NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media after his team's road loss at Duke.
NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview.
Opening Statement...
Give Duke credit. Congratulations to them on the win and they definitely deserve it. They came back.
We had a chance with a two-score lead to do some things and really there's a lot of mistakes in that game that hurt us, whether it's penalties at key moments. I thought our special teams really hurt us in that game. We're chasing points after a missed extra point, the blocked kick, the penalty on the first punt of the game where we stop them and give them a chance to convert on fourth and three when we had them, fourth and eight.
Something we actually worked a lot in practice, but as you can see, we didn't execute it.
But you got to give them credit. I thought there was some good performances. Hollywood and Terrell Anderson for us played really well.
But the bottom line is too many turnovers, gave up too many points, didn't stop them in certain situations and shot ourselves in the foot too many times, and it's disappointing. We're better football team than that. I know they'll learn from what happened tonight, and tomorrow's going to be a tough day watching this film and these kids will work hard to get back to it.
Dave, the game really seemed to turn on on that play, the interception that they returned from 67 yards away. What did you see as far as offsides, not off sides, and then what did you see... it looked like maybe the rest of the offense wasn't ready for that ball to be snapped.
Well, it's a it's a hard count play. We don't even have a play called unless they jump off sides. If they jump off sides, we snap the ball and take a free shot knowing that we got five. Center's not supposed to snap it unless he knows somebody's in the neutral zone.
Jalen thought that their d-end was in the neutral zone when he snapped the football. The refs didn't think that. So yeah.
CJ in that situation has to see there's not a flag and throw it away and he was trying to make a play right there. It's unfortunate.
From our sideline, I thought he was offsides. From the ref's standpoint, he wasn't and it's not reviewable. So, it's a tough play in the game. It's fourth and three. We're trying to get them to jump and if they don't, I was going to bang a timeout and kick a field goal. We weren't even going to run a play right there.
Dave, you've had some you've given up some runs this year where you've kind of loaded the box...
That's frustrating. I mean, it's a short yardage situation. We've been in different calls, so it's not one call in particular, and I'll have to see the film to see what happened on that play. I couldn't see it from my vantage point, but you're definitely going to be in a loaded box in that situation, that time of the game.
You have to be, they're going to run the football and you got to win your gap, you got to get off blocks and our unblocked hats got to make tackles and obviously that didn't happen. It's disappointing. We've had three of those this year.
What message did you convey to the team?
We're better than that, you know? I mean, our our message all week was to be accountable. You're playing a team that was -6 in turnover margin. We were +2 going into the game. That we need to play that way. We can't beat ourselves in this football game. If we just play together and don't beat ourselves, we'll win the football game, and we were doing that for a while and then it went the other direction.
Talk is great, but action is what matters, and we didn't get it done.
Coach, your entire career at NC State, you've kind of relied on your defense and holding team at least to like 20 or less. Here we are letting up 45. What do you change from here?
Yeah, we'll have to look at it.
Obviously we got to play better on that side of the football. You can't give up that many points and you know that's tough when you turn the ball over that many times too on defense, it doesn't help you. We actually had two stops on what we call sudden changes after turnovers.
The biggest thing is explosive plays that are touchdowns. You can't give up explosive touchdowns. You got to get them down and and live to play another down, and we've given up several explosive touchdown runs in games. So there's a lot to look at on that side of the football, and I know that side that staff will do so.
It's hard to win when you give up 45 points and it's pretty tough.
One of the bright spots has been Terrell Anderson 166 yards today and it seems like every game there's always a new wide receiver whether it's Wesley Grimes against ECU or Keenan Jackson against Wake Forest. What does that say about the rest of his wide receiver core?
It's a good room, and CJ trusts those guys. He's not afraid to throw it to any of them and they've all shown that they'll make plays for them and um and we need that. You know, it helps when you can spread the ball around and for those guys, they know at any minute they can get a ball thrown to them. You're going to get them playing hard.
You've had several times where you've scored right before halftime and then get the opening kickoff. Is that momentum for real? And did you sense that momentum was changing because of what they did?
Well, it can, I mean, at the same time, you're in there in the locker room, defense, it's go get a three and out right here and get the momentum right back. And we did the opposite, you know. I mean, we call that a twofer when you score on offense, get the ball back, score again. And that middle part of the two minutes before the half, two minutes after the that section of the game's the section that can flip the score, and it went the other way on us tonight.
So, definitely a momentum killer, but it's a long game. There's so many points throughout a game where you can swing it back and we had our opportunities to do that. Scored, got within one possession, got a chance to stop them and give up a touchdown run and right there if you stop them you get the ball back plenty of time to go win the football game and we didn't get it done.
