VIDEO + QUOTES: Dave Doeren's Weekly Quotebook
NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media via Zoom Monday afternoon to address the Wolfpack's 45-24 loss to No. 10 Notre Dame as well as the upcoming matchup versus VMI.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Doeren’s press conference.
Opening Statement
I want to start off just by recognizing 9-11. I came in this morning, and the scoreboard had this waving flag on the Jumbotron. Our ROTC was marching every step at Carter-Finley Stadium. Over the loudspeaker, they were saying the names of many of the people that were lost on that tragic day. I just want to take a minute to remember that and the horrific act that it was. Also, it’s my father’s birthday. I lost him this past year. Hopefully, he’s enjoying his first birthday in heaven. Maybe he’s hanging out with Jimmy Buffett today; I don’t know. There’s a series of firsts you go through in life, and this is my first year without him on his birthday. I want to take a minute to make sure that I give him a shoutout.
In regard to the game, let’s start with our fans. They were awesome coming back after a 90-minute weather delay. I know I didn’t say that in my press conference — there were a million things going through my head after a 5-1/2-hour game — but before I even talk about the game, thank you. The Wolfpack is full of tough people, and that’s what I love about this place. We say, “hard, tough, together,” and you guys were, so thank you to our fans and our students, showing your commitment to our players and our staff with your actions and your support. Not a lot of fan bases would do that after 90 minutes. It’s noticed, and we love you for it.
With regard to the game itself, Notre Dame’s a very good football team. In all three phases, they were what they looked to be on tape. They were a big, fast, sound, physical, well-coached team. With that, it was a one-score game in the fourth quarter, a one-score game in which we didn’t play very well. I think we did not play complementary football. I told our team at the end of the game that the scoreboard is a collection of points that is a scorecard for plays made and plays not made, and they made more plays than we did. I think the score was not indicative of the game, but I think the score was very indicative of the plays we didn’t make at the times we needed to make them. It’s a great learning opportunity on complementary football. We talk about that ad nauseam here, but I think all of us know that something has to actually happen versus being said for a lesson to be learned. As parents, we all know that. This team learned a lot in that game. That was a top-10 team that we played.
Rewinding the game, we were down seven points. It was 24-17. We scored to make it 24-17 on [Brennan Armstrong’s] run after a nice drive down the field. Next possession, a great pass rush strain by Brandon Cleveland forces a fumble on a sack. Noah Potter scoops it up. We’re at the plus-17, and we’ve got momentum. Everybody’s thinking, “Here we go.” It was a great play. Ball’s on the 17. We throw an inside fade route to K.C. [Concepcion] in the corner, a beautiful ball by Brennan. K.C. gets good elevation and two hands on the ball, and the DB knocks it out instead of us coming down with it, and those are the kind of plays that I know K.C.’s going to make in his career, but when you’re playing a top-10 team, you’ve got to make competitive contact plays that are difficult to make, routine plays, and then a couple of “wow” plays. [Keyon Lesane’s] play was a “wow” play. It’s a great football play by him. As we’ve seen over players’ careers, as a freshman, [Concepcion] has made nine catches already for us, but that was a big play we needed and didn’t make. On the next play, Dylan [McMahon], a very veteran center, flinches, and we get a penalty that makes it second-and-15, then third-and-17. All of a sudden, we go out to kick a field goal that we normally would make; Brayden [Narveson] has been very consistent inside of 40 in his career, but he just pulled it. I think that was the turning point for the game. The next three drives resulted in touchdowns for them and turnovers for us.
We didn't get it done. Every time we got momentum back, Notre Dame answered. You have to give them credit, and we have to learn from that, taking advantage of momentum. Like I said, sometimes you need to lose to enforce something that's important. Our players do play hard; you see that. In the end, they made more plays than we did. You have to give them credit for that. The scoreboard showed it, and that's a reflection of plays made and not made, like I said.
On a positive on offense, it was great to see Bradley Rozner. He sparked us with a really nice catch on third down over the middle. He elevated. Then, he had a touchdown on the scramble play by Brennan. Keyon Lesane had a great third-down conversion, had two tough runs, and then made a great play down the sideline on a diving fade ball. Javonte Vereen elevated himself. He went from just playing in the UConn game to making plays in the Notre Dame game. That was growth. He has playmaking ability that we can build on. We were two-for-two on short-yardage. That was an area that we were wanting to be better in, and we were. We increased our explosive plays from four to nine in that game. Again, it’s an area we wanted to be better at.
