolfpack in their upcoming Bowl Game against ECU on December 28th

Aughtry-Lindsay met with the media after practice on Wednesday to share what this opportunity means to him, and what his mindset is heading into this opportunity.

You can watch the video ABOVE, and read the transcript BELOW.

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Before y’all start throwing into questions, since I’ve got the interim tag, I want to say thank you to everybody that has showed me love, a lot of alumni have reached out to me and gave me a lot of congratulations…family and friends. So I just want to say thank you to everybody. I know I couldn’t respond to everybody, but I wanted to say thank you to Wolfpack Nation, alumni, family, and friends.

Anyone that you’ve reached out to, maybe to get some sage advice from?

I have some mentors that I’ve talked to, but I’ve been leaning on a lot of guys that we have on this staff right now, to continue to do the things that we’ve been doing well here. A couple of guys I might reach out to, when they reached out to me. I just said thank you and asked them a couple questions here and there, but not too many.

Do you want the full-time role of defensive coordinator?

Absolutely.

What is your pitch to Dave Doeren, and have you had any of those conversations yet about next year?

My pitch is what I’ve been doing for the last five years here. I’ve been leading these men in this building for the last five years. Now I just get an opportunity to lead the coaches.

He and I have talked, but my opportunity right now is to lead these guys and coach them in this bowl game. We’ll see what God has going forward.

Will your fingerprints be on this defense in the upcoming game?

I feel like my fingerprints have always been on this game plan.

We’ve been a staff that’s been together, right? Everybody has had ownership in what we’re doing, even with Coach Gibson here. So we’ll continue to do things that have been really good for us. We will enhance some things in this defense.

For this bowl game, I want our guys to play fast, confident, and dominant. So it’s not going to be too much change, but we’re going to make sure that we’re doing things so they can play that way, play what we know we can do.

Does it make it more special for you having been a really good player here at NC State?

Absolutely. I mean, for a guy like myself to be able to come back and be a position coach and now have an opportunity to call the defense at a place that I came in and grew up as a young man. I got to play in that stadium like these young men and get to lead these guys doing the same thing that I’ve done.

It’s absolutely a pleasure and a privilege. I thank Coach Doeren for giving me this opportunity, absolutely.

Anything about upstairs or downstairs or communicating with the new helmet rule?

I mean, we’ve been using that all year, right? For me, I just gotta get used to clicking the button.

That’s all I gotta get used to. But as far as the staff and things of that nature, we still got most of the guys we need to have around here. So things won’t be changed.

We’ll be talking about it throughout this time. We got time to make sure we fine tune and get everything set up how we need it to be.

Has Coach Doeren given you any advice since you’ve been named the interim and also have you heard and received any advice from Coach Gibson?

So with Coach Doeren, man, he and I have always had a football relationship.

We’ve always talked and he’s helped me out throughout this process since I’ve been here the last five years. So absolutely, we’ve talked, and I do lean on him for some things, because he’s a guy that’s been a coach for 12 years. He’s called the defense before.

He’s always been involved in that instance, so yes, I have. Coach Gibson and I have talked also. He’s been busy the last few days, so we haven’t been able to talk as much.

Being with him for the last five years, it’s obvious I know this game that we’ve done inside and out. Obviously, some things that I would like to do and grow it and enhance it, but for right now, like I said, I want our guys to play fast, confident, and dominant, and just make sure we put good stuff on tape here in this bowl game.

What type of philosophy do you have as a coach, as a defensive player? What is your philosophy?

What I’ve done it in the past, what I continue to believe on, is we want to dictate to the offense, or we want to make sure we confuse the front five and not let the quarterback settle his feet, all right? So we want to be aggressive, which we have been here, all right? So that’s nothing new. We just want our guys to play fast and keep it simple. That’s the biggest thing.

If we get guys to play fast and make it simple, where they don’t have to think, and they can run and hit, then that’s what we want to make it do.

How have you seen Brandon Cleveland grow on and off the field this year?

That’s one of my guys, man, that I’ve always had a good relationship with.

He’s doing so much, not just on the field, but off the field. Obviously, the big community service that he did this year, serving food to the homeless down in Moore Square in downtown. That’s a big piece of him, man.

Just seeing him grow as a person, as a man, and becoming a leader, not just in that room, but on this defense. It’s a huge upside that I’ve seen in the last few years that I’ve been around that young man, and I know that he’s going to continue to grow.

You mentioned being a defensive coordinator before. What did you learn from that experience that you can use now in this role?

The biggest thing for me that I’ve done it before at the lower levels is that I’ve got to make sure that I coach the coaches just as much as I coach the players, and I’ve got to hold them to a standard. But I’ve got to make sure that I continue to build relationships with the coaches and give them opportunity to have ownership here, right? If everybody has ownership from player to coach, then that makes us smoother.

When you were at North Carolina Central, did you run a 3-3-5 or a 4-3?

I ran similar to what we have here, so it was a pretty easy transition. The box is still a box.

It’s a six-man box, with five men on the back end. So we’ll make the adjustments we need that we have to.

When you think about Andrews High School and St. Aug’s, how surreal has this journey been to get to where you are? What would you say to the young men who are in the same part of that journey that you were in at one point?

I lean a lot on my faith in God.

I truly believe that God gives you the desires of your heart, so I’ve always wanted to be a head coach, and He put it on my heart that I wanted to be a head coach here one day, and was to take steps. So you want to be a position coach, you want to be a defensive coordinator, you want be a head coach.

So I would say to those young coaches, continue to pursue and work your butt off, right? Always prepare yourself for any opportunity that comes about. My brother, Coach Thunder, always tells us, right? If you stay ready, you ain’t got to get ready. That’s a big thing that I live on.

Like I said, I believe in God. He’s always been a strong piece of me. And so he gives you the desires of your heart.

I’m here where I’m at now because of that.

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Aughtry-Lindsay played Linebacker at NC State from 2001-04, where he was a 2-year starter. In his career with the Wolfpack, he had 266 tackles, 22.5 tackles for loss and 6.5 sacks.