WATCH: Dave Doeren’s Postgame Press Conference After NC State’s 24-17 Win Over ECU (with transcript)

Head Coach Dave Doeren met with the media for his postgame press conference after NC State’s 24-17 over ECU in their season opener. You can watch the video above, and read the transcript below.

I’m really proud of the guys finding a way to win a hard fought game. ECU played really hard. I love the way the defense battled there at the end. It’s great to have a goal line stand like that to win a football game, and being 1-0 with a lot of things that we can get better at…it’s a good place to be.

I was really excited about how we started. We started fast and penalties really derailed a lot of drives on offense. We had some bonehead penalties and false starts, different things like that. I thought we protected the ball well.

We didn’t fumble the football all night. We had some explosive plays, throwing the ball down the field. Guys made contact catches, Wesley (Grimes) and Teddy (Hoffmann) obviously.

Our backs ran hard.

Defensively we held them to 30 yards rushing, or 29 yards rushing, or something like that.

It was a good win, really good win.

I’m proud of the guys, and at the same time there’s a lot of things we can do better.

I’m very thankful for the fans. It was an awesome night. You guys were incredible. Crowd noise was amazing. Student section was awesome. That’s what we need to have every home game. Thursday nights are always special in the Carter. I thank you for what you gave us tonight. That was a major, major advantage, particularly at the end of the game when we needed you on defense.

On the fourth down play, what did you see? What did you think they would go to? Obviously you’d stopped them running the ball. Did you get a sense they would try some kind of quick pass?

Well, I thought it would either be a repeat of their speed option, which they scored on earlier in a similar situation, or what they ran. The naked crack screen that they ran on us last year in the bowl game as well.

I didn’t expect them to try to run the ball up the middle. I thought it’d be something off the edges. Defense did a great job.

Coach Eliot prepared them well for that play. We practiced that play throughout the week, just like that. I think we ran it four or five times in the red zone, and the kids executed. Corner came up, big solid tackle on a tight end.

I was proud of those guys on defense. They had a couple fourth down stops in the game that were big.

I have a two-parter. First of all, your edge players Slone and Harsh. They were obviously later transfers. Just speak to the impact you thought they had on this game.

We wanted to be better off the edge. We wanted to create more tackles for loss this year, more sacks and not have to blitz all the time to create those things. We wanted to be able to do it with four or five guys.

There was a huge emphasis in finding some edge players and Cian Slone, Harsh that you mentioned, Tra Thomas. We got some good snaps out of several players.

Chase Bond got in the game, made some plays in the backfield. It was good to see him. He’s been super consistent.

So the edge of the defense, really, the old scheme we had, was more 4i’s, which is D-End’s playing inside the tackles. We wanted to have guys that could play outside, play in space and give us pass rush.

That was a huge emphasis by the staff and recruiting, and obviously paid off.

Obviously, you guys, as you mentioned, got off to the hot start. There’s two ways of looking at it. You talk about that hot start and getting the win, an important win, but at the same time, you probably would have wanted a little more offense, a little more separation there in the second half. Just speak to that and where’s the mindset going into Virginia next week?

There’s a lot to get better at. I thought we stalled out in the red zone several times with penalties and tackles for losses.

We went backwards. We’d have an explosive play to get down there and then all of a sudden we’d be going backwards. So a lot to improve on, on offense.

A lot of good things on offense, but our goal is to score 31 or more. That’s our goal, so we were a touchdown short of our goal in this game.

We had two missed field goals, which hurt us, so that’s an area we’ve got to get better as well.

Wesley (Grimes) had a career night, a first 100-yard game in college. What was it like seeing him do that? You talked about being more confident this year. Have you been able to see that confidence rise in him this year?

I’m proud of Wesley.

He missed a lot of training camp. He had a lot of nagging things bothering him, and really got full speed kind of towards the end of this week. He’s top three fastest players on our team, so we need him to be an explosive guy, make senior-type plays and he did that tonight. Tonight, he was exactly who I was hoping we’d see.

I’m super proud of him for stepping up and helping the offense be explosive, because if he’s like that, Noah’s (Rogers) like that and Teddy’s (Hoffmann) like that, Terrell (Anderson), Keenan (Jackson), and then you have Joly, and then you have Hollywood (Smothers), we’ve got a lot of different people we can take advantage of in space and get match-ups. It’s a good start, and it helps when your fastest guy is making plays, because as you saw with their team, #9 for them is a fast kid, and you’ve got to know where they’re at on defense.

