NC State Defensive Coordinator Tony Gibson met with the media after Spring Practice yesterday. Below is a transcript of what he had to say.

I see a lot of guys eager to learn. There’s some guys that we are counting on now that haven’t been in that role. Guys that have been in the program that now have to step up. I like what I see right now. We’re getting great effort. I call these underwear practices. They don’t mean a lot right now. It’s obviously great to get out and communicate and all that, but tomorrow we’ll find out a lot more when the pads go on. 

It’s great having Davin Vann back. He’s done a great job all winter long in workouts and team settings being that guy, and stepping up to the front. Then you’ve got Devon Betty that helps him with that kind of stuff. (Devan) Boykin…Aydan White. We’ve got some vets that help him out, but he’s kind of taken that lead role. It was Drake (Thomas), Isaiah (Moore) and Payton (Wilson), and now it’s Davin. It’s good to see him be in that leadership role. 

Cornerback is a competition right now. We’ve got three guys that we feel really good about, working some other guys in, but we have to figure out who is going to be in that 2-deep. Obviously, Linebacker, losing two starters, there’s a lot of competition going on there. Up front, obviously Davin is a guy that we are counting on to be a starter at Defensive End. The Nose and the other Defensive End spot are up for grabs. We have competition all over the place. At Safety, at Nickel…we have a lot of holes to fill. We feel like we’ve done a good job recruiting our needs, going into the Portal for our needs, and now these guys have to step up, and somebody has to win the job. 

Sean (Brown) is very smart. Sean’s a physical player. Let’s put him in a position to do what he does best, and what he does best is tackle people. With the void of Payton (Wilson) and Jaylon Scott leaving, I thought it was time for him to move down in there, and give us a little experience in the box. 

I’m excited to see Payton (Wilson) run that 40. I think he’s going to do really well. If I had to guess, he’s going to be low 4.4’s, maybe even high 4.3’s. Excited to watch him do what he does. 

I think our standard on defense has been set since 2020, when we took over. These kids know how to play, and they know our expectations. We’re going to play a certain way, or they aren’t going to play for us. They need to transfer and get out of here if they aren’t going to play hard, play physical, play fast. Those guys understand that. With the new guys coming in, the older guys are going to teach them what we do and how we play. My goal is we are going to be better next year than we were last year. That’s been my goal every year. I said at this time a year ago that I expected the 2023 defense to be just as good, and at the end of the year we were. We’re going to keep getting better. Right now, where we’re different, is in our back end. We’ve got more depth in our back end than we’ve ever had. That excites me a little bit. 

The good thing with Brandon (Cisse), is he’s very very smart. He played in our Dime package a year ago. He transitioned to Nickel sometimes midweek during practice. We felt good if we needed to use him in a game there. He’s very smart. He’s football savvy. He can play Corner. He can play Nickel. He can do a lot of things for us. The first two days watching him, he had a couple of picks in 1-on-1’s yesterday. Expecting big things out of him. 

What I like about Devon Marshall is he can play Nickel and he can play Corner. He did that on film. The thing that was very exciting for us when he went in the Portal, is actually Villanova’s defensive staff was here last year with us, and spent 3 or 4 days learning our scheme. When he went in the Portal, the first call we got was from his Coordinator, and said ‘Here’s a guy who fits what you do. We’ll help all we can to get him to you guys.’ And it ended up working out for us. 

Kansas State, the past 3 offseasons we’ve spent a lot of time together, then we had to go play them in a bowl game. We just had a 3-down clinic in Vegas with UNLV, and K-State again. We shared a lot of ideas. You get friends in this profession, guys that you trust and guys that run similar stuff, and you want to learn from each other. It’s been a good friendship/relationship with K-State, and now UNLV is in the fold. Old Dominion is a school like that…that was the connection of how we got Robert Kennedy III a year ago. Same thing…last offseason they came here and spent 2 or 3 days, installed all of our stuff, Robert went in the Portal, and it all kind of worked out. You do it with certain people, obviously people you don’t think you’re going to play on your schedule. Who knew we were going to draw K-State in a bowl game. 

The Playoff expansion gives more teams opportunity. You don’t have to be perfect. You can lose a game and still bounce back. Anytime it expands from 4 to 12, there’s a lot of opportunity. Our goal first is to win Game 1, and the second is to win Game 2, and so on and so forth, but the ultimate goal for us…we all want to be in that playoff and get a piece of that pie, and see what happens.