Joker Phillips: "We Have a Lot of Draft Picks, Talent-Wise"
NC State wide receivers coach Joker Phillips met with the media following practice as the Wolfpack prepares for the 2024 regular season.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Phillips’ interview.
“It’s probably one of my youngest, talented groups. When I say young, I was looking the other day at the depth chart; we color-code our classes. Green is freshman, and we had seven or eight young freshmen. Noah Rogers, a freshman, hasn’t played that much college football. He has to learn how to play college football, because it's a lot different adjustments. The speed of the game is different, but he’s talented. We just need to get them to play in real time.”
“I’m 61 years old. I’ve seen a lot. The younger you are, it’s hard to focus all the time. It has shown up some. We just have to continue to stack days. We had a great day today, but that’s one in a row. Two days ago, we didn’t have such a good day. We have to stack days.”
“In today's world, it’s good to be second sometimes. We were second with Wes [Grimes]. We were second with Noah. Things didn’t work out, but we were able to get them back here. I think K.C. Concepcion helped out a lot with the year that he had and the number of plays. Every week, I would put together a package for Lex [Thomas] to show him the number of reps that K.C. would get versus the number of reps that all the other kids that were from the North Carolina area that went to other places. One time, it was 400 while the most for the other guys was about 10. I think that helped us. It was a two-year process for Keenan [Jackson] and Terrell [Anderson]. It was a one-year process for Tank Boston and Christian Zachary. It all just came together. A lot of it had to do with the contributions that he had.
“It’s very talented. We have a lot of draft picks in there, talent-wise. Right now, we have to mentally and physically take care of ourselves. This is the most talent that I’ve ever had, top to bottom. I've had a couple of talented guys like this, but not this deep. It's fun to be a part of it. It's fun to watch. I’ve pulled what little hair I had out a couple times. It's challenging, too. It's very challenging. The good thing is they don't know what they don't. Everything you tell them, you've got to be on point with it because they will do what you tell them.”
“This point last year with Dacari [Collins], there were questions about whether or not he was going to fit our culture. Dacari bought in about halfway through the season. If you remember, he had four false starts before game seven. That's a lot for a wide receiver. There was a lack of focus in him. Then right after the break, Dacari had to sit down, and he turned it around. He became a guy that we got excited about, but it took game seven for him to buy into our culture. Now he's a huge part of it.
“I love working for Coach [Dave] Doeren. He’s found the right way to do it, in my opinion. We have family time. We have together time as a staff, and I think that's helped. There’s no wonder why the staff has been intact. We’ve lost two guys in four years that I've been here, but one got a head coaching job, and the other went back with a buddy of his. That's the reason why guys don't leave. This guy's done an unbelievable job building a culture, not only a culture for the program but also for the staff and the staff camaraderie. This is a place that I really, truly enjoy being in. Raleigh’s a great town, and that's one of the things I tried to explain to Wes and Noah, who’ve lived here their whole lives, when they left. 'You guys have got a great town. Why leave it?' They found out when they went away.”
“There's a reason why [Grayson McCall] has been a three-time Player of the Year in the [Sun Belt] Conference. The guy just knows how to play football. Today, he was amazing. He did a great job today. He’s a leader. He knows what he wants. He knows what the coaches want, and he demands it from the guys. He’s brought the receivers together. Because they are young, he’s brought those guys together and got them on the same page. It's been amazing to watch.