VIDEO + QUOTES: Dave Doeren's Weekly Quotebook
NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media Monday afternoon to discuss the Wolfpack's loss to No. 7 Tennessee and the upcoming matchup versus Louisiana Tech.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Doeren’s press conference.
Opening Statement
We’ll start with recognizing 9/11 this week. For those of us who were alive and remember that day, that was a tough week, and the first responders, acted, served, and suffered, and so much was lost in that horrific, horrible act in that morning and the day of it. A lot of things in our country changed after that. It’s also my father’s birthday who passed two years ago. It’s a heavy week of reflection and rememberance, and I want to recognize that.
In regard to our game with Tennessee, first I want to thank our fan base. You guys were awesome. It was a great showing by our fans. It was an amazing showing by our fans. It was an amazing atmosphere. Our team and leadership staff appreciate your support, and the Duke’s Mayo leadership team did a tremendous job. It was a great game day environment. As far as the game, we didn’t get it done. That’s the bottom line. The game plan was to possess the ball, keep their offense on the sideline, have long, clock-eating drives that ended with a kick — obviously preferably with points — and on defense, get off the field on third down and get takeaways, win the field position battle with special teams, and create a four-quarter game.
With 3:54 left in the half, it’s 10-3. We intercept the ball; Bishop Fitzgerald makes a great play. We get the ball on our side of the 50, move the ball down to the 16-yard line, and have a chance to tie the game before half. That play was a huge momentum swing, the pick-six by them. We did a poor job responding after that play, and from that point on, the game just snowballed.
You’ve got to give Tennessee credit where credit is due. They played better than we did and coached better than we did. Our game plan was effective until that play. There’s so much to take from the game. When you get in a game like that against a team that can score, you can't put your defense on the field on that side of the 50 like we did the entire second half. There were too many turnovers, penalties, poor field positions. Special teams had a part in that as well. We're better than we showed, and that's disappointing. At the same time, it's a great opportunity for our team to grow and use it as an opportunity for that. It's definitely a loss in the record books, for sure.
I was happy with how our team responded yesterday. You could feel their disappointment, the staff's disappointment, and, at the same time, feel their openness for growth and improvement. When you have a game like that, it's a loss that you want to use to prevent further losses in the same manner. There's a ton of opportunity to do that.
When we win, we all win. When we lose, we all lose. There's no finger pointing, blaming. Everybody's at fault. It always starts with me. I look forward to the opportunity to grow and to come back and respond the appropriate way, with resiliency and grit which is something that we've always done. The best way to do that is to get back to work. The formula is us. It's improving in a lot of areas, looking forward to fighting the adversity, and overcoming the things that we need to overcome as a football team.
It's an early loss in the season. There's a lot to play, a lot of football in front of us. There are ten games with all of our goals still intact. I look forward to that. Our DNA has always been to continue to fight at this university and overcome things. We've got a lot to focus on. It starts with a great week of practice meetings, game planning, fundamentals and getting things the way we need to get them before we start conference play. We do that with Louisiana Tech.
It’s an interesting game. It's our third game. It's only their second. They had a bye week. We only have one film from the 2024 season of their team. They have a lot of new parts: eight new starters on defense that are transfers, hired a new defensive coordinator that has done a good job in his career at getting the ball back on defense, created a lot of takeaways in their system. It's a 3-3-5, like ours, but very different in their alignment. There’s a lot more zone defense. They keep the ball in front, tackle well, and create turnovers.
Offensively, Coach [Sonny] Cumbie's from the air raid tree. He spent a lot of time at Texas Tech. He's a very, very good offensive coach. They've got good personnel. Their running back really jumps off the films. He's a good runner. We've got to get back to playing our brand of football. I look forward to that.
Our team did come out of the game healthy. We'll have some growth in that way. When you're playing the same guys over and over and over, you can get better. It's one thing we're going to be able to do. I look forward to this week.
On the run game versus the Volunteers...
There's a lot we have to improve on. There were too many plays in our backfield, for one. They had 10 tackles in our backfield in the game. Some of them were runs, and some of them weren't. It starts with being aggressive. At times, you try to be too perfect. You’ve got to get your O-line, your tight ends, and your running backs all in sync. There were some things that we did well. I thought our outside run game had some positive plays, but our inside run game, not so much. We knew Tennessee's D-tackles were going to be a handful. Those guys are really good players, too. That was part of it. We just didn't stay on people long enough. There was too much penetration. They did a lot of blitzing inside and mixed it up.
It's a combination of things but it comes down to execution. In my history with running the football, it starts with your five guys up front playing together, playing aggressive, and getting vertical. We were too lateral at times. Some of that's because of all the things we're getting, but some of that's us trying to be perfect. We've got to get back to the basics with the run game. I look forward to seeing that happen.
