Head Coach Dave Doeren met with the media this afternoon before NC State hosts rival UNC for a 7pm kickoff on Saturday night. You can watch the press conference here, or check out a bulleted breakdown below.

• For us as a football team, it’s about putting together 4 quarters of football, and finding a way within the good that we’ve done.
  • Like the 2nd half last week with being consistent throughout, and just executing, playing hard and not giving people things.
  • In that football game that we just lost, we won the turnover margin and that was improvement.
  • Keeping ourselves from giving up explosive plays.
• It’s a four quarter game. It doesn’t matter what your record is. It doesn’t matter what your injuries are. None of that matters.
  • Last year they were a team that hadn’t won a lot of games and took us to overtime, with nine wins.
  • We went up there a few years ago and they had 10 wins and we were fighting to get into a bowl game, and we killed them.
  • It’s one of those games you’ve got to show up and play. Nobody cares what happened in the previous 11 weeks. It’s about what happens on that Saturday.

• Excited for our seniors this week.
  • It’s always an emotional day for the young men, for their families.
  • For me as a coach, it’s always a very, very proud day to be with those guys in their last college football game.
• All of them, even the ones who’ve been here for a short period of time like Tabari Hines, have made a lasting impression on me and our staff.
  • Emanuel McGirt and what he’s been through.
  • Will Brown, one of our walk-on seniors, is just a great young man to be around.
  • The Dabbs twins, who are getting ready to go off to the world and one of them’s going to be a doctor.
  • Stephen Griffin, Tabari Hines, Deonte Holden, who’s a sixth-year senior, Kishawn Miller, Jarius Morehead, Larrell Murchison, Jackson Quiggle and James Smith-Williams.
  • Twelve very special young men to me, our staff and our team.

UNC rivalry…

• Every one of these games that I’ve been a part of has been very heated.
• I know how much we want to win. I know how much they want to win. I know what the fans are like, the whole deal.
• For the fans, we will be in all red and want to have you guys out there wearing your red for us and cheering these young men on and honoring our senior class the right way.
  • We look forward to having you do that, and I know how much this game matters in the state.

UNC…

• They’re obviously playing well with Sam Howell at quarterback
• Tailback is a very impressive young man
• Receiving corps has made a lot of plays for them throughout the season.
• Coach Longo does a nice job schematically with what they do.
• Defensively, they’re very sound.
  • I think Chazz Surratt may be the most impressive guy, considering he was a quarterback a year ago and now he has 100 tackles as a linebacker.
    • That’s really a unique story for them.

Watching UNC…

• I’ve watched them every week.
• With our schedule being what it was, with the Thursday games and four Saturdays we didn’t play, I’ve had a chance to watch a lot of college football.
• We’ve had a lot of crossover opponents that they’ve had, so we’ve been able to watch them, whether it was through coaches film or through watching the live copy at home.
• Very aware of what they’ve been doing throughout the season.

Importance of good 2nd Half against GT…

• Very important. Our guys showed a lot of heart.
• To see the resolve of the guys and how they came back and held them to seven points in the second half.
• Offensively, had a chance to win it. You know there’s a lot of positives in that.
• Devin Leary continues to get better and better in his confidence.
  • He stood up in the locker room and talked to his teammates as a leader.
  • They’re playing hard for him now, and they believe in him.
  • I think that’s something we obviously didn’t have early, you know when we’re going through all the stuff we’re going through, so that was a huge positive.
• So now it’s just growing from that confidence we gained in the second half and knowing that we’ve got to put together four quarters like that.

Re-establishing the run game against GT…