Hollywood Smothers: "We Know We Have To Execute"

NC State redshirt freshman running back Hollywood Smothers discussed his play in the opener, returning to his hometown to face Tennessee, and much more.

NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview.

How excited are you to be able to play at home in Charlotte?
I’m more than excited.  To be honest, I can’t wait. You know my family is gonna be there, my friends, everybody is trying to get a ticket. You know it’s going to be great to be in front of the family to have my parents there to support me. 

Is it a stadium that you kind of grew up playing at?
Definitely, you know what I’m saying, like shoot, that’s the only thing you know growing up. That’s the hometown team; just imagine playing in an NFL stadium or any NFL stadium, I can’t wait. 

What's the biggest thing you've kind of seen from Tennessee's defense so far?
I would say their defensive front, yeah. They play aggressive, you know what I’m saying? Especially like you said James Pearce Jr., they’re depending on him to do a lot, you know going out. You know shoot, see if they can get him on a tackle and move him around to the field and get him to the boundaries. I wanna say their front four for sure. They’re gonna be really aggressive.  

Does it give you confidence, kind of, having played with him, kind of, you know, and even though he's on the other side now, you've kind of, you've gone against him before?
Yeah, no doubt, 100%, it definitely does. You know a couple of buttons that get to him. I definitely feel great going into the game. 

Do you talk trash on the field?
Oh 100%, 100%, go ahead and get them wired up.

On a personal level, what's something that you've been trying to improve on in practice between the Western Carolina game and this game against Tennessee?
Um, honestly just, what would I say? I wasn’t happy with, you know, I got tripped up on a run, like my second outside zone toward the left side. Just gotta be better on the open field and keeping my feet up. So just keeping my toes up in practice and keeping my feet active, stuff like that. 

So this is an opportunity for the team to kind of reaffirm its status as a higher tier program?
Definitely, but we ain’t really looking at it, we are just treating it like any other game. You know we are just trying to come out with a win, honestly. 

There's a lot of great pieces on the offense here, explosive pieces that's there. How much do you feel like you guys left on the table from Thursday, and where can you pick that up for this coming Saturday? 
Definitely left a lot out there. We know the types of guys we got. We know we have to execute, so definitely just looking at where we messed up at, and looking in the mirror to see how we can fix things for this weekend and see how we can be better in those aspects. Especially going into a heavy hitter, better football team. 

Given that slow start in week one, going into practice this week, how much urgency has there been, like, hey guys, you've got to look out for the very first snap?
Oh 100%. As soon as we got off the field Thursday, we already knew where we went wrong at, and how we can't start slow. We were starting fast all fall, and we know what a team we can be, and where we want to be. So, as soon as we hit it today, you know, we already knew where we needed to be at, how we needed practice to start fast.