Negatives, we didn't capitalize on field position in the first half. The defense really did a good job setting up the offense in the first half with some shorter fields that we didn't score. We had four pre-snap false starts which cannot happen. Two of them killed drives. We had three interceptions. Obviously, as the game got out of hand, I think Brennan pressed on one of them. One of them was a great throw which was a drop that turned into an interception. The other was a shot call where we threw a fade down the sideline. We’ve just got to do a better job getting it to the outside. That happens sometimes when you throw deep balls, but we can't turn the football over at that rate. We have to do a better job of finishing catches. I think the drops sometimes don't kill you; in this game, we had three drops that were really nice throws on third down that would have been conversions. Any time you convert on third down, you increase your odds of scoring. Those are areas that we have to get better.
Defensively, like I mentioned, we started fast. Two back-to-back three and outs, we really came out aggressive. It was great to see the first play the game on defense. Savion Jackson blows it up and makes a tackle, his first play back from his injury. He looked awesome out there. I thought our D-line played much better. I thought we were more square and vertical. Last week against UConn, I thought we’re turned too much and lateral. That was an improvement. Our third down defense, particularly third and long, we were very good. We got some pressure with four sacks on the quarterback and five tackles for loss, so nine plays in their backfield. Payton Wilson and Jaylon Scott were both super active. Payton had two incredible effort plays in the game. Shy [Battle] and Aydan [White] both covered well. They were tested in their tackling. They made those guys tackle with their tight edge formations.
Negatively, we gave up too many explosive plays. It’s not indicative of who we are. The 80-yard touchdown run coming out of the 90-minute break was frustrating. On the field, I felt like, “Wow, they just came out and really knocked us off the ball.” You watch the play: our linebackers and D-linemen fit that play perfectly. We had an unblocked player that took a bad angle. We didn't see the guard pull and should have been right there. We actually got his fingertips on the guy but should have been there to make that play for a three-yard game. We need to run that down on the back end. The two-minute drive before the half was really disappointing. We drive down and get a score and cut that game to one possession, and we're going to get the ball to start the third quarter. Then, the receiver gets rerouted by Aydan out of bounds and comes back in, and our safety loses him. That's his third. We were playing a deep third, he needs to stay in his third. That's Sean Brown, a young player that needs to understand the situation: two minutes, stay with depth on his side of the field. I thought our eye discipline defensively, as the game went on, got worse and worse. They exposed us with some play actions and nakeds because of that. Generally, when you see that, guys are trying to do someone else's job. For us, there's a big emphasis right now on doing your part. Do it as well as you can, and then play with tremendous effort. It’s something that we will definitely grow from.
Special teams was a definite positive. We won that area of the game other than the missed field goal. Our punt return was much better. Jalen Coit went from being nervous in game one to being a difference maker in game two. He was plus-10 in his punt returns and helped us in field position. He did a great job catching the ball. The guys battled for him. Our punt team handled a lot of pressure. Notre Dame's a very aggressive rush team. Those guys did a nice job. Cecil Powell did a great job covering our opponents. They had zero return yards in the game. They were on a mission to block a punt and didn't get there, so guys did a great job protecting.
Now, [we’re] on to VMI. Coach [Danny] Rocco is an experienced head coach. He's built several successful programs. We played against him — I think it was my first year or second year, I don't remember — when he was at Richmond here. He’s a really good football coach. He’s a hard-nosed guy. He knows how to coach a football team and build a program. He's in his first year. For us, this week is really critical to focus on us. It's a great week to get into our fundamentals. I'm excited to get back on the grass and see the guys work. We acknowledge there was an opportunity there to do something against Notre Dame, but we also realized the improvement we need to make as a team and we will make to be the team that we want to be. This team will respond. There's really good leadership in this football locker room. The best way to get over this feeling is to get out, play, and go get after somebody else. The guys know. They understand what happened in that game. There was a true sense of anger in the team room yesterday because they know that they let one go. They're better than they showed in that game. It's exciting to get out with a team like that, fighting in the face of adversity, fighting harder and getting after it.
