WATCH: Dave Doeren Met With the Media After Week 2 of 2024 Bowl Practice

NC State Head Coach Dave Doeren met with the media on Thursday at the end of Week 2 of 2024 Bowl Practice. You can watch the video ABOVE, and read the transcript BELOW.

What’s this period like right now? I mean, you’re trying to get ready for a bowl game. You’re trying to keep your players. You’re trying to look for players. Has it ever been this busy for you at this time of the year?

No, I think you hit December and you get right into the roster management retention piece. And then you have your signing day. You’re recruiting your high school guys to sign.

You used to be on the road doing that. You’re doing that from your offices now. Then signing day ends.

Here’s the guys that are coming back. Here’s the guys that are going in the portal. Now you start recruiting the portal.

So you’re going through that piece. 6,300 guys to look at, it’s a lot of film. Then you’re getting ready for a bowl game.

So you’re starting a game, planning for your opponent, for us, ECU, building out your practices, your calendar.

By the way, the guys are in finals and did a great job.

Really proud of our team, 71 guys over 3.0 this semester, which is a record. So really proud of them and thankful to Ashley and her team and our academic center. By the way, you also have your kids home and your wife, if you’re married, and you’re trying to have family time, right? So you’re balancing a lot.

In some cases like ours, there’s staff openings, so you’re behind the scenes either interviewing people or talking to guys on your staff. So there’s a lot.

It’s multitasking at its finest right now. And I’m looking forward to just getting to the bowl, to be honest, and coaching. It’ll be fun just to get there and be a part of that with the families, the coaches, the players, and get into that competition.

You guys were able to be pretty successful in keeping a lot of people around. What kind of went into that from your point of view, to be able to keep the amount of guys you did?

Well, I think it speaks to our team, our culture, our family, the level of treatment that they get here, how we develop people. They know they’re getting better.

I think they enjoy the daily interactions. They see the progress. They’re excited about what’s happening within the walls. There’s trust.

I will say this, the portal is good for some guys, it is. I think it’s great when a guy’s been on your team for three or four years, he’s graduated, he’s not playing, and he wants to get on the field. It’s his last year. Yeah, let’s try to help you do that.

There are positives to it as well. I think the biggest issue, and it’s been well said by a lot of coaches, is the timing of this with the bowl games, and how it’s impacting the team’s abilities to field a team in some cases, but to have a 2-deep in other cases.

It’s really challenging. I don’t think you could ever see a coach and not hear him say that finish isn’t important. Like the word finish means something in athletics, and it means something in business, and our calendar is set up to prevent that in some cases for the athletes, for the teams.

Hopefully, we can get some really good people together after the season and come up with a better way to serve everybody involved in this thing, because it needs to happen for college football, it needs to happen for these bowl games, for these teams, for these coaches, for the players. They need to have a calendar that allows finish, and you see it in the NFL.

Their teams are together until their seasons are over, their coaches are together until their seasons are over. I know it’s a different calendar, because they don’t have academics involved, but there are ways to be smart about serving the season, and I think that’s really important for these athletes, to be in a model that does that.

They did adjust the December calendar slightly by moving signing day up. What impact do you think that had, if any?

None. I don’t think it impacted us at all. I mean, it may have with other teams that dropped kids before the portal. We don’t do that.

I didn’t see any advantage to that, but we’ll see where it goes.

Any thoughts on the new ruling for JUCO players to have 4 years of eligibility when they come in?

I haven’t had a lot of time to process it.

I’m happy for the guys on our team that get to benefit from that. Obviously, there’s gonna be a lot of questions. Every decision has unintended consequences as well, and haven’t seen what those are yet.

There’s guys on our team that are from junior colleges that are excited today at work, that they know they have another year or two of eligibility to finish a degree, to start a master’s, to play with their brothers, and have the option of moving on to the NFL or staying for an extra year or two.

How important is it to finish off this year with a win, get that good taste in your mouth, and moving towards next year?

Yeah, it’s really important. Yeah, it’s been a long time.

We started off here with a bunch of bowl wins, and then we had a bunch of one possession bowl losses with a lot of players. Good players, some didn’t play in games. Like last year, K-State game, there was 45 guys between the two teams that didn’t play.

You look at how many guys were in the portal and injured and so on. So I think the bowl dynamic has changed a lot. And so to answer your question, I want to be on that stage.

There’s no question about it. It’s not about the opponent. It’s not, it’s about winning a bowl game.