It helps a lot that Wesley came out like that. Now he’s just got to be consistent.

You mentioned having multiple playmakers. How important was having that tonight to get this win?

It was a team win. It really was.

Offensively, jumped out 17-0, got us a lead. Defensively, I think they had minus 20 yards rushing in the 1st half. It was very stingy.

Both sides of the football helped each other throughout the night. They faked a punt, and the defense came right back and stopped them again.

We had three 4th down stops, looking at the stats here. So it was definitely a complimentary win. Having playmakers helps to answer your question, but I really look at this as more of a team win.

You guys were able to start out fast on defense, especially in the first quarter. How hard is that to do when you were working in so many new starters, and had Brandon Cleveland sitting out in the first half?

It says a lot about the preparation that Coach Eliot and his staff did with the guys.

It says a lot about the kids understanding the rules and how to adjust them, because you’re going to see things you don’t practice in the first few games. I thought we tackled really well in this game, and that was impressive. You always worry about tackling, especially against an uptempo spread.

They were putting two of their receivers almost out of bounds on some of the plays to try to create space on the field. That’s a key part of denying explosive plays, is your ability to tackle in space. When you can’t run the football on offense, it’s tough.

They did a good job finding their tight end, getting him involved in the second half. He hurt us.

But it was a really well executed game plan. The kids understood it. They adjusted well. I was very proud of what they did.

You mentioned earlier in the offseason how bad you wanted this game, considering how things ended last December. Does this game mean more to you coming on the right side of the scoreboard this time around?

I felt like we tarnished our reputation. It was a game that really hurt me. Seeing the way our guys couldn’t stop the run, 300 yards rushing. It’s an embarrassing thing as their head coach, that considers himself a guy that knows how to play defense.

Then having the actions that we did afterwards, it was embarrassing. This game wasn’t about ECU. This game was about us playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played, respecting the game, respecting each other, respecting the university that we play for, our fans, the guys in the locker room, respecting Coach Ruff, a guy that means a lot to our program.

It means a lot. This game was about getting our identity back and playing hard, tough, together football.

Looking at CJ Bailey one game into the season, and looking at him from last year, what’s a major difference you’ve instantly seen in his game?

He’s just very poised. He’s got a lot of confidence. He sees the game. It’s slowing down for him. He trusts his guys. He has chemistry with his guys.

Last year coming off the bench as a backup, and not knowing if you’re even going to play as a true freshman, you don’t have that chemistry, not only with your skill guys, but the O-line. Those guys play hard for him, and he can get after him, and they respect him.

He’s a true leader. Last year he was more of a survivor, just in there fighting as hard as he could fight, but he didn’t have the guys around him like he does now, pulling hard for him and wanting to protect him.

When you’re in a situation where ECU, in the red zone, under 40 seconds left, that fourth-and-goal stop, how do you prep your team for pressure moments like that?

Chaos. We train in chaos.

We try to put them in tough situations. We did it all through training camp. Coach Thunder and his staff put them in tough situations all summer.

Then it comes down to having leaders on your team that are not going to let it happen. They’re going to execute and they’re prepared. In pressure situations, you always revert back to your training, and we trained them well. The kids did a tremendous job of standing up, bowing up and not letting them get a first down right there.

You talked about getting your identity back, respect to the game, playing the game the way it’s supposed to. What moments tonight stood out to you where you felt like your team did that?

Stopping them on 4th down three times, goal line stand, for sure. I think just the poise the guys had as ECU started creeping back in the game.

There was no panic. There was nothing. The guys just kept playing and finding a way to win.

There was never a moment in the game where you felt like anybody on the sideline didn’t believe that we were going to win the football game. They were all locked in. It was a much different feel on that sideline than we had on our sideline a year ago.

Just the way that they prepared. This team is able to take constructive criticism. They want to be better football players and better men. They know we love them, and we’re coming from the right place.

They take it, they listen, they work hard and it paid off tonight. That’s a game, if you go back over the last 35 times it’s played, it’s usually a close game.

No different tonight, even though we had a chance to not make it that way. That’s how a lot of these games have ended.