Dave Doeren: "I'm Excited To Go Up There And Play"

NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media tonight to discuss the Wolfpack facing East Carolina in the Military Bowl.

NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview.

Opening Statement...
Very appreciative for the opportunity, Steve... appreciated the phone call earlier too. We're excited to go to the bowl game in Annapolis and play at our Naval Academy, spend time in the nation's capital. I always look at the bowl games as life opportunities for these young men and no better place than our nation's capital to experience something. A lot of these guys probably haven't gotten the tours and the things that we're going to be able to do, and so looking forward to that, the proximity, obviously for our fan base. Great location for them to be able to get there.

I look forward to playing Coach Harrell and East Carolina. I have a lot of respect, Blake, for what you did this year, and congrats on becoming the head coach at ECU. I know that's not an easy thing to do mid-stream like you did, so congratulations and we look forward to playing them.

And it's kind of a game that goes a long way back and we don't get to play each other very often, and it's been a while. So I don't know how many of our players, the way rosters change anymore are going to remember the last time we played.

But they're excited to go to a bowl game. There's several guys on our team, just to go back to your comments that we're a part of a canceled bowl game a few years ago in California, and it was on the way to the pregame meal. That one got canceled. So I’m excited to go up there and play. Our team's coming off a good win against our rival UNC. And we do have a really talented quarterback that's excited to get into the postseason here.

And as far as playing each other at the end, in the beginning we actually did that with ECU, I don't know how many years ago it was, but in the previous hurricane year we had a game canceled with West Virginia and picked up ECU as our last contest and then opened with them the next year. So it's something I've already done.

Teams change a lot from one year to the next. Obviously there'll be some carryover, but these rosters for both of us will look different in the fall than they do and we'll probably both find out tomorrow if our rosters look the same with the transfer portal opening tomorrow. So there's a lot of change this time of year, and I know for one, just getting back on the practice field and getting around the guys again, it's going to be nice and getting ready and coaching up some of these young players.

So look forward to the opportunity and I'm sure there's a lot of questions.

Yeah. Dave, do you remember, you probably don't remember back in the eighties and nineties the history of this rivalry, just how much it means to the fan base. And I'm sure there's still some people from that era too that remember the history of this rivalry. Can you touch on how important it's to maybe Wolf Pack fans and how exciting that would be for these fan to go head to head again?
Well, yeah, I mean we're in the same state.

It's kind of hard to call us rivals now. We don't play each other every year and to me that's what rivals do. But we're in-state opponents and there's a lot of crossover between our fans and there's split households and all those kind of things. And there's Wolfpack families whose kids are students at ECU, and so there's all that in-state stuff that goes with this game.

We're not far from each other. We run into each other, coaches see each other on the road in recruiting, at clinics, everything else, and a lot of these players, probably at least the in-state guys, will have teammates from high school on these two teams.

So that part of it, but to go back to the eighties for me, Todd, I can't do that. I'd be speaking out of turn. I mean in the eighties I was in middle school or high school.  I'm not that old man.

So yeah, I know some of our older fans look at this a lot different than us, but I got here 12 years ago and I know when we play each other it's always packed at whoever stadium it's at and there's a lot of fanfare.

Thanks Dave. I know it was a long time ago. You're right. I wasn't anything about your age there, coach.
[Laughing] It was 40 years ago.

Hey Dave, I was just wondering if you had any comments about Tony heading to Marshall, what he's meant for your program over the past few years and what you plan on doing from a defensive coordinator or defensive play calling perspective with his departure?
Yeah, I'm super excited for Tony.

He's earned it, deserves it. It's been a great staff member and friend, and throughout his time in college football, he's made his mark and it's always been one of his goals, and so for me it's a proud moment.

Coach Beck a few years ago, Eli Drinkwitz a few years ago, Mike Uremovich is now the head coach at Ball State. So there's a lot of guys that have worked for me that are now running their own programs, and I take a lot of pride in that.

I’m super excited for 'em, and anytime a coach leaves, I look at that vacancy as an opportunity to improve and take our time making decisions on what we're going to do. Our staff on defense is all here and those guys will coach Tony won't coach in the bowl game obviously. He's got a program to go run Freddie Aughtry-Lindsay will call the defense and run it and excited for him to do that in this game and our kids will be excited to play hard for him.

Yeah. Hey Coach, just to bounce off of that, what does your process look like in replacing Tony just with the portal opening and kind of the accelerated off season that you guys are in this era of college football?
Yeah. Well, it'll go as fast as it can go. I never look at an opening as something that I have to rush because of what's going on on the outside. It's more about what I need for this program and as soon as I'm ready, we'll have a guy in there.

