AUDIO + QUOTES: Dave Doeren's Weekly Quotebook
NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media via Zoom for his weekly press conference where he discussed the Wolfpack's bye week and its upcoming matchup versus Georgia Tech.
NOTE: Click on the player above to listen to Doeren’s press conference.
Opening Statement
It's Mondayk, but it’s game-week Wednesday, so I’m trying to get my bearings. We’re excited to go down to Georgia Tech. We play really good, tough, physical team that’s very well coached. Brent [Key] has done a great job. He and his staff had a heck of a win last week against Miami. You look at their football team; as you would expect, it’s a physical group of guys. Offensively, they played two quarterbacks in the last game. Preparation wise, we really have to get ready for both quarterbacks and whether or not [Haynes] King can throw the football the way he was before or they're going to use them more as a runner. There'll be some adjusting going on on our side. They’ve only been sacked four times all season. They lean into their run game with a million different ways to run the ball and do a good job with the stretch game, with the counter game, and the play actions, nakeds, and things that come off of them. The running backs have a good rotation in the backfield. You see three different backs playing. All do a nice job. Jamal Haynes is an elite player. You see good speed across the board. Their perimeter players, their slot receiver [Malik] Rutherford does a really good job for them in their jet game and is a good football player. On defense, we’ve played against this defensive coordinator. He's really good. They're sound and physical. I like their defensive line a lot. I really enjoy watching their interior players. The transfer they got, [Jordan Van Den Berg] from Penn State, is really a good player. I enjoy watching him. Both defensive ends rush the passer well. They're schematically -- don't do a ton on first and second down but third down a variety of things you have to prepare for. At quarterback, very multiple. They do a good job you know statistically against the run game on defense. Both [Romello Height] and [Sylvain Yondjouen] are good pass rushers. You can see they've used not just developmentally getting guys better but adding some really good pieces out of the portal, particularly on their defense. It’s a Thursday night game, nationally televised game, and senior day for them. I'm expecting a really good environment with crowd noise. I’m excited. I know our players are excited for an opportunity to go compete against a good football team like Georgia Tech and get to do it on the national stage.
On the difference playing against Tyler Santucci last year makes...
"Oh yeah, it does [make a difference]. Any time you've gone up against someone, you can go back and see how they defended you or what they were like if they were on the offensive side and how they attacked you. It’s the same offense for us, schematically. A lot of different parts on the field than last year in that game against Duke when we played their DC. He's got different parts. There's going to be some differences. Philosophically, you can look back and see what he did and how much carries forward with the players that he has now. He's a good coach. He's done a good job. He did a really good job with [Mike] Elko and that's continued down there. I have a lot of respect for [Jess Simpson], too. He's a really good football coach. They've got some good guys on their staff.
On the sense of urgency since the Duke game...
It's what we've been talking about. It's how you finish. At this point you've got two opportunities and need at least one to be in a bowl situation. Every week there's urgency in these football programs, particularly ours. You feel the sand running out of the hourglass with some of your players and seniors that are -- we had senior week last week -- you get into these series of lasts with some guys that you put a lot of time in with. Last road trip for us this week. Even though we're on the road next week, it's a local game. There's definitely that want to continue. These guys practiced really well. Our practice last night was one of our better practices that we've had. Weird having a bye back to back two weeks apart this late in the season but it was good mentally and physically for the guys. You can see there's a resolve. There's that NC State grit that you see in this program that we've always had. How we finish matters. Now we've got to go do it against a team that's peaking a little bit. The way they played against Miami, it was fun to watch how hard they fought in that football game. They were very physical in that game.
On the difference between preparing for a Thursday game after the bye versus business as usual...
It was different, much different than the first. We were beat up coming out of that eight-week run, particularly with the last game being at Cal. That trip took a lot out of us sleep wise. We had three more days on the back end of the second week. This one's been a little more accelerated. Did give them some time, the veterans in particular the first week of it but we had to get back into the game prep faster because of the game being on a Thursday.
On the takeaways from the Duke game film...
There's a lot of missed opportunities. We were terrible in the red zone. That game came down to not scoring enough points -- not that they all don't -- but when you have as many opportunities that we had in the red zone, we were down there six times, got one touchdown, settled for field goals, missed a makeable field goal. You have to give them credit for stopping us but we did not execute at a high enough level to deserve to win that football game in the red zone. That's what it came down to.
On the Yellow Jackets' run game..
It's evolved. They're doing a great job schematically with their personnel. It's different than it was earlier in the year. When the quarterback was healthy and he could run the entire offense with his legs and his arm, you're defending something different than when you're rotating two quarterbacks. One of them is running most of the time and the other one's in there to run their normal offense without running. It's different. They're very creative when Haynes King is in there -- at least speaking about last week's game, this could be different for us -- when he's in there, there's every possible quarterback run game you could imagine with misdirections and shifts in trades and formations and adjustments. They really made Miami work and schematically were much different. I don't get the cliff notes on how they're planning for us. They did a really good job. They were smart in their prep. They had a week off getting ready for that game. You could see they did a lot schematically to give themselves an edge against that team. Using angles and getting plus one runs with their package with 10 in the game. When they brought in their throwing quarterback, I guess you would say, while Haynes' arm is still not where it was last week anyway they were back into their traditional offense. Still running the ball with their tailback but the past game that comes with it. It's hard to know, because they had 10 more days to get ready for us, if they're going to be a one quarterback system like they were or we're going to see what we saw in the Miami game. That's why I said what I did at the beginning. There's going to be some adjusting for us. They've evolved a lot as their personnel has changed. That's what they should do. That's what good coaches do. You know, you have to make the most of your personnel. They've been able to do that and stay physical and run the football.
