WATCH: Dave Doeren Meets with the Media After NC State’s Spring Practice (with transcript)

NC State Head Coach met with the media today after the Wolfpack’s Spring practice. You can watch the video ABOVE, and read the transcript BELOW.

How have things been going? We haven’t talked to you since day one.

Been busy with the other sports, right?

It’s a fun team to coach. It’s the one thing that when you come off a season where you didn’t like the results, you were short coming up where you wanted to end up, record wise, and you lost in close games. What you usually get back is a bunch of guys that don’t want to go through that again, and they’re coachable…their attention to detail…their want to.

It’s better, and that’s been really refreshing. The practices have been high energy, there’s back and forth competitiveness, offense, defense. Obviously, there’s install going on with two new coordinators, so that’s been fun for me to watch just the process of the offense coming together and the defense coming together, but it’s a fun group to coach.

You can see the growth in the returning players too, so just picturing where CJ Bailey was a year ago compared to where he is now, and all the reps that he’s had, Lex Thomas, same way, I feel really good about the two returning quarterbacks. Then Will Wilson’s just getting better and better and better. That’s a position most people want to hear about.

But it’s been fun to see, and some of the new players. JJ’s (Johnson) been a really good addition in the secondary (Safety), made a lot of good plays on the football. Jaren Sensabaugh, doing a lot of good things in the secondary learning a new position, playing corner and nickel for us. So that’s been fun.

Tra Thomas has been a really good addition. So, seeing him and obviously his familiarity with DJ’s (Eliot) system has been a plus, just having that guy that can translate things to the players. The leadership, Sean Brown’s done a great job leading, vocal and with his play, his effort and practice. Hollywood Smothers on offense, Jacarrius Peak, guys that were good players are now taking it to another level leadership wise.

So that’s been a critical part of the Spring for our team.

You mentioned the two new coordinators. How have you seen, particularly on the defensive side of the ball, defensive players and Coach Elliott’s relationship kind of evolve?

There’s kind of a feeling out period at first when you have a new coach. From getting to know each other, how you’re wired, what you’re about, how he teaches, and then for him, how they learn. Some guys are great classroom learners. Some guys need to be on the field and walk through. Some guys need reps.

So there’s that feeling out. Then for him getting to know what all the players can and can’t do well. Then he had a base install.

‘This is what we’re gonna do.’ Now you can see it start to kind of tweak and lean in to where the player’s strengths are, and this guy can do this really well, ‘let’s do this. This guy can do this really well, let’s do this.’

So it’s been fun to see, and that’s kind of what Spring is when you’re a new coordinator, is you have a system, but your system has to evolve to fit the pieces that you have in place.

Then obviously, we have an opportunity to recruit a little bit after the spring. So I’ve been pleased with what DJ’s doing, and I think the players today defensively, they made a lot of plays. So it was fun to watch.

Is there that back and forth between the two groups? Obviously, they each wanna get the better of the other one.

Yeah, I mean, you’re going against teammates, and there’s a lot of that back and forth competitiveness.

All of our skill on offense is back. So naturally, those guys are gonna come out of the gates a little faster. But the defense, a lot of new guys in the secondary, has played well.

They’re doing some good things. When they give up plays, they’re learning from their mistakes, and it’s competitive.

Obviously, Wesley (Grimes) and Noah (Rogers) and Dacari (Collins), there’s some good receivers out there. They gotta defend Justin (Joly) in the tight end position. It’s very competitive.

I think the thing that jumps out to you is Hollywood, some of the things that he’s doing. The running backs in general, we have good guys that can run the football, but their protection has been really good this spring, too. You see them stepping into blitzes and playing square and playing without the football better.

You talked about the changes in some of the other sports that have been happening. Just your thoughts on the Will Wade hire. Have you had a chance to talk to him?

We’ve texted back and forth. I’ve been pretty busy.

We had pro day Tuesday, the day they announced him. So I’m actually going to text him, ‘It might be my busiest day of the year when you got announced.’

So we had practice, we had recruits here, and we had pro day. I look forward to meeting him. Obviously, I trust Boo (Corrigan), and there’s been nothing but great things that, I don’t read a lot of media, but I get the input from my sons and Sarah, but they’re excited for the basketball program.

Really excited for Wes (Moore), and I did get to watch their win over Michigan State. We looked awesome in that game. So I look forward to seeing their next one.

In regards to a lot of the players that redshirted last year, have you seen any of them take big strides in the spring?

Chase Bond has really changed his body. He’s doing a great job on the defensive line. Proud of Chase, he’s worked really hard in the developmental program. Chazz Wallace, another guy that played in four games, and we redshirted him. He’s doing some really good things on the defensive line. Those two guys jump out to me.

Zane Williams, taking advantage of his reps, doing some really good things. Tough guy, competitive, plays really hard. Excited to see what he can do.

Ronnie Royal III, another guy that’s getting a lot of reps. Had a nice interception in the scrimmage the other day.

On the offensive line, it’s been fun to see our centers. Jalen Grant, Rylan Vann, we’re playing Spike Sowells at center and guard. So we’re getting to see him play a lot in different positions.

Those are the ones that jump out to me.

Is there a natural slot receiver? 

I think it’s getting the best three on the field. That’s the most important thing. To say a natural slot, we don’t necessarily have the smaller body guy there that you saw maybe in our offense in the past, but we’re gonna get the best three on the field.

You’ll see Dacari to Keenan (Jackson) to Noah to Wesley, all of them can move around in the offense.

Then we gotta develop Teddy Hoffman. I mean, he’s a guy that can really catch the football. He’s still learning, but he’s probably the most natural, what you think about in a slot. It’s just day 11 in college for him as far as football goes.

How rewarding is it that this is a fun team?

Yeah, it makes coming to work a lot different. When you’re coming in and you’re dealing with egos and attitudes, it’s not a fun job, and this has been the opposite.

It’s been a really team-oriented group of guys that wanna win, wanna get better, very coachable. They can handle criticism, they give good feedback. They’re intentional about getting better.

They wanna watch film, they wanna meet, they wanna lift. There’s just no complaining, and it’s very refreshing to be around that.

With revenue sharing, have you had to come up with a formula for how you distribute that? Is it based on kinda how the NFL does it? Certain positions?

We did a lot of study during the season on what other people were doing and how they might do it if things get passed as we expect here in April.

Talking to the NFL helps, but as you know, it’s different. Just because we have two free agency windows, more or less, and so that part, the attrition and players leaving, players coming in, makes it more challenging, I think, than the NFL, but you definitely lean on people in the business that you trust.

Andy Vaughn, our GM, really, really smart guy, I trust him. He does a lot of studying with other people on the right way to do it and works with the admin and our collective on how we’re gonna do it. So there’s been a lot of time spent.

I think the hardest part is it’s not a science thats just like ‘this is what we’re doing,’ because in the old days, you’d have your seniors, you’d have your medicals, and you’d have a couple guys that went early, and say it was 25, and you’re gonna sign 25, and that was it.

Now it’s…you think that that’s it, and some guys leaving in the Portal, and we have another window coming up, so you just have to be more flexible to be able to deal with change a little bit, a lot, I shouldn’t say a little bit, deal with change a lot when it happens.

Are you gonna stick with 85 scholarships, or are you gonna go up to the number?

It’ll just depend on where we end up at the end of the spring.