VIDEO + QUOTES: Doeren, Bailey Discuss Military Bowl Loss
NC State head coach Dave Doeren and quarterback C.J. Bailey met with the media following the Wolfpack's 26-21 loss to East Carolina Saturday evening in the 2024 Go Bowling Military Bowl.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch the Pack’s press conference.
Opening Statement
DD: First, congratulations to ECU on the win. They earned it. I’d also like to apologize for our football team for how that ended. I'm embarrassed as a coach, but I know our players are, too. That’s not how people in this program, players in this program, and the staff in this program want anything to do with something like that. To me, it was a terrible response to something that happened to one of our players, and there's no excuses for it, and so I apologize to ECU and their team to the way we responded. As far as the game goes, there were a lot of plays in this game. I was proud of how we fought back, got back into the football game, flipped the momentum, and took the lead, but then we just didn't finish. We had two drives offensively where we could have run the clock out but didn't. Defensively, we had them third-and-10 on the 21 and gave up a 79-yard touchdown run. We had our chances to win that football game.
If there were injury concers with Hollywood Smothers coming out of halftime...
DD: He was not hurt, so I'm not sure why you thought he was.
On the improvement in the fourth quarter...
DD: We started stopping, man. In the first half, they were seven-of-eight on third down, so we got some stops. We forced two turnovers. Offensively, we took advantage of field position, scored multiple touchdowns, and started playing complementary football. In the first half, we had drives that ended without points seven times. We moved the ball well in the first half but did nothing to stop them. They were seven-of-eight, like I said, on third down. They rushed for 300-something yards. It’s hard to win a football game when you give up 300 yards rushing.
If he regrets the playcalling after Tamarcus Cooley’s interceptions...
DD: Sure. We didn't get a first down. You can question that. You can question blocking, too, right? Every play you call, if you’re blocking well, it’s a good play. Those plays did not get enough yards and didn't get first downs, and the easy thing to do is blame the play calling, right? There are 11 guys on the field that need to block, run, catch, and all those things, too. It's everybody's fault. It doesn't get done. It always could be called a better play. Of course, when you don't get a first down, it's easy to point a finger at that guy. There's a lot of things we could have done. It's just one.
On what led to the Pirates’ success rushing the ball...
DD: Missed tackles, guys not getting off blocks, got caught in a couple of light defenses as well... Third-and-10, they're down. That was good play calling by them, right? They're down one on third-and-10. We figured they were going to throw the football. He was in a pass blitz, and they split it, and he ran it down, so that was a good call by ECU. We also had enough guys there, and he made them miss. Stopping the run is about a lot of things. It’s gap integrity. It’s beating blocks, leveraging the ball. It’s tackling. It’s pursuit. It’s a lot of those things.
On what he told his team before the start of the fourth quarter with the Pack trailing by 13...
DD: That’s exactly what I said to them. C.J. was in the huddle down there at the TV timeout. I said, “You’re the best fourth-quarter team in college football. Go out there and win.” We went down and scored. The defense stopped them. We went down, scored, and took the lead with 3:40 left. We had a chance to get a first down so they could burn their timeouts, and we didn't get it done, and we couldn’t stop them. We've been good finishing team all year, and that was the theme. This whole bowl, the theme was finish, finish, finish. We got right there, 3-1/2 minutes away. It’s not enough. On offense, we got the ball, still. We're driving it down with a chance to score. It’s tough. If Hollywood had held the football, it’s game. The ball goes through his hands. That kid makes that play 99 times out of 100, and he didn’t.
On the Military Bowl experience...
CJB: This was my first bowl game. I had a fun trip. All of the other things were great. I enjoyed myself, built a better bond, and got closer to my team. It was a pretty fun experience. It's not fun when you don’t finish. We came up here to win, and we didn’t finish. I would say that if we finished the game, it would’ve been way better.
On flipping the page to 2025...
CJB: Well, it's over now, so we’ve already flipped the page. We’ve already put that mindset to us. “Let's go get ready for next year.” There are a lot of things to work on in the offseason. Everything is in the past, as of about 30 minutes ago. We’ve flipped the page.
On his takeaways while reflecting on the 2024 season...
DD: Five one-possession losses. There are five tough [losses] like that, going down to the last minute and a half. It’s gut wrenching. It's hard when you lose the game like that, and it happened five times. We also had some one-possession wins that were incredible. Our last game of the year was one of them. We played a lot of young guys, [Bailey] being one of them. We had a lot of growing to do, and that's what this offseason is going to be about. It's going to be about learning how to finish and putting ourselves in position to win those one-possession games. Ten-win seasons, which is what we're talking about, like five of them. Those five go the other way, it's 11 win. You’ve got to win one- possession games. Look at the Kansas City Chiefs right now. They've won 12 of them. If you want to be a great team, you’ve got to win those games, and we're not good enough to do that. It's been both sides of the football. Offense, defense, both sides have had chances to close out games. We’ve got to work really hard as a coaching staff, putting our guys in great positions to finish, coaching them well, and they’ve got to train hard, and they’ve got to go make plays for us. That's what this season was about. It's about some gut-wrenching moments, and they went through a lot. You go back to [Grayson McCall’s] injury and all the stuff that happened from that and C.J.’s emergence as a starter and a leader of a football team. He's got a great future here, and I’m excited to be his coach. I really am. I’m very proud of him. I know he's going to take this loss hard because that's how he's wired. There's a lot of good younger players when you watch that game: Noah Rogers, Hollywood Smothers... Those guys are young. They're redshirt freshmen making plays. There's a lot to build on, and I look forward to doing it with them.
On what the offense could have done better on the first offensive drives...
DD: We had some penalties that hurt us. There were some positive plays that were called back and created second-and-extra-longs that got us off schedule. The first thing that comes to mind, there were two critical holding penalties after positive plays. Other than that, I thought we ran the ball really well the first half. We threw the ball around and caught it.
On regrouping for the 2025 season opener against ECU...
DD: We’ve got time to think about that. Tonight is more about these guys and the things we’ve got to do. We’ll come back in January. We'll start forward. We won’t be talking about the first game for a while. There are a lot of things to work on.
On being at the Military Bowl...
DD: It’s special to be in Annapolis. Look up on that Ring of Honor and see all the wars. Most places you go, they have famous players’ names. Here, “Pearl Harbor”; just look out there, and you see it. It's pretty crazy being on a naval base at a place like this. My father was in the Navy. My father-in-law was in the Army, served in Vietnam. The military has a very special place in my heart. It's great to be here. It was a wonderful trip from the bowl committee and everybody here. Washington, D.C., is a special place. Being in our nation's capital with these guys, letting them see the monuments, there's a lot of history here as well. There are a lot of really, really incredible things to be a part of here with the team.