PC: Dave Doeren Talks Wake Win, Senior Day, Boston College And More

NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media to discuss the upcoming matchup against Boston College.

NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview.

Opening Statement...
All right, well starting with the win over Wake, I thought it was a definitive team win. Super proud of the entire group; plus three in turnover margin.

The field position battle was a constant back and forth and we were able to swing that in our favor with some great punts and coverage as the game went on. Our field goal kicker, Chris Dunn, was fantastic as he's been, and his three makes and their one miss was a big deal on the game. We had fewer penalties than Wake. That was something I challenged our guys. We had six, they had nine, so they were a little bit more self-destructive than we were from that standpoint. And some of that is because of crowd noise. You guys really helped us in that game. They had a lot of false start penalties and I thought we played complimentary football and you could really see the opposite side of the ball setting up the other side and playing off each other and giving the other side a spark when they needed one.

I thought right before the drive that we scored with the long pass, the Keon, that kind of sparked the whole thing. I felt the poster route, the Keon, we were tired on defense. We had just been out there for a while and consecutive drives and gotten stops, but you could sense that we needed something offensively there to kind of help them, and that drive the offense pushes the ball down the field and gets a score. And third quarter we had a seven minute drive for 15 plays and a touchdown on offense. And that was awesome. And that's kind of the cycle of, I call it the cycle of death for the opponent. But when your offense is staying on the field and the defense is pitching three and outs or getting turnovers, eventually that defense on the other sideline runs outta gas. And that complimentary football equation was really well played by our team.

The four-quarter attendance was huge. Really like to thank our students and fans for making it such a special evening. They're loud, positive, cheering and the crowd noise, the way that they were in it when we needed them to be in certain down and distances for our defense was awesome and positively impacts our performance and the mental state you have as a player. And when the fans are cheering loudly in a positive fashion for their team, just understand what that does to the psyche of a young person. It's awesome for our team to have that kind of backing and thank you for that. It matters.

You were there to help us get our 16th consecutive at home, which ties Coach Holtz's record and school history. And what my request is gonna be to repeat it, to be able to be here for the 17th, the record and also to be here for a senior day, that as I get into this, you'll understand the importance of that and the deserving nature of that for this group.

Really all I want you to know is for us to be the best we can be as a team and to be the best we can be as a program, to be the best we can be as a fan base. And I felt like that was one of those moments Saturday night, that was a special night the way we played, the way that you cheered the whole thing.

It was awesome and thank you. And just talking to my team in our team meeting on Sunday, I asked them to gimme their recap of the game, and it was one of the most fun games they've played in. They talked about the energy, the fans, the way that they played for each other as a team. So it was fun to be a part of that whole thing. And it was one of the most fun games I've coached in.

So get ready for one more time at home. And everything that we got as a team will be given, as a staff will be given, and everything as a fan base we're asking for in the game. We had 13 explosive plays and we were much more explosive in the run game than we have been. That was great to see. We had zero turnovers to their three. We had zero drops – not just in the receiving room, but as an offense. Time of possession, as I mentioned, was big from a negative standpoint. They made some good plays at the line of scrimmage. There was a little more leakage at times into the backfield. Some of it's just MJ identifying some pressures and missed and some blitzes that knowing where he can go with the ball quicker, we'll help him, [it] was a great learning experience that way.

Defensively, the three takeaways, three interceptions and the fourth-down stop was big. I thought the goal line stand, if you go back and watch that, I mean Isaiah Moore put three plays in a row together on the goal line. It was just phenomenal. A tackle for loss, a tackle for loss on a sack. It was like, not on my watch. You're not getting in this end zone. And it was an unbelievable three play in a row set for Isaiah. He's a stud. The shutout in the first quarter and third quarter on defense. They're a fast-start offense. And [it] was one of the things that we really talked a lot about. Not letting them start the game in a rhythm, not letting them start the second half in a rhythm. And that was really good to see our guys do that. We eliminated the run game, and when you do that, it changes the mesh ride, the slow mesh and all that when you're taking that part away.