On Hollywood Smothers' performance
We have three backs that we trust. It's like anything. He started to have some positive things happen on the field. When that happens, you're going to continue to see guys: the hot hand, I guess you would say. He did some good things. He loves football. He works really hard. He has good practice habits. Between Jordan [Waters] and him and Kendrick [Raphael], we feel like we have three backs that we can play.
On the players’ and coaches’ reaction after the loss...
It’s what you always see after a game that you don't play well. You see a lot of guys upset. You see a lot of guys ready to get back to work. There were lots of conversations about how we can do that. This is a group that has some good leadership in it. This team has a lot of guys that understand what we need to do. It's not like we haven't faced adversity before. There wasn't a lot of panic in there. It's, “We know we're better than that. Let's look at the film, let's see what we've got to do better, and let's get back to it.”
On the leaders who’ve stepped up...
"You have returners. Obviously, Davin Vann, Sean Brown, Devon Betty were the guys speaking up on defense. It's good to hear Grayson [McCall] and Jordan Waters talk on offense and give their perspective. Our leadership council has a lot of strong leadership in it. Some of it is vocal, and some of it is more intentional about what they do when they're here, but there were a lot of guys that got up and talked about things they've been through, how to overcome adversity, and sticking together more than anything. The way things are anymore, you're only as good as your last game. There's a lot of overcoming the outside noise in college athletics. It’s for them to understand that, stick together, and get back to it."
On poor execution against. Tennessee despite the good week of practice...
We did practice well. We did. There's a couple things. You played a really good football team in Tennessee, so your margin for error is very small. I've said this a million times: football plays are designed for 11 guys to do things right. There were just too many plays where that didn't happen. We were in that game. It's 10-3, and we're knocking on the door to make it a tie going in at the half. It went the other direction. When that happened, we got away from 11-man football. You started seeing guys try to do more than they need to do, and it wasn't good enough. We've got to do a better job of handling situations like that. It was a great learning experience for the team, not one that's fun to go through at all, but it wasn't a result of us not practicing well. In the heat of the moment, some things didn't go the way we wanted it to. Guys strained the wrong way. Sometimes, you try to do too much instead of doing what you're coached to do within the system.
On integrating experienced quarterbacks into his system and McCall’s season thus far
We've had a lot of quarterbacks transfer here. We've dealt with this on multiple occasions, one with Grayson. We feel great about Grayson. He's a really good player. He's a good leader. He's hard on himself. He was motivated to play better. He owns everything that he can do. He's devout about going about his business the right way, respecting his teammates, doing his job. Things didn't go his way the other night. There are definitely plays he wishes he had back. We can protect better for him as well. I'm excited about Grayson McCall. He's our guy. He's going to rebound well.
I've been through this with Jacoby Brissett. I’ve been through this with Ryan Finley. I’ve been through this with a lot of transfer quarterbacks [like with] Brennan [Armstrong] last year. Sometimes, it's seamless. Sometimes it takes a while. The thing that is different about college football more than ever is there's a lot of new parts on these fields. The guys, from a chemistry standpoint, off the field are really good. You're still trying to get that chemistry on the field in games. You can practice, practice, practice. Practice is still not the game. It's not. The things that happen with the crowd noise, with the officiating and all the things that happen, game days are different. These guys are going to continue to grow and get better. One thing we've done over time that people know, we're going to improve as this season goes on. We've got a lot of new guys on that football field. They've got to all do their part.
On getting the newcomers to continue to mesh despite early-season struggles...
You have to have communication. You have to have open meetings with guys. You got to talk to your players. I know these guys off the field. We've done a lot with that. I've only coached them in two games. You're learning some of the things about them on game day. There's a lot of training that existed previously with other places they've been. Some of that was really good, and some of that doesn't fit here, so you're having to change some of those things. It's a growing process. It's one I enjoy. I enjoy helping these guys. It is different. Having that many new people, it's different. You have to be open to it being different. It's not an iron fist. There's got to be communication. There's got to be understanding on both sides.
On Zeke Correll’s health after leaving the game early...
Like I said, we came out of the game healthy.
On Anthony Belton’s illegal formation penalty...
He was in the backfield. As an offensive lineman, you've got to have your helmet at least break the plane of the center's belt in his stance. He was in a proper stance. He adjusted his stance three different times. Each time, he backed up a little bit. He's got to correct that. He knows that, and he will.
On Ja’Had Carter’s season debut...
It's good to see him out there. He gave up one down-the-field throw, one that I know he'd like to have back. Other than that, he played pretty good. He was in the right places. He shows his contact skills. He gets off blocks. He plays fast. He's a good communicator. It was great to get him out there. I know he'll only get better with reps.