NC State OC Tim Beck: "Part Of The Success Is The Simplicity"

NC State offensive coordinator Tim Beck met with the media to discuss the upcoming matchup against Boston College.

NOTE: Click the video above to watch the press conference.

Obviously for you, getting a chance to see several of your guys that you've worked with over the last several years here at NC State get to walk on Saturday, and for the last time as part of the family, what does that mean to you and what do you feel like emotions are going to be like?
Yeah, it's always an emotional game, there's no doubt about it, and those group of seniors, those 31 guys really on both sides of the ball, I just want nothing but the best for them. My goal right now is to give the best plan that we can to coach our guys up. So they play a lot of football and they've bled and really developed this culture and this program following the direction of coach, and they've established this program to where it is.

It's going to be weird to know that one day, you're going to come to the building and not see some of those guys, so it's definitely going to be an emotional day. Having done that, you just got to, the best you can, get through that and then focus on the game. I think once the game gets going, most of the guys I think will be okay, but certainly afterwards will be probably even a bigger hit to them.

I think it was Grant yesterday saying that MJ in just these couple of weeks has gone from this guy who's been kind of quiet and in the background a little bit to now, his personality is really shining through and being that vocal leader on the offense. How much have you seen him evolve in that way just in these last couple of weeks?
Yeah, I agree with Grant. I don't know if it's a sense of pride or what it is with MJ, he knew his place. He knew Devin Leary was our quarterback and that he came here to learn from him, and Jack came in and brought a lot of senior leadership and just stuff that he had been through maybe that even Devin hadn't because he's been a senior, and MJ was just a sponge soaking it up and sitting in the back, and now it's his time.

I talked to him and I said, "This has to be your team now. You have to take over and you have to become more vocal. You have to be that guy." So he has, and every single week, you see that comfort level growing in him, you see the players responding to him. He's not just a guy that came into the game for a couple of plays or a sub. He's the quarterback now, and I think everybody on our football team with Devin's situation, they feel that now.

You said that he knew his place obviously, but what does it say about him to be ready and stay ready this early on?
Yeah, no doubt, it's one of the rare qualities of a quarterback and it's probably what's allowed him to have the success that he has. As a coach, we constantly teach mental reps, game reps. There's a difference between them. At practice, the guy takes the physical rep, it's a game rep. The guy that doesn’t has to take a mental rep, and MJ is on top of his game with that.

I try to do a really good job of making sure that the backup quarterbacks are always engaged. They're seeing the signals or relaying the plays. They're physically moving, watching where they throw the ball, and so when their time comes, they're ready for it, and MJ believed in that and really was very disciplined and stuck to that process, and so when his time came, he'd kind of been through that a bunch.

But certainly proud of him. Certainly is a rare quality to have to be able to be that engaged knowing you're not playing because it can happen at any time, and you always tell them that. So it's a couple plays away and you could be playing, so make sure you're ready.

There were a couple drives where the offensive line put the backs in position where they didn't really get touched 6, 7, 8 yards downfield. They ran through huge holes, really had smooth running basically. Now, how nice was that to see on film and to emphasize that this is what we can do?
Yeah, I think our offensive line has played well for the most part all season long and our backs too. I just think sometimes, we have shot ourselves in the foot as we've gone into the red zone with some penalties and whatnot that has hindered us from scoring drives and been our own worst enemy, but it was good to see that.

Two games ago, we finished the game on the field running the football. This game, same thing. We had some nice runs, I think we had eight explosive runs over 10 yards, and so it was good to see that type of production come out from our running game and our offense.

I think we saw evidence of it in the Wake Forest game, but now that you know MJ is the guy and now we know what he can do in a game situation on the field, have you been able to continue to add to the playbook and cater to what he can do?
Yeah, a little bit. He is a freshman, let's not forget that. It's still a growth process and my experience of dealing with freshmen at some point in their freshman season, whether it's in ball camp or early in the season or even late in the season, their brain turns to mush like oatmeal and they hit a wall, and you've just got to be careful not to overdo it thinking, "Well, he can do this. Look, he threw that pass, he certainly can throw this one," and you start putting in more and more things. Part of the success is the simplicity. He knows what to do, when to do it and how to do it, so now it's a lot easier to do it.

And so the greater you get in terms of trying to do all these things, and it was part of Jack, it was part of MJ, I hate throwing him in there. They mentally repped, but physically, really getting all those reps, they hadn't and so we struggled a little bit. As they got more reps and got more comfortable with it, then they started to, "I know what to do, how to do it, and I can do it better." That's how I see our growth in our offense going right now.

Is part of that growth also seeing guys like Keyon and Darryl Jones make plays?
Yeah, same thing. There's guys that... Daryl didn't even practice through Spring. He was hurt. Fall camp, he was in and out with some stuff, and so you see all of that. Juju and Terrell and Mike Allen, all those guys as the season's gone on, as they've gotten more reps and you slowly spoonfeed them to get ready, now they're helping be productive for us offensively, but two, three, four weeks ago, they weren't ready yet. You try to get them ready but it takes time, because every week we play, it's a different opponent. It's not like you just go out and, "Hey, just run this play." I know they're different, it's a different front, it's a different coverage. It's man, it's on zone, or they blitzed.

It's different, and so every single time, you can call the same play 10 times in a row, you're probably seeing six, seven different defenses, and so the reaction and what happens is going to be different every time so they have to know what to do to all of that. Even though you can't practice all of it, they have to know what to do and that's part of the maturation process that allows them to have success when they go out there, because now, "I got it, Coach. I can handle whatever happens on that play."