LOCKER ROOM REPORT: Wolfpack Players
NC State's Payton Wilson and M.J. Morris met with the media following the Wolfpack's 24-3 road loss to No. 17 Duke Saturday evening.
Wilson tallied 11 tackles against the Blue Devils with two tackles for a loss, one quarterback hurry, and one half-sack. Morris completed 24 of 40 pass attempts for 193 yards with one interception while leading the Pack’s ground game with 69 rushing yards, sacks excluded, on 10 attempts.
NOTE: Click on each player’s respective thumbnail to watch each interview in the player above.
Payton Wilson
On his thoughts for the game…
I want to apologize to Wolfpack Nation. That's not what they deserve. That's not how we should play. Everybody on this team has got to get with the program. We’ve got to come out here, and we've got to play as hard as we can possibly play every single snap because we don't know when that last snap is. We've got to get back in the lab. We don't need to get better; we need to get tougher. This whole team needs to get tougher on offense, defense, and special teams. We've got a bye week coming up, much-needed. I know Coach [Dave] Doeren, Coach [Tony] Gibson, and Coach [Robert] Anae are going to do a really good job of getting us right. As a team, we’ve got to lock in. We've got to get tougher.
On where NC State came up short…
People in the stands can probably see it: sometimes, it feels like there's only three people on the field at once. There are certain times we don't have people running to the ball all the time. We don't have everybody playing as hard as they possibly could, and Duke does. Duke's a disciplined team. They played hard ball, and it showed tonight.
On explosive plays…
That's been our problem all year. Going back to UConn, Notre Dame, and even Virginia, we've struggled. We've struggled with RPO's and definitely explosives. A lot of it has come off of RPO's. We have to continue to get in the film room and continue to know what we're doing.
On giving up explosive plays…
It's all over the field. It's from the front to the linebackers to the safeties. When you play defense, if one guy is doing the wrong thing like you saw tonight, it can go for 80. [It’s about] getting everybody on the same page. At the end of the day, they have good ballplayers. If they make a play, tackle it down. It doesn't always have to end up a touchdown. We've got to get a motor and start going to get people.
On the bye week…
It's not always going to be time. Since I've been here at least, this is the longest we've played without a bye week. Those bodies are definitely feeling it, but that's definitely not an excuse. Now's the time to be the best team we could possibly be, going into these last five games to try to win out.
M.J. Morris
On his thoughts on the game…
We beat ourselves today throughout the whole game. We started off slow, beating ourselves. We finished the last couple of minutes strong, but that doesn't matter. We were already down three touchdowns. We beat ourselves. I don't think that they beat us. That's my honest reaction to the game.
On the Wolfpack beating itself…
We had some penalties. I know I threw an interception; that was a dumb interception. I know I’ve got to fix that on film. There’s a lot of stuff to fix that we're going to fix tomorrow. We’re trying to get better. We’re going to watch the film and put this in the past.
On the bye week coming at a good time…
We're going to do a lot of soul searching and see how we want to finish this season. We want to finish off the right way. We're definitely going to come together as a group. That's what we've got to do right now: come together as an offense, lean on one another, watch film together no matter how late at night it is — I don't care; we'll stay until 12 o'clock watching film at night. If that's what we've got to do, that's what we've got to do. We've got to do something to fix this. I feel like this definitely comes at the right time. There’s definitely a lot of work to be done.
On the game slowing down for him…
Sometimes, things do come quick, as a defense disguises one defense for another, but when I'm out there, I'm playing my game. I'm having fun. God gave me the opportunity to go out there and play on the field, so I don't ever take that for granted. I don't ever play with doubt, play with nerves, or anything. The game definitely does slow down for me. I try to take it one play at a time and do the best I can with each play.
On what he wants to see from himself and the team for the rest of the year…
I want to see how hard we can finish each day. It doesn't matter about the game. Each day: how hard can we go each day? How hard can we push ourselves each day? The games are going to come, but it's the day-to-day, the early mornings, the late nights. How much heart do we have? That's what I want to see. For myself, I want to continue to get better. This is my first year as a starting quarterback in the middle of the season. I want to continue to get better. My goals are to get to the next level, so I’ve got to keep on preparing like it.
On competing against ranked opponents…
When we play our best football, when we're the most locked, in, we can compete with anybody. That's my honest reaction. I know some people might not think that way, but that's my honest opinion. That's the way I think every day. If we're playing our best football, we don't be ourselves. [If] we connect with one another, we can play anybody in the conference. That's what I think about it. I think sky's the limit for us. We've got to keep on fighting.
On playing catchup against the Blue Devils…
You never want to go from first-and-10 to first-and-20 because you’ve got to get an extra 10 yards. The play-calling changes right there. On first down, you're trying to get three to four [yards] as a successful first play. When you're first-and-20, second-and-17, if you get three or four yards, we've got to fix that. That's where I talk about beating ourselves. You can't get behind the sticks early and then get all that hectic stuff on third down that they were showing.
On fixing the dropped passes during the bye week…
I just told that to the whole receiver corps. I said, “After practice each day, if we don't have practice since it's a bye week, we're out there on the field every day after practice." For 30 minutes, [they’re spending time] half on jugs, half catching balls from me. We're going to keep on working together to fix the problem. It's not just them; it's me too. Sometimes, I've got to put the ball in a better place for them to catch it. We're going to keep on leaning on each other and keep on working with each other. That's what we're going to do.