WATCH: Dave Doeren’s Press Conference on NC State’s 1st Day of Spring Practice (with TRANSCRIPT)

Head Coach Dave Doeren met with the media for a press conference after NC State’s 1st day of Spring Practice today. You can watch the video ABOVE, and read the transcript BELOW.

First, I’d like to say what an awesome win for Coach Moore and the women’s basketball team the other night against Notre Dame. It was awesome to watch them play, beating the number one team in double overtime.

So shout out to the women’s basketball team and Coach Moore, it was awesome. Really enjoyed watching them and really showcased NC State’s grit in that game. Segway into football, it’s been a good winter.

You come in in January, we started right away. January 6th, we started back and there is a different edge about this group. I think anytime you go through a tough season, the returners have a different mentality.

Maybe you don’t take things for granted, you understand how hard it is, how demanding you need to be on each other, the accountability piece. I thought Coach Thunder and our strength staff did a really nice job increasing that in the off-season program.

There was a lot of good leadership learned and a lot to prove for me, for our staff, for the players. So exciting time going through the winter program. Today, obviously, we’re not in pads yet, but it was fun to see the new coaches coach for me.

It’s great to be out here, beautiful day weather-wise and see Coach Eliot, Coach Warren, Coach Moore, Coach Shaw, Coach Locklear, see these guys in different roles. Obviously, some of them are new to our staff, some of them are elevated. Doing really good things on the field, a lot of learning, a lot of things we gotta do better, obviously.

A lot of guys had their first college practice, and so it’s fun to see that group of kids that graduated high school early that got to play football today for the first time. So excited about that. With spring football, 15 opportunities, I told the team this the other day, there’s only 365 days in the year, you play 12 games that you’re promised.

You only get to play football 15 times in the spring, and so they’re very valuable. Every rep matters for these guys. So it’s really good to get out there and just get a measuring stick on day one where we’re at.

Our practices this spring, obviously with the two new coordinators, are going to be closed to the public, and nothing will be televised. We use each opportunity on our weekends. Some will be scrimmages, some will be thud, some will be situational, but we’re going to play, and we’re going to get better this spring. For obvious reasons, you don’t want your stuff out there if it doesn’t have to be. So you don’t have to see me as much.

When you say everything is closed, you mean the spring game as well?

Yeah, like I said, all 15 are closed.

As far as CJ Bailey this offseason, obviously completely different than where he was starting the spring last year. What have you seen from him from a development standpoint, from a leadership standpoint this offseason that tells you that he’s ready to take over full time all the time?

Well, he was 170 pounds last year. He didn’t know anything about anything, knew how to throw a football. Now he’s 200 plus pounds, he’s experienced, and he’s learned how to lead.

That’s been a big thing in the offseason with him and I. Using his voice, he’s always used it on the field, but learning how to use it off the field, not just with the guys you throw the ball to or line them in a block, but using it with the team as the alpha leader, which your quarterback needs to be.

It’s not fair to put a true freshman in that spot, and he came in and played his butt off, learned a lot. Experience is one thing you can’t give a player, you can’t.

As good as he is, and talented as he is, those reps are precious. So excited to see him at a different body weight and a different mindset. Having experience under his belt, knowing his teammates, understanding the lessons we learned last year and how this team needs to step forward.

Two new coordinators. How much does that make practices even more important to nail things down?

It’s critical. All these reps that you do in walkthroughs and in meetings, you have a lot of meetings in the offseason, but there is no replacement for actually playing the sport. So even conditioning, like football shape is different than weight room and running and conditioning.

Playing the game is different, and the mental part of it, the emotional toughness that you have to have. The two new coordinators obviously installing systems, but also their style of play and teaching the football IQ that they want these guys to have.

How to communicate, the fundamentals is really a big, big thing. There’s different words probably, and this coach uses this word, and the other coach used that word. They might mean Spanish and French, it’s the same word in English, right? But you’ve got to learn new things as a player, and I think that’s great.

I tell them all the time, if you’re fortunate enough to play in the NFL, they have a lot of turnover in the NFL. They get new assistant coaches…I think when I was talking to (Bradley) Chubb last year, he’s had five D-line coaches in his career already.

So you have to learn how to adjust, and I think it’s really good for these guys to have that opportunity and to learn new things.

Going off that, what was the process like for you in December to make a change at Offensive Coordinator?

I just felt like as a group, we needed to be able to score more points, need to play more unified football.

I love coach Anae, and I love working with him. He’s a great man and did a lot for our program. It just felt like Kurt (Roper) is a unifying force over there.

I like the fact that both of my coordinators have chips on their shoulders. One time they were both guys that were really hot in the business and sometimes things happen and you’ve got to work your way back up, and they want to prove themselves just like I do, our players do, and I like that about them.