On a health note, I do want to make note of this. It was on the depth chart but Jakeen Harris will be out for the year. He tore his pec in the UConn game on the third play. He had surgery: success. He will be back. He'll have another year with us. I know he'll do a great job. He did Saturday. Saturday he was out there helping the guys. He'll be a coach from a player's perspective that we'll have this year. [It was] a freaky deal on a tackle. We should get [Rakeim] Ashford back either this week or definitely next week. We lose Jakeen but eventually we'll have Rak back. Rak's doing really well. He looked good yesterday in the building when I saw him. Prayers for Jakeen, a guy that works as hard as anybody in this locker room and was gonna play a huge part in our defense this year. It always hurts losing a starter that has that much game experience. Next guy up: it's an opportunity now for Sean Brown, an opportunity for Devan Boykin to show his leadership for us back there, Bishop Fitzgerald, and then Rak when he comes back.
On the dropped passes and missed tackles versus Notre Dame…
They're fixable. Some of that, you’ve got to give Notre Dame credit. Their backs are pretty good. It wasn't like there's just some bad players out there. They have pretty good running backs. but yes, they're fixable. Tackling is about a lot of things. There were some bad angles, so that has to get corrected. There was one play where we had a guy aligned tighter than he should have been. He should have been deeper which would have given him a better angle. Anything that you see in a game that you don't like, that's where you go. You're going to go to practice, and you're going to focus on those things. These kids will work really hard to get better at the things that they weren't showing their best at. That's an area we're going to focus a lot on. We actually focused on it before the game, too. They just made some plays.
On Red Hibbler and Potter…
I'm excited. Like I told you in preseason camp, I think our D-line rotation is going to be good. We have fresh bodies that can go in and create some issues for offensive linemen. Red has been a good pass rusher since he got here. He was in junior college. That's why we recruited him. We really feel like he can be a guy off the edge that creates problems. Noah's a strainer; he comes in and plays really hard. Brandon Cleveland's got a huge, huge upside to him. He and C.J. [Clark] inside are both really active guys. There's a lot of similarities in their play. They can both really move. It's nice having that rotation and being able to keep guys fresh throughout the game. Then, Travali [Price] comes in and adds to that as well. We feel like we've got seven guys that we can rotate through in that three-man front.
On the growth of Wilson’s leadership…
It starts with him effort-wise. He ran a kid down in the game and hit 23.4 miles per hour on the GPS. That's the fastest we've ever had at NC State. That kid plays so hard. That's where it starts. Everybody in this entire program, there's just so much respect to the level of fatigue the guy ends up with at the end of a practice or a game. He spends it all out there. Also, it’s the way he treats people. He treats everybody with such care and respect in the locker room and in the building. Because of how hard he plays and how respectful he is, he can then also be very demanding of people. When he does ask guys to step up, they're going to listen to him. He's learned how to do that in a really good way. He's commanding on that defensive side of the ball, and it spreads. He's done a really good job. I’m super proud of him. It's paying off. It's paying off in a lot of ways on our team right now.
On the majority of first-down plays resulting in gains of four yards or fewer…
We got to be more efficient than that. They outperformed us on those downs. They were a 30-percent blitz team coming in, and they blitzed us 60 percent of the game. They really turned up the heat in the game. There was a lot of adjusting going on there for a while. That obviously wasn't what we prepared for on those downs as much. They did a good job. They brought a lot of pressure from a lot of places. Their kids are aggressive. We have to perform better at that. You could say that they won those downs. I thought once we settled down — unfortunately, it took until after the first quarter — we started moving the ball more routinely in those down and distances. They had a good plan. They brought a lot of different pressures that we didn't practice in those situations enough. It’s an area we can grow and get better. We know that opponents copy other people. That's something we got to prepare more for moving forward.
On the newcomers at wide receiver…
Well, K.C.’s already getting a lot of reps. I don't think he needs more reps. He needs to make some more plays, and he will. He will. As he plays more, the game will slow down for him. These mistakes that he's making now, they're freshman mistakes. He's going to learn and grow a lot. We all saw that through Emeka [Emezie]'s career, how much better he got playing from freshman year on. Unfortunately, sometimes you're going to deal with freshman mistakes when you play a freshman. We're going to have to accelerate his learning curve a little bit to the best of our ability. He's playing a lot. Vereen, as he continues to play better, for him, it's going to be more about playing without the ball and the better he can become a blocker. He's gotten a lot better in that area. He can help us as a receiver and a ball catcher. He can do a lot of things. Dacari [Collins] has been injured a lot since he's been here. For us with him, it's more about there's still a lot to be seen as he can stay consistent in practice. He has a good skill set. As he puts together weeks on weeks and days on days, you're gonna see him move up. He missed a lot of time with hamstrings and groins and things like that. Even though he enrolled in December, he missed a lot of practice. Now, he's been back for two weeks consecutive. If we can keep that trend going in the right direction, that will help us with him. Bradley just continues to impress us. His role will continue to grow because of that. That's the one thing about Coach [Robert] Anae. He's going to reward performers. That's what he does. He's going to continue to tweak this thing. We're still in the early stages, offensively, of figuring out what we are. It's not there yet. You come out of training camp, and you think you know, but games or games. They're different. This season, offense is going to evolve as this thing goes.