It helps momentum, but to me, it’s more about closure for the season that you were just in, and finishing it with an exclamation point.

I know that this is a time where players get to shine that might not earlier in the season. You mentioned a couple of players last week that stood out. Are there any this week that kind of stood out?

Yeah, I’ve been impressed. Josh Alexander-Felton on defense has gotten a lot of reps because we’ve rested some guys and he’s really gotten better.

Jonathan Paylor’s gotten a lot better. He’s been an athlete the whole time, but you can see the improvement in his route running and his ball catching. He’s always been fast, super competitive. But those two things have been fun to watch, for us to see that.

A guy that’s taken reps all year that’s gotten a lot better, is Lex Thomas. I said this before UNC, I thought it was his best week of practice, and he’s continuing to get better. That’s what’s so important about the bowl for the team, is the visual for the coaches to see where these guys are at.

To be able to provide really honest feedback going into the offseason for them.

Is this a time, too, where CJ (Bailey) can really continue to stamp his mark on the team, as this is my team?

He’s been doing that.

Obviously, his confidence just grows as he plays more and more, but that’s been happening for a while.

What’s the process been like to get to know some players who maybe a week ago you didn’t know existed? That’s the calendar that you’ve been forced with.

Talking about transfers?

Yeah, the speed dating nature of adding players late in the process.

Yeah, it’s tough. We’ve had, I don’t know how many, but over ten in the last two weeks, come through here, and they’re not high school visits where they’re here for 48 hours.

They’re literally going from school to school to school, because their window’s tight, too. So you may get them for 24 hours, 36, at the most, 48. You’re doing as much as you can before they get here.

You’re calling people you know that know them, and trying to get as much detail about these guys as you can, because the last thing for them we want is for it not to fit either. I don’t want to bring a guy here and he doesn’t fit our culture.

That’s not good for him. And so we’re trying to figure that out. Who is this guy? How’s he wired? What’s he like in the weight room? How does he handle adversity? All those things.

Obviously, you’re studying film and transcripts, but who the guy is? I’m trying to figure that out with phone calls and conversations. Then you get them here, and there’s a lot of eyes on them. There’s a lot of conversation.

Then they’re off to the next school, or they’re making a decision. So it’s crazy. It’s different.

Yesterday, we talked to Travali (Price), and he spoke so highly of Coach Aughtry-Lindsay. How have you seen the team embrace Freddie and his role now?

Freddie’s done a great job. One of the things he does for us is our Freshman Focus, which is teaching guys about NC State and the culture of our team when they get here for that first semester.

So he has a special relationship with all the kids that have been here since he’s been doing that, and it’s gone on three years that we’ve had this program. So it’s both sides of the ball. These guys know him differently because he spends time with them.

Obviously, he’s an alum. So this is important to him, whether he’s the coordinator or not, to do the best that he can for all these guys. He genuinely cares about them.

It’s been fun to see him doing that, and Isaiah Moore in a new role doing that as well. As a former position coach, defensive coach, I’m enjoying watching it.

You guys will play in the military role next week. You have a couple of staff members that have previously served. Is it kind of special to be able to share that moment with them next week?

I talked to those guys during our military appreciation week. I haven’t talked to them leading up to this game about it, but I do know how much that meant to them.

Obviously, being at Annapolis, I think it’ll be cool for everybody, but for guys that served, a lot extra probably for them and the pageantry of it.

Even in the midst of the transfer portal, you’ve always been a big advocate of high school recruiting. With the JUCO ruling, do you see that playing any effect on high school recruiting?

Yeah, I do. It’s like you’re recruiting a prep school or a mission trip player now that comes in two years older with the same eligibility as a high school player. So there’s going to be a lot of eyes on the junior colleges.

I don’t know if that’ll help their enrollment now or what, but it’s unique to be able to take a guy that’s now going to be 20 instead of 18, that has the same eligibility, and he’s been developed a little bit, he’s played more.

So yeah, I see a lot of benefit in that.

Thoughts on Dave Clawson?

I texted Dave when I saw it. I’m gonna miss competing against him.

We’ve known each other since the MAC, and we’ve had a lot of good games against each other. I have a lot of respect for Dave. Obviously, he did a tremendous job for Wake Forest.

It sounds like they’re going to keep him around in an advisory role, which is great for him. I wish him nothing but the best, and I know he and I will have a friendship well beyond the coaching years.

He did a great job there, and put a lot of good players out, had a lot of good teams, came up with a scheme that was really hard to play against, and so he did a heck of a job there.