AUDIO: Dave Doeren’s Postgame Press Conference After Miami (w/ transcript)

Head Coach Dave Doeren met with the media for his postgame press conference after NC Sate lost 41-7 down in Miami this afternoon. You can listen to the audio above, and read the transcript below.

Box Score
Quick Hits
ACCDN Highlight Reel & Condensed Game

__________________________________________________________________________________

Congratulations to Miami. They played really well. Their kids were well prepared and executed. We had a hard time obviously when we turned the football over twice in the first quarter, and it just became a time of possession mismatch.

We were not able to stop them, even though we held them to some field goals. And offensively, when you look up in the third quarter and you see 400 yards to 87, 25 first downs to five. I mean, we got it handed to us out there tonight, and it’s a bad feeling.

Offense, defense wasn’t good enough. Highlight of our football team was our punter tonight, and it’s sad when you have to something to say like that.

Caden Fordham did a tremendous job. That’s really the only high point of this game. We got a bunch of good kids that will go back to work, and that’s what we’re going to focus on.

I’ve got to hand it to you. Your birthday’s on December 3rd, right? I have a couple of family members on that day, so it’s a good birthday to have. So I’m just kind of noticing I have to loosen things up a little bit. With all due respect, you played a great game against Georgia Tech, #8. Do you feel like you needed to play as much of a perfect game knowing full well that Miami has lost to two unranked teams? They were going to look to put a lot of points on the board so they can try to get back in the college football playoff picture.

Yeah, still caught off guard on my birthday question, man.

Well, I try to loosen it up. Hey, listen, I got some family members. It’s a good birthday.

Yeah, I mean, look, the last time they came to Raleigh two years ago, I don’t think they scored a touchdown. So I knew they would respect us and put their best foot forward. And across the board, they’re a very, very talented football team.

And the fact that they didn’t play up to their ability in a couple games, you don’t expect that in a hard game. You expect them to play as good as they can play, and definitely have seen that throughout the season in some of their games. And their skill positions, their tight ends, their quarterback when he’s on, their running backs. Their right tackle is a fantastic player. I mean, their D line’s as good as anybody’s, and we played Notre Dame. That’s a really, really good D-line that was out there tonight for them.

And so he’s got a lot of talent. And so our margin for error is very small. And first drive, we have a positive play on the first play.

We knew we’d get him to jump offsides on the second play. We don’t even have a play called, and our receiver jumps offsides. We don’t even have a play called.

Things like that. You just have got to really execute in games like that, and find a way to get into the fourth quarter where it’s a game, and then anything can happen. We did the opposite.

We turned football over twice in the first quarter. What a recipe for disaster. And weren’t able, depth-wise on defense, to play that many plays and play the way that we needed to play.

You guys didn’t cross midfield until five minutes left in the game. What led to inconsistency on offense?

Well, we couldn’t block them. I mean, it doesn’t matter what you call. Every time you call a play, you see a guy in the backfield on the snap. And they’re split in double teams, running around guys, blitzing through guys. They played way faster, way more physical than we did tonight.

And you’ve got to give them credit, and obviously we need to get back to work.

Any different stunts?

No. Same stuff they normally do. I mean, they blitz opposite the back. They slant their line when they do it. There wasn’t a whole lot of new things by them. They just executed better than we did.

I told you, the birthday thing was designed to lighten your mood a little bit. But last week-

I just got my ass kicked. You’re not gonna-

No, I understand. I understand.

This ain’t funny to me. You understand that?

No, I’m not trying to be-

I do this shit for a living. Okay?

No, I understand. I’m just, okay. Last week, obviously, Miami went ahead and beat Syracuse. Was there anything that you actually could take away from that particular film that you were able to apply in your preparation for that?

I mean, obviously, we didn’t apply anything. We didn’t execute it.

NC State has got two games left. I know you said you did not talk about the bowl when I asked you that earlier. How do you approach these next two weeks, this build up?

One at a time. One at a time. Everything’s about, right now, getting back to Raleigh, getting our guys healthy, getting them refocused, and playing Florida State. We’ve got two teams that are both fighting as hard as they can to resolve their seasons. So it’ll all be about them, and then after that, it’ll be about the next game. ‘

You mentioned the blocking. Was it more interior?

No.

Compared to teams past, do you think it’ll be harder to kind of keep this locker room together in the final two games?

No, they’ll be together. I’m not worried about that. Will we  be good enough. That’s what we’ve got to work on, is executing. We’ve had spurts of that all season. We just had a great game of that against Georgia Tech. So, this team won’t quit, I promise you that.

What are your thoughts about Malachi Toney, who can make a lot of plays?

Great player, can do anything on the field. Obviously, we saw him throw one tonight, threw two tonight. But very talented. The fact that he’s 17 years old is pretty amazing. They got a really special player, man.

CJ had the turnovers early. There was conjecture that maybe when he had the turnover in Durham, that maybe he got misaligned in his head. Did you see anything? What was your response to the turnovers in this game?

Just told him to keep playing, just to move on to the next play. And obviously, we have a lot of faith in CJ. He’s shown that he’s a great player for us. And you can’t get on a kid about something he already knows he messed up and make him better. It’s more about getting him to move forward and get to the next play. Let him get on the iPad and see what happened and move on from there.

Some thoughts about Carson Beck?

He played really well. I mean, he completed his last 13 balls. I told our staff during the week that he throws as pretty a deep ball as I’ve seen. Gives guys a chance to run underneath it. He’s very accurate.

Only chance you have against him is to get a lot of pressure and get him frustrated. And if you do that early, you’ve got a chance, and we weren’t able to get enough pressure on him tonight.