I owe it to NC State and to every player in that locker room to look at everything and make the best choices, not just for them as players but for the culture of the team, and it's a great opportunity. There's a lot of good young football players here. There's a lot coming in, in our signing class. We have one of the best, if not the best freshman quarterback in college football on our roster coming back, and so there'll be a lot of interest. My phone's been buzzing the whole time since it broke and a lot of people want the job, so I owe it to these players to give them the best coach I can get and that's what I'm going to do.

Sometimes from the outside looking in, I'm not worried about winning a press conference. I know what these guys need, I know what we have, and we don't need to change a 180 and all of a sudden go to a completely different thing, but we do need to evolve and this is a great opportunity to do that.

So I don't know if that answers your question, but every hire is just an opportunity, and it's no different when a player graduates a guy sitting right underneath him that can't wait to show his stuff, and we're going to have a guy that can't wait to come in here and help NC State on defense.

Dave, you've been in North Carolina long enough to know the military sort of legacy within the state, especially the eastern half of the state. There's ROTC, I just left Reynolds Coliseum, they have ROTC in that building. So it's prominent at the school as well. The military aspect of this bowl game. Sir, just your thoughts on that. How meaningful is that for you and your players?
Oh yeah, I love it man. I'm excited.

Annapolis... I've never played there. I've been able to play at West Point and it's just the history and all of it. It's awesome being in their campus and their stadium, and I know there's our military appreciation day. The number of different military that shows up, the presence in our state is so incredible, and you talk about the eastern part of the state, one of my favorite trips since I've been here was spending eight hours at Marsoc, getting to see all the things that they do in the special forces part of the marine base.

I'm excited to go to Annapolis, really excited to see that. I have so much respect for the military academies and all of it. My dad served in the Navy. I was born in the Naval hospital in California. All this is cool for me. I applied to the Naval Academy in high school, so I'm really excited about the opportunity going there and anytime we can do anything that lets the military have football involved in it where they can take a break from protecting us and enjoy a day, I'm all about it.

I'm sorry, I have to ask now, you said you applied to the Naval Academy. How did that go?
It went good. I got in, didn't go there, obviously. I decided not to do that, but no, it was the only academy that accepted me, let me say that too, the other ones... so yeah, I was very excited about that opportunity. And just at the time, I think you know this, I thought I was going to be a doctor. I was pre-med, and to go to an academy, you owed them like 20 years of your life after med school and that was kind hard to do at 17 and make a decision like that.

So I punted on that one.

I know your grandparents and then your wife, she has family who's served. Does it feel like this is somewhat of a family affair for you?
I hadn't really thought about it. I think this always comes up during military week. Sarah's dad, Stan, served in the army. My father, Bill, served in the Navy. All of our grandparents served, and so the military for us is meaningful.

It was part of our upbringing and living in a state, it's very present, more present than any state I've lived in as far as the number of bases, active military reserves and everything else. So you do feel the pageantry of the military more here than you do anywhere? From my standpoint, I know there's other states with huge presence, but for my seven or eight states that I've lived in North Carolina is by far the biggest presence.

So playing on base at a place like that. And obviously Boo Corrigan can speak to this better than me being at West Point as long as he was. There's a lot of pageantry, a lot of special things that goes with being there.

You guys would play ECU, Anthony Smith transfer there in the off season. What was it like for you to be able to see him go there and then play as well as he has this year?
I'm excited for Anthony. I loved that kid.

I wanted well for him. I was just actually looking at his stats earlier today. He is had some big games for them, maybe four 100-yard games.  He's a fast kid and he's always been a fun guy to be around. I'm excited for him.

Anytime a guy leaves your program in good standing, which he did, you want nothing but success for those guys. Now obviously in our game, I hope he doesn't have any, but as far as his career and life and looking at what he's done there, he is made an impact for them.

He has on the field and so not surprised. He's definitely got a great skillset.

You mentioned Coach Freddy will be running the defense for bowl prep and all of that. I was just wondering what makes you excited to see him in that role and calling plays and stuff like that?
Yeah, well it's been a goal of his, Freddy was the defensive coordinator at the FCS level for a number of years, and all of my coaches, when they have goals to move up, those are things that I try to help him with, and he's had opportunities to leave here for mid-major d-coordinator jobs.

He wanted to learn, he wanted to stay, he wanted to grow, and so this is a great opportunity for him to show what he can do and to lead our guys. I know our guys trust him, they respect him, so it'll be fun to watch him, and I've had to deal with this over the years.

Losing coaches, at this time of year, there's been a lot of bowl games where we've had to elevate different people to coach positions, and so hopefully it's just the one, I can't remember what bowl it was when we played, I think it was Texas A&M when we played them in the Belk Bowl, but half my staff was gone so you're coaching a game with all your GA's, running the position rooms and it gets tricky.

In this situation we've got a very, very qualified coach that takes a lot of pride in what he does. So I'm excited for Freddy.