I thought our D-line really battled. I mean there's a lot of guys that played well, but Corey Durden and Davin Vann deserve a lot of credit for the way they strained and disrupted up front. I thought all three linebackers were super productive. Negatives. There's just a couple times at the top of some routes he gave those receivers a chance to make plays. Some of 'em were back shoulder plays and we can get better at defending the ball there. The two pass interferences, one of 'em I thought was a questionable call. The other one was good call and we gave up a few third longs that normally we wouldn't. I think you gotta give Sam Hartman some credit on some of that too. I thought the guy just really hung in there and took some shots and threw some good balls. Special teams wise, Chris Dunn is the best in the country at what he's doing right now.

And knock on wood, just one kick at a time, keep it going. But he's delivering and doing his thing. It's fun to watch. Super proud of him. I thought the punt coverage by our missiles. Keyon was saying that first tackle was a poor hang time punt and he wins and stacks his guy and takes a shot no yards. Darryl Jones continues to be a stud on punt coverage.

And then the pin punt with Caden Noonkester to Thayer Thomas. Man, was that a thing of beauty on the one-yard line? Great play by Thayer, and just really proud of Caden coming in, that first punt 55-yard punt, 4.5 hang with pressure in his face and first college punt ever.

What a great play by him, and then Julian Gray continues to provide field position as a kickoff returner. So it was a good game.

Wake's a good football team. Clawson and his staff deserve credit. They've really done a good job there, and I have so much respect for Sam Hartman. I think that kid is a stud.

Now on Boston College. Look forward to playing them and known Jeff Hadley a long time. A lot of respect for Jeff as a coach offensively. I know they're going through it a little bit injury-wise. You can see how they've gotten better on the O line. They've gone from being a really old offensive line to the young offensive line and those kids have gotten better up front as the year’s gone on. Got hard runners and I think they have the most explosive receiver in the acc. And Zay Flowers is a guy I really wanted in high school and we offered him to play offense and defense here. I thought he was a great player, still is a great player, but he is just an all around really, really talented guy. And the other receivers in the room are good players too.

As I mentioned, it's a last home game. It's senior day opportunity to win a 17th straight and own a record. And this group has collectively 336 career receptions, 1,446 tackles, and has put up 698 points... done a lot. It's 30 guys in the senior day. Some of 'em are underclassmen who haven't made decisions, and so don't read too much into it. There's probably seven or eight guys on there that can come back and won't know until the season's over. So we'll have to wait that out. But I like to give those guys this opportunity to be a part of it in case they do decide to go pro. And so we'll see where that goes. But you'll see a really, really impressive group of guys that have been great to coach and phenomenal in building this program back to where it was after the tough season we had three years ago, or four years ago now.

So love these guys like sons and wanna see 'em sent out the right way. And I know our fans love the tailgate and I love that about you. I am asking that you come in a little earlier cause senior day, the send off happens before the coin toss. I don't know the exact minute mark, but we'll put something out on social media, Annabelle, about exactly when that'll start so that you guys can be in the stands for them. I think that would be meaningful and a good tribute to a great group of guys that have put a lot of blood, sweat, tears into this program and into your viewing pleasure at times. So a little payback for those guys. But you're talking about a bunch of really good guys, I'm gonna miss 'em a lot, and so we'll send them out the right way with that.

Hey coach, this team has been so resilient this year and you had so many guys come back for that fifth year, that senior year. How much does that [be] a correlating factor?
Yeah, I think it does. I mean it's kind of like Isaiah's goal line stand. I mean there's guys that just  not gonna let things go the wrong way. And I think there's only so much you can do, but when the plays are there for you to make and you're in that position, you came back for this. I mean Devin Carter's contact catch on the goal line, great play, some of the plays you see guys stranding to make and running over people to get to the football, jumping over people to get to the football, the speeches. Grant Gibson gave a great speech on the sideline two weeks ago, and we were down 21 to three, to the offense. I mean it's giving everything to go out the best that they can, And so yeah, it's as a staff we feel completely driven to give everything we have to them.

