Dave Doeren: "I'll Take a Win Any Way I Can Get It"
NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media via Zoom following the Wolfpack's 48-41 win over Marshall Saturday afternoon.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Doeren’s press conference.
Opening Statement
I’m proud of the guys. It was a great team win. There were a lot of things in that game. First of all, Marshall's a heck of a football team, and they played a hard-fought game. They’re well coached, and they've got a good team. I wish them luck. I thought that that staff and those players did a great job today. I'm proud of our guys and the way they hung in there through the momentum swings in the game. I thought we had complementary football. In a lot of ways, we played off of each other. In moments in the game where one side left the other side down, the other side responded. We put the defense in some tough situations with three turnovers and responded. In most of those, we got some turnovers of our own. Some individual performances: obviously, we got four touchdown passes from M.J. [Morris] which were tarnished with his three interceptions, but he gave us the spark we needed. He threw some good balls. We got K.C. [Concepcion] 100 yards. He was electric running the football for us, too, though I know those are counting as completions right now with the way we're doing that. When he gets the ball in his hands, it's great to get Trent Pennix going in our offense. They were well-designed plays called at the right time by Coach [Robert] Anae and well-executed by the guys. I was really, really impressed with those things there. Payton Wilson had 14 tackles. There's some great pass rush in the game. We got a tough situation there at the first half with Sean Brown being out with the targeting from last week, and then [Devan] Boykin goes down, and then Rak Ashford goes down. We were out of safeties. Thankfully, Boykin was able to return, so that was a tough stretch for a while in that first quarter when that happened. I’m proud of the resiliency of the group, and I'll take a win any way I can get it. I’m excited about it, and I look forward to next week once we get on the film and get better from this one.
On utilizing the jet sweep pass…
It was more about getting the ball to K.C. and Julian [Gray]. We could have handed it to them just as easily, but we felt like that was the best way to do it in case there was a mess up. You saw one, and it ended up being an incomplete pass on that play. Last week, we wanted to get the ball to those guys more and didn’t. With the pass game and pass rush that was happening, we need to get the ball to our playmakers. We just felt like it was another way to do that using the run game and putting those guys in the backfield some to spark our run game With Kendrick [Raphael] out, we just need to have more of a rotation with who's carrying the football, and those guys obviously are very dangerous when they get the ball in their arms.
On how different the offense is with Morris under center…
It's different. There's a lot more quarterback designed runs when Brennan [Armstrong] is the quarterback, and obviously you're talking left-handed movements to right-handed on things out of the pocket, so that part's different. [Morris] is still a young quarterback, so the checks and all the things that you might give an experienced guy, you kind of try to make it a little simpler early on until you can get him in a rhythm. He has complete grasp of the playbook. It’s more about the defenses that you see and the way people disguise and trying to make things as clean as you can for him. It's not like you change the playbook; you just alter it to fit the guys’ strengths, and for him, it's more of a passer. You saw the run game, with the exception of a couple draws, was handoff runs or the shovel motions that we had.
On Morris’ resiliency to bounce back from the poor first-quarter start…
It couldn't have started any worse, right? His first pass was picked, and the guy was wide open. He was excited to play. It was off-target. He's mentally tough, young man, and so I wouldn't expect anything less from him. He’s gonna respond. That’s who he is when he gets in a tough situation. He's going to fight, and he's got a great personality that way. You saw that. I'm sure there's a lot of people: “What's going on? What's going on?" He hasn't played in a while in a game, and so once we got him going, the guys played hard for him, and he did a great job bouncing back.
On Collin Smith’s short-range kickoffs throughout the game…
If you look at how Marshall's kickoff return was lined up, they had six guys on their front line, and everyone else was like 50 yards away. We were trying to kick it in between the two things, not kick it to the guys in the front line. It was a good call both times. It was a terrible kick both times. You have to execute. If that ball would have landed where we wanted it to, we would have been in a mad scramble for the football. We were kicking into the wind. We were trying not to put the ball in [Jayden Harrison’s] hands. Again, sometimes plans are great, but you have to execute. That was a kick we practiced all week and practiced it well. We felt confident that he would kick it well. He missed it the first time. We thought the second time he'd do a good job. He didn’t, and obviously that's on us for calling it, but that's why we called it. In retrospect, it's easy to be an armchair quarterback on every bad call and be the first to admit, when it looks bad, it's a bad call.
On special teams contributing to complementary football…
The return game's been excellent. You saw a great return from Keyon [Lesane]. You saw Jalen Coit with 42 return yards, Julian Gray with 42 return yards, Trent Pennix had some return yards. Other than the shanked punt, Caden [Noonkester] responded with some really good punts and a huge punt at the end of the game to put them on [their own 3-yard line] with that last drive. Our special teams have done a very, very good job this year. There are areas that I know Coach [Todd] Goebbel wants to be better, but they've definitely held their own.
On the run game…
The run game's a quarterback's best friend. If he has to stand back there and throw it with dropback protection all games, it’s going to be hard day. Keeping the defense in check, being balanced, and having a physical run game helps the quarterback in more ways than you know. For some plays, it’s just mentally to be able to take a break, catch and hand it to somebody, and watch them run with it versus having to read coverage, go through a progression, and all the things that go with playing quarterback on a pass play. We need to be efficient in the run game, and I feel like those backs really played hard tonight. I'm proud of Michael [Allen]. It was great to see him finally get to show his burst there in a run. Delbert [Mimms, III] has been great for us all year. He's been a great short-yardage back, and he showed that he's got a little bit more than that in him today. I'm proud of him, and hopefully we'll have Kendrick Raphael back for this next one.