Dave Doeren: "You Need to Be Flexible"
NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media as the Wolfpack progresses through spring camp.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Doeren’s interview.
On retaining his coaching staff as long as he has with others moving around, including to the NFL…
Well, first of all, I think [Charlie] Partridge has earned the opportunity to be [with the Indianapolis Colts]. He's done a great job at Pitt. He and I were college teammates, and we've worked together at Drake and at Wisconsin, so I know how good a coach he is. He's had a lot of opportunities to leave there. I know raising his daughters in Pittsburgh was important to him. If you look at our staff, our continuity, like him being at Pitt as long as he was, there's a lot of factors. One is the staff culture we have. We're very proud of the way these guys work together. There's a lot of experience, low ego, and high output with this group. The quality life in Raleigh is big time, man. Raising children in this city, or grandchildren, whatever it may be, it's a great place to live, and so that helps. Boo [Corrigan] has done a tremendous job helping out in the resource areas for these coaches and for our recruiting staff, and all the things that make the coaches’ jobs better is having great support around them. We're fortunate to have such a good experienced staff that's stuck together the way they have.
On K.C. Concepcion making bigger strides after a successful freshman year…
He understands the volume of the season now, how long it is, the grind, and how to practice better. If you compared his practices in the spring a year ago to where he is now, he’s a more mature practice player by the biggest difference. He knows the offense, knows the expectations. There’s less thinking, which helps. It's not that you don't want players to think — you do — but you want to see them play fast. The less that's going on pre-snap in their heads, the better to free up their feet.
On Brandon Cisse…
He’s very mature. He’s a super athletic guy, and he plays really hard. When you have a talented person that also works really, really hard, usually you have something pretty special. I don't want to put him on a pedestal yet because he hasn't been a starter here except on our dime package, but we love the way he's coming in our program. The way he’s stepped up with Shy [Battle] leaving, to fill a void over there, we’re excited about what he's doing and the way he’s worked. I know, talking to [Dantonio Burnette] about his offseason, he felt like he would have been one of our MVPs of our offseason program, had we had an award like that. He would have been one of the candidates.
On developing depth on the offensive line…
Every rep matters when you’re developing a player. These spring reps where you're not trying to get ready for a game, it's really fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. You can slow your install down when you need to and speed it up when you can. We’re building depth in every position right now. Particularly at center, we're trying to get more and more guys going in there. Robby Martin's a true freshman that’s at center getting reps now. He should be in high school still, but he's here already, so that'll help him, moving into the fall, to be a more ready player and all the reps that those guys get it. If you can have a true three-deep on the O-line — I don't know if I've ever had that — it's what you try to get to. A lot of times, it's a pair and a spare. In some cases, you're traveling 10 to 11, but you're really only playing six or seven. You'd love to be able to continue to build that depth up. We have a true two-deep all the way across the board with a young group that you’re bringing along.
On the balance between Grayson McCall selling himself to NC State and the Pack selling itself to him ...
It depends on the player. In his case, he was a three-time player of the year in [the Sun Belt]. He didn't have to sell himself to us. It was more about getting to know each other, at that point. We didn't recruit him in high school, but he was a North Carolina native, coming from Charlotte. It's getting to know each other, him getting to know me, getting to know our offensive coaches, getting to know the players that are on the team that are coming in, and just making sure that, in his last year, he had the right fit. He compared us to two other schools, and he's diligent about it, wanted to make sure it was the right situation.
On NIL helping with community outreach…
That's one of the things about this NIL; when the collectives are able to use the resources in the town in Raleigh and tie in different charitable things that allow the donations to then be charitable donations and then build a life skill for these young players to give back to ALS, give back to Alzheimer’s, or give back to the special needs community, you're really doing good things. You're helping out in the space with NIL. Our collective works really hard. McKee Homes is one example, but there's a lot of these business groups that have started helping us, and they're seeing the benefit of it with not only the players maybe in a marketing space but with how they can improve Raleigh. They’re helping out in these special needs communities and all the different benefits that are out there.
On moving early signing day up…
That's interesting. I'm glad that it's after when the portal opens. That was one thing we all want it. There's some things that came along with it that I don't really understand like a dead period. Basically, the entire month of December, except for one week, now is dead. It's makes it hard to recruit all these guys that you might be recruiting in the portal, and there's one week to bring them on campus. Some of them are still in school, going to class. It's going to be tough. I don't really understand that. I wish they would kind of separate the high school players and the portal players and maybe have different calendars in December for them. We’re signing the high school players now on December 4; we need the rest of the month for the transfer players. If we can’t go out on the road, which we can’t, at least let us bring them here and bring them on campus so that we know who we want, and they have a chance to actually see two or three schools before they have to make their decision. There’s positives, and it's away from the portal window for the high school kids. I think that's great. For the college coaches, now we’ve got 4,000 to 5,000 kids in the portal, and we've got one weekend to bring them in. It makes no sense.
On how the early signing date move affects in-home visits in November…
Well, we can’t do home visits in November. I mean, we're in the middle of our season — there's no way we could do that - and they’re in the middle of theirs. The benefit of December was being able to go into the homes of the kids, and now that's changed as well. A lot of these decisions are being made without the impact of the entire calendar being looked at, in my opinion. “Let’s just fix this,” but they don't realize that that extends into a lot of things. We have the signing date gone to June, like a lot of us thought it was going to, then the December thing wouldn't have been a problem anymore. It's just the way it is, and you need to be flexible and do the best you can.
On Jordan Waters settling into the program…
It’s been really good. He’s an easy guy to get along with, personality-wise. He works hard. He was eally well coached at [Duke]. He comes in with not just the body and the skill set, but he understands this game. These guys did a good job with him, so he's been an easy study that way to pick up our system, and you can see how he's going to impact the run game.