Hey Dave, I wanted to ask you about MJ. You talked about him running reps on air behind the guys in pre-season while they ran the drills. He's had now a couple games to actually get game reps and then he's had practice reps, he's been able to stack those one on top of the other. Was there something when you guys looked at the film that like this, he said okay that was another step forward. I mean cause he obviously got off to a good start against Virginia Tech as far as what he did in that game.
I think just the way that we had no pre-snap penalties on offense in this game. That was the first time all year. And even though those don't really dictate the outcome of games, they make it easier to score when you don't have 'em. I think him just doing a good job with the O line, communicating when he was ready to start his cadence, you could see him back there trying to undress the defense with his clap and fake claps and different things like that, his cadence. And I thought that was another step offensively throwing the ball in the run and this game's first time we've really done that with them. You saw him throw two deep out routes to far on the run. Those are pretty big throws. So that showed a little bit more match maturation right there by him doing a little bit more than we'd asked him to do before. I thought finding the running back on a checkdown instead of just running and getting hit was something that he hasn't shown he can do. He went to the last element of a progression right there. So those would be three things right there for you.

How much of when you've got a guy that's making gains and looks confident and brings energy, how much too is you're still like, okay, you still wanna make sure you set him up in the right position to be successful, not just throw, okay, he can do more and more and more and then overload him.
Yeah, I think you still gotta be careful. I mean it's still a small sample Aaron, it's, it's a game and a half and so we're excited about what he's doing but at the same time I think setting him up is important. I mean what does he do best? Where is he most confident? And be honest, it's no different than when you have a three year starter and you still wanna do what the guy feels most confident with. And his volume of offense has grown in the last week and a half and I'm sure it will continue to with little nuances because it's still a game of reps. I mean if we put in a new play, it might look like a good play on tape, but if he hasn't repped it 20 times, it's not gonna be comfortable. And I think that's just cuz there's so many different looks you can get at quarterback every time you line up.

So you know, wanna make sure every time you drop something in the bucket, it may seem like a single drop but it fills up over time. And I'd rather run a play that we can rep multiple times and let him know the answers and feel confident when something happens that I'm doing this. You saw in a game right there, we had a play in that we thought was gonna be a really good play and if they zero blitz, his answer would be throw the slant and he didn't see the blitz coming, he got sacked and that wasn't a breakdown in protection. They brought more than we had to block and you gotta know where your hot is. And I think if we would've ran that play five more times in practice, that probably wouldn't have happened. So you just gotta be careful cuz there's a lot of good plays that you can run, but do you have the time to rep 'em enough where all the questions are answered for the quarterback mentally? And I think that's a balancing act that he and Coach Beck have to play just to be confident that you're getting what you want out of it.

Dave we saw obviously Devin Carter to leave the game on Saturday night. Do you have a status update for him? First of all,
He's doing good. Yeah, he's much better. So he took a pretty hard shot in the midsection, was having a hard time getting his air back. And so from what I know, again, I haven't had a staff meeting yet today it's at three 30, but from yesterday's report everything was trending the right way.

I also wanted to ask you, it's kind of a loaded question, but when you look at this senior class and all the guys that will potentially walkon Saturday and everything that they've done throughout this program, I mean this date's back to the 2018 class in some cases. How important have they been for this program to not only get where it is now, but to be able to rebuild compared to what you had in that 2017 and 2018 season too?
Yeah, I mean they've been a big part of all of it. The evolution of our culture the leadership, the growth of our staff with the players. I think this culture that we have now, obviously as a head coach you lead it, but these guys are the ones that water it every day too. They're the ones that help it grow and hold each other accountable. So all these guys that are walking are a part of the success we're having in a major way. And I do look at it, I coach them, but honestly we grow together. I mean it's a better coach because I have these guys to work with and I think it's a really good two-way relationship. There's a lot of back and forth communication and I know it's a group that not just me, our staff, these are guys that we're gonna be friends with after football for a long time. We've been through a lot together.