But I just felt like it was the right move at the right time for the team and for what we’re trying to get done.

Have you made any changes to how you approach spring, given revenue share and the ever-changing world of NIL?

No, you got what you have at this point, and obviously there’s potential to add or subtract in the spring, but I’m not going to let the transactional side of the sport dictate how we coach young men.

We’re here to mentor, we’re here to lead, we’re here to develop, and we’re here to teach these guys how to play this sport the right way, help them grow into better men, and help be college graduates. That’s my duty as their coach, and I do it with pride. The other part of the game is there, but the relational piece matters.

So we’re going to continue down that track and be there for these guys and help them.

What was the connection with Coach Eliot?

I’ve known him a long time, back to when I was in the Midwest as a coach. He was also. He was working with the Stoops brothers at that time and Brent Venables and I talked a lot of ball together over the years.

We all recruited the same area in Dallas, and we’d stay at the same hotels and recruit against each other in the daytime, and at night we’d be sitting around talking ball. So I’ve known him for 20 some years, followed his career, and really have so much respect for what he’s done coaching different position groups.

When your coordinator’s been a D line coach, a linebacker coach, and a DB coach, he can install and understand the stress points at every position. Then being with Dave Aranda last year, who’s one of the best, in my opinion, football coaches defensively around. In learning what he’s learned from Dave, I’ve done clinics with Dave over the years, and in learning what he’s picked up from the Eagles, I thought it was the right time to evolve.

Bringing in a guy that has been in a 3-3-5, which he has, but has been in a 4-2-5, has been in a 3-4, he understands how to move the parts and translate, so it’s just a really good fit, and there’s a lot of trust there because of our relationship.

I know it’s only day one, but what does a successful spring look like in your eyes?

The first thing is you want to be healthy at the end of it.

You want your guys to come out healthy. Each day I want them to improve on little things. We call it our ‘one more,’ finding something in your game that you can take off the film or add to your film from day one to day two, day two to day three.

It’s aggregate improvement. If there’s 100 guys out there getting better at the end of 15 practices, that’s a lot of improvement over the course of the spring. As a staff, it’s installing your systems.

It’s figuring out who your top 22 on both sides of the ball and special teams units are, so you have a depth chart going into the summer. Again, this is just going into the summer.

All this is going to be fluid for us until we get through fall camp.

You had to restock the secondary last year, and then once again this year. How is (Jamel) Johnson & (JJ) Johnson kind of helping in that regard?

They’re really humble kids.

I like their background. They’re tough. They wanted to prove themselves day one.

So can’t really give you a ton about how they did. I know JJ had an interception today, so it was good to see him make a play, but we’ve also got some good high school DBs in this class, and excited to see them.

And excited to see Brody Barnhardt, Ronnie Royal, Jivan Baly, guys that we redshirted last year, and see how they’ve grown up and improved. So you don’t necessarily have to go to the portal to fix things when players leave. If you’ve done a good job in your high school recruiting, and as you know, our development is well documented, you can grow these guys in the program like we’ve always done.

What are you expecting from the second year group?

A much better version of what they were a year ago.

Some of them have gained a ton of weight. Some of them have changed their bodies in good ways, their football IQ, learning how to practice, finishing plays, maturity, not having big eyes. And it’s different, you’ve got guys like Keenan (Jackson) nand Terrell (Anderson) that played a lot.

And so where are they? They’re a lot further ahead than a guy that maybe only played in four games or didn’t play at all. So over the spring, seeing that young freshman that’s now a redshirt freshman, earn the trust of the coaching staff that they can be a part of the 2-deep and travel. It’s going to take time, and this is one practice, but it’s growth.

It’s physical growth and emotional growth, mental growth, football IQ, being a good teammate, all those things.

You guys set expectations last year really high, kind of embraced the college football playoff, and were vocal about it. The season kind of got derailed early. Do you kind of have the same approach to those expectations, or do you let things just play out as they do without kind of talking about it?

It’s funny to me, because I expect to win every game. I’ve never gone into a football game, like, ‘we’re gonna lose today.’ You don’t work like that.

You guys put the expectations on us, so you can run from them or not. Whatever you say publicly is not what it really is. There isn’t a coach in college football that doesn’t expect to win every game.

So we’re going to go one day at a time and try to become the best team we can be, and our body of work will equal our record at the end, right? That’s the same every year. What do you want to do? I want to win every game.

What else do you wanna hear? That’s the damn truth.

We’re going to practice that way, we’re going to lift that way, we’re going to coach that way, but we’ve got to earn it, so it won’t be any different.

If I’m here for the next 50 years, and if I’m alive, I’m going to tell you the same thing. I want to win every game that I coach in. They want to win every game that they play in.