Dave Doeren: "We Weren't Good Enough Tonight"

NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media after the Wolfpack's loss to Tennessee.

NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview.

“Definitely not what I expected to see from our team.”

“As as head coach of the team that didn’t play well, I didn’t coach well enough, obviously.”'

“We needed to play complementary football in this game, meaning we possess the ball and we score points.  I thought our opening drive was great, seven-minute drive, eight-minute drive, whatever it was, and we didn’t get points.”

“You turn the ball over three times and one of them a touchdown, you don’t rush the ball well, you don’t control the line of scrimmage, or stop people on third and long, it’s hard to win, bottom line.”

“Give credit to Tennessee, they played a good football team and were very physical, but we weren’t good enough tonight.”

“Last season has nothing to do with this season, it’s a different football team. We just weren’t good enough tonight, bottom line.   We had our chances in that football game, but it got away from us. In the second half we have to go for it all the time, putting our defense in a short field. It just snowballed, but it’s not last year. We have a lot of work to do, obviously. We’ll get back to it.”

“I have to watch the film but it just looked like we were getting knocked into the backfield a lot.  I said all week, their defensive line was our biggest concern, particularly the defensive tackles, and I think those guys were really good players. We just did not block them up front the way we have to, to run the football... I watched the line of scrimmage all night and it wasn’t going our way, it was going their way.”

“We were very efficient the first drive and that’s what I thought we’d do.  Finish every drive with a kick, worse case a punt, possess the football and keep our defense off the field. That was our game plan, and it was working for a while and then the pick six and all of sudden things unraveled and we never got back into it.”

“Everytime you’d make a play, there would be a penalty. It was really frustrating and not what we expected.”

“I think he’s a good player.  Against their spread, we defended that very well. They hurt us on some screens and a shovel to the running back, they got into some bigger personnel, something they haven’t done a lot on film, a lot 12 personnel with their offense. Credit them for changing up because when you watch them it’s either four wides or one tight end formations.”

“As the game went on we didn’t stop their run and we were out there a lot in the second half because of how we played on offense in the second half.”

“We were in the redzone.  That flips... we’d get three there probably at least, that was a big swing on the scoreboard.”

“It was a RPO. Grayson kept the football, tight end was open but he had a guy in his face... just overthrew the ball. He was trying to make a play, just wasn’t accurate on that one.”

“There was a lot of Red in the stadium and a lot of noise for us. I was very happy with our fans, we sold our tickets out.  We obviously didn’t deliver the game they wanted to watch, but credit to them for showing up and supporting the football team.”

“He’s very competitive and mad at himself right now... he’ll be excited to play the next game.  We have great confidence in Grayson. Sometimes you have games like that as a quarterback. As the head coach I completely agree with him.”

“We had a long field on offense and a short field on defense... against a team like that who scores like they do, you can’t win.”

“You have to sustain drives and get off the field on third and long.  That’s how you have a chance to win against teams like that, and we did the opposite. We gave our defense short fields to defend and our offense had long fields.”

“I told them the same thing I told you. It wasn’t what I expected to see. They won the line of scrimmage, we weren’t physical enough, we turned the ball over too much and didn’t get it done.  It starts with me. I’m the one who sits in there and leads the staff, our gameplanning and all that.”

This is a really good bunch of guys and they’ll go back to work. I know that.  They’ll stick together. There will be a lot of people telling them they are no good, and that’s fine. Inside the building we have to do a great job of leading.  There’s a lot of football in front of us.”