Dave, we don't know the status yet of Jurkovec.  Boston College started a red shirt freshman against Duke who had four touchdowns, no interceptions. Just watching him... if he's the guy, I mean just your thoughts on seeing him in action against Duke.
He threw the ball really well in that game. As you mentioned. He had some good pressure on him, he delivered and was an impressive performance against the team that's playing really well. So yeah, I mean it definitely caught your eye in some ways he's sparking them on offense. I mean that's as good a performance they've had throwing the ball a year.

On your younger guys just in general. Is it hard to get a really good look at your true freshman early in the season if they're late enrollees or just when you're in fall camp and you've got regulars getting looks because it feels like most years you'll see those guys earn reps later in the year as opposed to early on?
I think there's a couple things in play. One of it is your depth. If you're coming into a room that's got four upperclassmen in it, it's gonna be harder for you to play in your position regardless. And then the health factor of your group, maybe it started where you were fifth and now there's three injuries in your third and you're gonna play. So that changes the dynamic too. And then there's what you mentioned, how well do they know the system, whether it's the offense or the defense, can they get out there and make the plays? Like Brandon Cleveland's a great example. He was not ready to play early in the year and he's worked hard in the weight room, he's changed his body in a great way and he's learned the defense and then we had injuries and he was ready and I thought he did some good things in the weight game.

There's some other guys where I think like Michael Allen just, there's a lot of older guys in the room and then we've had what we've had with Demi being in and out to give him some opportunities and he's taken advantage of 'em. Same thing with Terrell Tes, he didn't know the offense as well, but he was showing up and then all of a sudden you have an injury to Anthony Smith and now there's need and what can he do? Well let's get him caught up and now he's caught up and he can play. So I think there's multiple things there and he love to red shirt everybody, but that's not the real to me, if you wanna win every game that you can play, you gotta get your best guys out there. And sometimes injury dictates when guys are needed the most.

Yeah, Dave along those lines when did you feel like MJ was ready and do you think in hindsight you could have pushed him even a little bit earlier?
Well we talked about it in training camp. I mean you knew that the things that MJ does well, he's a good passer, he and Jack can run. Jack has a lot of game experience as you guys know. And so really conversation was is if Devon's out for a quarter or two quarters, then Jack knows what to do. He can go in, get us out of a game he saw on the Florida State game, but if we knew it was gonna be a long period of time that MJ may take the job just because he's a better passer. And so we thought that could be how it played out and that's what you saw happen over time. It wasn't anything that Jack couldn't do or wasn't doing, it's just what MJ was doing a little better was throwing a ball and more accurate with it.

Have you been at all surprised with anything you've seen from him here in the last six quarters?
I think it's more just how he carries himself, his poise, his humility how he treats his teammates, how he talks to the media, all the things that you don't really can't practice that with guys. How are you gonna respond after a comeback win? That's not something I can practice. You gotta see him do it. And so actually very proud of him for that. Thankful to his parents. Obviously he's the way he is because of their leadership in the home and just, I think that's the biggest thing for anyone out there that's having success is just to stay grounded and remember where you got to where you're at and why and not get caught up in the hoop law. But it's hard to do and so I've been proud of him for that.

