WATCH: Dave Doeren Shares Thoughts on NC State’s 1st Fall Scrimmage

NC State Head Coach Dave Doeren met with the media this morning after practice. He shared his thoughts on last week’s scrimmage, the weather recently, the coachability of this team, the emergence of Jonathan Paylor, amongst other things. You can watch the video above, and read the transcript below.

Has the weather been an issue?

Obviously, you don’t know what it’s going to be on game days, but you expect it to be super hot here, and it hasn’t been for most of the practices. We’d love to have some Fall Camp heat.

We did for two days, and then it’s been, as you all know, like Spring weather. You can’t control that. You do the best you can. We had a nice humid day yesterday, got the guys sweating.

But as always, we expect September games at home to be warm. First one being at night helps a little bit, probably. But there’s nothing I can do about that.

Any update on how some of the position battles are shaking out, maybe on the O-Line, or on the defensive side?

I’m excited about the depth and the competition. I’m not going to give you any intel. Obviously, that doesn’t help our team to help you with that information.

But we have really good competition right now, on both sides of the football. I told the staff that yesterday, from the specialists all the way through the position groups. It’s been refreshing, because sometimes when you get to your 2’s and then your 3’s, there’s a massive drop off, and we’re not seeing that.

We’re seeing guys know what they’re doing, playing hard, and getting better. So it’s been a fun training camp competitively.

You’ve talked a lot about coachability with this team. Now that we’re kind of a good way through camp here, are you seeing that play out still?

It’s a really fun group to coach. They listen. They take criticism well. They want to get better. They’re intentional about it. They communicate. There’s no ego. It’s guys trying to get better, helping their teammates out, coaching guys that are trying to compete against and with.

So it’s been a fun camp, and the new guys we added…they’ve just added to the competition, wanting to prove themselves, and that’s what this team is.

It’s a bunch of guys and coaches that want to prove themselves.

What were some of the strengths you saw from the team and maybe any individual players from last week’s scrimmage?

Well, it was pouring rain. We had 140 plays, no fumbles, no poor snaps in the rain, which is pretty awesome in live football.

Defensively, obviously, we want to get more balls out, but I was proud of their ball security. We caught the ball well. It was back and forth.

There was a lot of good plays on both sides of the ball. We tackled well for our first scrimmage. Jonathan Paylor had a really good day in the scrimmage, so we were excited to see him.

When you’re not tackling, you just don’t know if I got him, and then it’s live, and you may not have had him, and so that was good to see.

CJ (Bailey), you can see his maturity and experience and how he’s playing football and leading now, using his voice. And defensively, Sabastian Harsh really stood out in our opening scrimmage. Did a lot of good things.

AJ Richardson stood out in our first scrimmage.

There are a fair number of play makers on this defense, who get interceptions.

Yeah, we’ve had a bunch of interceptions in camp, doing a lot of things.

As you install, you’re just playing. Then as you get further in, you can start disguising and start to set things up off of things. Coach Eliot’s done a nice job progressing through the system, so they understand, ‘Hey, we want to show this and play this.’

So, definitely, the goal with the changes we made was to create more negative plays, more momentum plays on defense.

You mentioned Jonathan (Paylor) during the scrimmage. How much growth have you seen from him this camp, now with him having a bigger role this year?

Yeah, a lot.

Last year he was learning how to be a college football player, and learning how to play a receiver, because, as you know, in the offense he was in, he was doing everything. So just honing him in on that, and then in the Spring getting him the ball other ways.

So he’s grown a lot since he’s gotten here.

Do you see any similarities between what he went through with the slot receiver-to-running back, to what Nyheim Hines?

I think it’s very similar. Yeah, it’s a really similar thing.

They were both guys that carried the ball a lot in high school, then we had him be a wideout. Now it’s, ‘How can we get him the ball in other ways,’ which is what they did in high school. For them, it’s more comfortable probably, when they’re getting the ball, instead of just running routes, where you may get seven or eight a game, right, if you’re lucky? But it’s been a smoother transition, not than Nyheim, but just than I expected.

I think he’s done a really good job picking things up.

With your skill players, last year there was a lot of hype with the transfers of Noah (Rogers) and (Justin) Joly. Maybe they didn’t totally live up to it, but now a lot of those guys are back. Are you feeling like maybe the year after is the year with that group?

Well, same thing with coaches. Anytime you’re going into the second season with somebody, you have that year of experience. You have the good things they did, the bad things.

You can put things in place to improve them as players. In year one with a coach, or year one with a player, there’s a lot of things you don’t know. There’s growing pains that you go through.

The players that returned have gotten a lot better. In the offseason program, learning what to do with their bodies so they can play at a higher level, understanding the system, knowing their teammates.

It’s the same thing with coaches. They understand the routine. They know what the expectations are. They know their players. They know how to coach them.

So, I expect a lot of growth in the guys that came back, that are second year players for us from last year.

You have the weather outside. Obviously, you have this indoor facility. So, you have this kind of balance. You’re going to have to play games in the rain at some point. What goes into the decision making process?

It just depends on what the weather is. I mean, if it’s an average-to-light rain, we’re going to be in the rain, but when it was raining buckets like it was today, you’re not going to get a lot of good work. The guys are going to be falling down. You can’t run your offense the way you want, systematically.

We wanted to do some really good situational football today, so being inside helped us do that.

From a scrimmage standpoint, unless there’s lightning, we’re going to be outside. We have to play in whatever Mother Nature gives us on that day.

You have some guys who are implementing yoga and pilates into their training. Is that something that the program could implement as a whole or in the recovery process? Also, are there any physical traits or changes that you could attribute to that work?

Well, it’s wellness. I think these guys are finding other ways to continue to help their bodies recover and improve flexibility.

As you know, with yoga, there’s a lot of mindfulness in that as well. So it’s a mental thing for them, and we do incorporate yoga into what we do.

Pilates is a whole different world when it comes to the equipment, and all the things you need there. But yeah, it’s great that guys have healthy habits. The biggest thing is not overtraining, and understanding what is the right time to do different things.

You’re maximizing your recovery when you’re doing it.