LOCKER ROOM REPORT: Wolfpack Players
NC State's Brennan Armstrong, Jaylon Scott, and Savion Jackson met with the media following the Wolfpack's 26-6 road win over Wake Forest Saturday afternoon.
Armstrong completed 12 of 17 passes for 111 yards and one touchdown while rushing for 96 yards on 15 carries, scoring another touchdown on the ground. Scott led the defense with eight tackles against the Demon Deacons while also scoring on a defensive two-point interception. Jackson added four tackles and two sacks on the day.
NOTE: Click on each player’s respective thumbnail to watch each interview in the player above.
Brennan Armstrong
“It was awesome. We established the tone very fast. It was just so good. When you move people that easily, it’s just a good feeling, especially with my perspective as a quarterback. We got on them quickly. We got on them We got on them really fast. Hopefully, the finish will look better down the stretch and really step on their throats when we’re up in a game like that. I thought we started fast.”
“It’s been great. I just thanked them. I felt that support through sitting, and coming back, I felt that support a lot. I felt it here tonight. I felt really good. I’ll tell you that. I just thank them. When you have that support from your teammates, that goes a long way. In your head, in your mind, I think for the team, too, it goes a long way when you have that support.”
“I think so. I thought [K.C. Concepcion] was going to take it to the house. We just try to preach, ‘Just one play at a time,’ and I think we were doing that early on, just one play at a time. We were moving the guys up front. We were moving the line of scrimmage with big-chunk plays on the ground. It kind of loosened it up. The guys were like, ‘All right, we’re here.’ Then we went down and did what we needed to do.”
“It felt good. I’ve done it a decent amount, but this one felt different just because I feel like I’d grown. Even though I’m in my sixth year in college, I feel like I’ve grown through this time that I’ve been sitting. It just felt good again. It felt like myself. I really don’t have words for it; it just felt different than the other ones. It was that comeback thing.”
“You always get to write your story, no matter what’s happened. Whether things are going as planned or not, you always get to write your story. Coach [Dave Doeren] hit on that: we’re always writing our own story. We react, and we do things to put ourselves in different positions. We’re here, and we’re still writing. We got it done here; guess what we’ve got to do? Celebrate this one, and move on. We’ve got two games left, and we’re trying to win both of those. We’re trying to finish the season strong, so we’ve got that next-game mentality.”
Jaylon Scott
“I got to the 30, I saw Payton [Wilson], and I saw Shy Battle, and I was like, ‘Which one can I toss it to?’ No, that was probably the longest I’ve ever run, apart from workouts with Coach [Dantonio Burnette], in a continuous play. I was pretty tired, pretty exhausted, after that.”
“I had no doubts if I’d make it. Like I said, I saw Payton to the side of me, blocking people off, and I saw Shy come up a few times, trying to get to my level and blocking people behind me. I knew I was getting into the end zone.”
“It was a long drive before that. I was gassed. That was probably the longest play in college football right there.”
“Like Payton has said in one of the previous interviews, this is the standard that we hold our defense to. We want to go out and perform. We don’t want to give up TDs. TDs, even like four-yard runs, stick to us. That makes us want to go get it even more. I’m very proud of our defense, especially from where we came from at the beginning of the year, knowing that the screws screwed in and the bolts tightened up. I feel like that’s a big thing for us to look at as a growth thing. We’ve grown a lot since the beginning of the season.”
“They’re a little bit different on offense. The slow mesh and the RPOs, they just live by it. It’s hard to defend it. As a defender, you’re a reaction player. You play based off of what the offense gives you, and that slow mesh with those RPOs makes us slow down just a little bit. As long as we’re aggressive and continue to play how we’ve been playing, then that should be the result.”
Savion Jackson
“I feel like that’s the standard. When we step on that field, we know exactly what we want. We know exactly what we try to accomplish. Getting sacks, getting everybody to make their plays, and doing what we’re supposed to do, it’s really textbook. It’s how it’s supposed to be.”
“I think it’s very valuable. When the offense gets the ball or when special teams gets the ball, it puts everybody in the flow of the game. When the defense is clicking, it’s always good.”
“We definitely could [sense Wake’s frustration]. They tried to run the ball, pass the ball, change the offense up in different ways to try and score on us, but we just kept checking it out and playing accordingly to what they gave us.”
“Absolutely. Like I said, it’s our standard, as a defense, to do what we do to help our offense continue to get points and score. It feels great to practice so hard, take it to the game field, and accomplish everything that we talk about.”
“Even when the defense plays a great game, we still have small keys that we can fix. When we get back to Raleigh, we hone in on those two or three details. Even though we played great, it doesn’t matter; we still got scored on for six points."