Dave, you did talk about mobility with him. It seems like you do have more of a run oriented, a run part of your quarterback with your quarterback right now compared to maybe with Devin as far as mobility, something you can call a designed run. How much does that change what you guys are able to do offensively being able to probe with him a little bit on the ground.
And some of the runs are him running scrambles. So I think there's a little bit more than people understand, but the design piece is completely different than we had with Devin. There was a few goal line runs we had with Devin. You guys saw those early in the year and they were successful for him as well. But the reed part of what we do RPOs, when you're either handing it or throwing it, we still have that stuff. But now we can also do, are you throwing a screen or are you throwing a quick route or are you reading an end or a backer and keeping it. So just additional things that help move the offense. And not too many of 'em, obviously you wanna take care of him too. So I think that's where we gotta be smart is when we need him and when we don't and how to protect him and for him, how to protect himself but also do what we need to do to win.

And I think there's a balance there and we gotta be smart with it. And MJ’s gotta be smart with it, but anyone that has that mobile quarterback, NFL down, I mean it's different on defense defending that you know can't drop eight in coverage and feel like, hey, we're gonna cover 'em all and he's just gonna stand there. No, he's gonna run for 10 yards if you do that, we're gonna read your end. And based on what he does, we're gonna have one less defender. So it's 11 on 11 football in more ways than one. And just like we have to deal with that on defense here, now they have to deal with that with our offense. And I do think that's an advantage at times to have that mobility. And just as an offense in general, it's not really installing a lot of new things.

If we're running counter to the tailback and then we run counter to the quarterback, it's nothing different for anyone but one person. So you're not, the old line doesn't know who's got the ball, so you know can motion your tail back out. You can use 'em as a blocker, whatever and plus one in the running game or get them to minus one in the box, all those things. So the volume of your offense on a play calling sheet might increase, but from a knowledge standpoint for your guys, it doesn't change. And that's the thing that's nice as you look at how they're defending you.

A big picture question. I was curious when you saw the Clemson score against Notre Dame the league, that seems like it would put the league in potentially some uphill climb of making the playoff, but yet it also comes at a time when I would say the ACC seems to be better regarded than it has been. You guys have been in a fixture in the poll in North Carolina Wake and Syracuse, kind of how do you reconcile that the ACC might be on the outside looking in on the playoff, but yet there's still a fair amount of ranked teams and quality that we've seen this year?
Yeah, I mean I think almost every year one lost team makes it to the finals it seems like i's instill one lost team and we'll just have to see how it plays out. I think these next four weeks are gonna be huge in college football. And this weekend was pretty crazy with what happened to several teams and the injury piece of it all. I know Oklahoma State went from being undefeated to losing two in a row cause they lost both their quarterbacks. So I think you know, have to do that at your job, Aaron, I understand. Figure out who's gonna win the national championship in week eight. But I think there's just a lot of football left and I don't think the ACC is out of it yet. I think there's a lot that can happen and if any of these undefeated teams have the same type of situation that we've had or Oklahoma State has and they're trying to figure it out without their starter, then their season could change and now all of a sudden a one loss team moves up again. So there's a lot of football still to be played.

Yeah, Dave, we don't talk a lot about the line play just individually looking at the PFF grades, I think Grant and Chandler are among the best in their position in the acc. Can you just evaluate what you've seen from those two guys? I know they'll both be walking this weekend.
Yeah, they're both playing really good for us, James.

Grant Gibson's playing the best football. He is played, I'm super happy for him. He's playing aggressive a lot of finished blocks, pancakes playing fast, having fun. It's been fun to see Chandler out there and we're different when he's in. He's definitely a strong guy on the left side there and he's having fun. His smile is contagious. Just a really, really good guy. And it's nice having that.

You've heard me say this many times, I think you build a football team inside out and when you have a good center and you have a good nose guard, that's a good start for both sides of the ball and then you work out to the next spot and Chandler and G are playing at a high level. I think Tim McKay's playing at a high level very physical right now and it's been good for us to get Speas back. I mean, he played the first half of the season with the sore growing and to have him healthy, he's been a great thing to get him going. The old line played one of their better games really the last two games I think they've played really good football for us and been playing against some good fronts. So it's good to see.