On the state of Wolfpack's run game...
It depends on what game you watch. It's been inconsistent. It was really good against Stanford two weeks prior. This past week it was not good. It was less than good. We're inconsistent right now. That's the biggest thing, being more consistent. We've had good games. We were climbing. We were almost at three yards a carry at one point. We got it up above four yards of carry coming out of the Stanford game for the season. Now we're back below it because of the negative yardage plays that took place in that [Duke] game.
On maintaining the team’s streak of bowl berths...
In the last 10 years, we're second in this conference in bowl appearances behind Clemson. We've built a program that's had success over a period of 10 years. I take a lot of pride in that. The guys take a lot of pride in finishing and take a lot of pride in facing adversity and overcoming it. There's all these things. Take a lot of pride in winning in general. Every game you get is an opportunity to be tested and go out there and put your medal up against somebody else's. That's what this sport's all about. The last thing you ever want to do is settle. The fact that we're 5-5, it's disappointing, but I care a lot about how we finish and how you face up to the test that you have. This one right here is going to be a physical test. I have ton of respect for Georgia Tech and how they play the game. I'm looking forward to the competition, looking forward to facing their coaches, looking forward to our players facing their players and doing it on the road in a hostile environment. It's a great opportunity to stand up and fight.
On the benefit of having extra practices for bowl games...
You get a lot of developmental time with your younger players. I really like our freshman class. We redshirted most of them -- not all of them, as you know. You get a lot of time with them. The guys that you see as starters potentially next year, you get to soak them with reps. What it does is it gives them really valuable information going to the offseason program on what they can do to get better before spring ball. It's a precursor to spring football for them because they've been taking back up reps or in some cases they're red shirting and they're scout team players not getting a lot of reps. We do spend at least one day a week with the developmental guys in season every week. We're keeping them up to par in our systems. The competition part of that is not the same as it would be during a bowl prep. It's valuable. For a young quarterback like CJ [Bailey] it's more practices, it's more reps and it's more time more time with a young receiving corps. All of that is beneficial to your program's development.
On the struggles in the red zone can be attributed to the Wolfpack’s shortcomings or Duke’s concerted effort...
It's a little bit of both. They did do a good job. You have to give them credit ailure to execute most of the time. And if it was that, what do you attribute some of that to? It's a little bit of both. They did do a good job. You have to give them credit. Depending on which series you're watching there were really pressuring us down there. We did not, in my opinion, handle that well enough. They covered us, too. There were times where we had protection, didn't get open. There were times where we didn't have protection and had a guy to throw it to. Then there were a couple times we needed to make a play. There's a lot of things there. As coaches, you always look at what happened and how you can be better in those areas. One hundred percent, any time it doesn't work, you can say we could have called better plays. I agree with that. Could have called this, could have called that. That's easy, after the game, to say. Within the game it comes down to executing the play that's called, having good rules for the guys. There's a lot of things when you talk about five drives down there. We had seven drops. We tied the game up 12-12. After that had seven drops and gave up an explosive play for a touchdown. It's pretty easy to say when you look back on it, we had our chances to win. We didn't make enough plays to get that done. The biggest area that you go to is the red zone. We want to be 75 percent touchdown down there. Even if we were 50 percent, which is well below our goal, we win the game. Even if we were 20 percent and made a 36-yard field goal which we normally make -- that's [Kanoah Vinesett's] only miss under 40 yards -- we win the game. It's tough when you lose a game like that and you had your opportunities. It'd be different if you couldn't move the ball all day, you never got in the red zone. You didn't have these opportunities. We had them. We didn't finish. That's something that we got to be way better at.
On the freshmen getting more reps...
Some of it's depth because of injuries that have elevated guys. Zane [Williams] has been impressive all year. He's physically put together. He's not a guy that has to gain a lot of weight. He's a guy that has to learn a lot still. We wanted to play him in four games on special teams. We got one more game with him that we'll be able to play him and get him reps. Cannon Lewis is another guy we're going to redshirt. We're playing him in four games. Ronnie Royal is another guy we're going to redshirt but we're playing him in four games. You're getting to see that with some of these players. Jonathan Paylor, it’s the same thing. With Trent Mitchell, we've had some guys nicked up and we were able to get him reps. We also have put him on the scout team a lot to get him reps against our starting D-line. That's, in my opinion, the best way to improve as a lineman is to have to face guys like Davin Vann and Travali Price every day as a tackle. You're going to get a lot better doing that. We made sure he's gotten down there. We made sure Rico [Jackson] has gotten down there, Darion Rivers, all these younger guys to give them that value of the competition of playing against pretty dang good D-lineman every day. Then also bringing them up some where we can keep invested in the system and and make sure they're developing.
On Devan Boykin’s status...
We’re still not ready to play him. He is now actually cleared to practice. We're getting him on the field, getting his feet wet. This is the first week of that. It's going to take some time. Day-to-day would be the right way to say it. He will not play in this game. It's exciting to have him back on the field. First time he's been out there. He's not doing a lot yet but he's gone through the entire rehab process. He's busted his butt. He's had a great attitude. But still baby steps. It's a long process. The last thing you want to do is rush it.