On the offensive line protecting the pass…
We gave up one sack. There were nine pressures. We’ve got to do a better job there keeping Brennan clean. There's a couple of times where he was hot. We had a guy unblocked purposely. Sometimes, we got the throw where we wanted it. Sometimes, he had to run. We can be better, but that is a really good front. Those linebackers, as I said going into that game, are elite players. They won some; we won some. I don't think that was the difference in the game. It was one of those games where there's just a lot that's different. There's a lot of stuff going on in there: the weather, then the delay, dropped passes early in the game that could have made first downs. We had a third-and-four drop and then a third-and-six drop in the first half that both would have converted. Those are moving the chains, and you're not when you drop them. It’s little things like that. There's a third-and-one. We're going to convert. We have a hard count. They jump offsides, and we don't snap the ball. Then, our receiver moves, and now it's third and six. We defeated ourselves there. It’s little things where we got to be better like we were in the first game. We got into a lot of those manageable third downs, and we operated. We didn't operate the way we needed to in that game at times.
On the running game…
It can be better, for sure. When you get behind in the game too, it's hard to really lean in on it. That was a good front. They were blitzing a ton. It's a hard front to run the ball into because of that. In areas, we got to be better up front, 100 percent. There's things we can do to make it easier for them. They ran some good blitzes into some plays and we didn't handle them well. It's a back and forth on that. As Coach Anae learns what we're best at, it will help. It will help. There were scenarios like any game that you were pretty excited about and areas you weren’t. It was good to see Kendrick Raphael get in the game. I thought he made a really nice catch out of the backfield. For a freshman to make a contact catch like that, the hit showed some progress for him. Delbert Mimms ran really hard in short yardage. Jordan Houston didn't get a lot of touches, but he really protected well. When they were blitzing, he was picking up guys and did a really nice job in that role for us. Michael [Allen] only got one carry. He was in there for a lot of the pass game. It wasn't one of those games where we leaned on the run game more because of what they were doing, but you know how I am: that's an area I'd love to be better at.
On Armstrong letting plays develop…
I thought he did a better job of that. He took some shots in there and threw some good balls. You watch the throw he made to Bradley Rozner over the middle; he's got No. 8 right in his chin. It actually hits him right as it's thrown. That's a beautiful ball. He threw a pretty seam ball to Porter [Rooks] that we dropped. He threw a really pretty seam ball on third-and-17 to K.C. that ended up being the interception that went through his hands. I thought he got better. He threw a great fade ball outside to Keyon. There were areas where I think he trusted it more in there. Then, when he had to run, he ran. He scrambled around and made a great play to Bradley for the touchdown. As the season goes — again, these are new players with him. He's getting to know these guys still. It's a work in progress, but the kid works really hard. He's a guy when he gets into practice, there's one day he wasn't very accurate some guys. The next day he comes out and he's all over it with them. He really takes all these things to heart. You love how hard he plays. The biggest step, next step is the chemistry with these receivers — not just receivers, ball catchers, because so many guys get balls thrown to them in our offense. Being consistent for him, him being accurate for them, and them having that really good chemistry together to make plays for each other, it'll happen. I'm excited about the way the guys looked in the team room yesterday. There's a very, very good look, a very upset but driven look, about the team.
On looking back on previous seasons, specifically when he beat Rocco’s Richmond team in 2013 …
That's 77 years ago in dog years, right? It's a long time ago. That was a nice kick by Nik Sade to win the game. I remember pieces of that game, but that was a nice kick. We've come a long way in a million ways: culturally, the facilities what's happened here over a period of time, the stadium, the way the fans — every game's sold out. It's a huge thank you to our fan base. Also, the way we're recruiting. There's a lot of things to be grateful for. A lot of hard work has gone into it, and there's a lot of great days to come.