NC State tight ends coach Gavin Locklear met with the media to discuss the Wolfpack's 3-1 start, his position group, and much more.
NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview.
On how the tight end room has played so far this season...
That unit has been that good. A ton. And that's one of the things you gotta be able to do as an offense is run the football. And it takes the O-line, it takes the receivers, it takes the quarterback running his fake out every time, it takes the tight end block, it takes us all.
And we all gotta be really extremely prideful in our jobs. And those guys take a great, great deal of pride in what they do in the running.
On being a full-time position coach for the first time...
It's been awesome and it's not my first year in the game. And I've always looked at it as if I was in this chair, even when I wasn't. And I think that's one of the things that always helped me prepare for when that opportunity came. Because if you're in this profession, you have aspirations of climbing the ladder and becoming a full time position coach.
And some guys wanna be coordinators and head coaches. And I firmly believe that you're never gonna get to that role if you always are just believing you're in a certain role, right? And you gotta be able to understand where you wanna go. And every opportunity I've had since I started this, I always had that goal in mind.
And so anytime we came out to the practice field, I was coaching those guys like that, right? And trying to give them as much fundamentals and technique and letting them understand the game plan and giving them the feel of that all the time. But it's been awesome, it's a blessing.
After the Wake Forest game, Justin had said you're the best thing that he could have been in the state. What's it been like seeing his development over these two years that you've been able to work with him?
I love the kid, and he's a super competitive kid. And it's been awesome to be able to coach him. It's awesome to coach this group. It's awesome to be a coach in general. You have young males that look up to you, and they listen to you, and they lean on you, and they trust you. And that takes time, and you gotta build that.
And for him to say that, it's awesome for me, but I wouldn't have a job if it wasn't for this game, right? And I just think back to when I was a player. It was really my position coach and my coaches that I was able to lean on. And so that's all I'm trying to do for these kids, is do the same exact thing.
And to their credit, I can coach them and they listen. And to be able to do that, you gotta build a relationship with them. And all those guys in that room, they care about each other. They want each other to be successful. They want this team to be successful. They want the offense to be successful. As a unit, they push each other. They hold each other accountable. There's a standard in that room.
When you go on that field, you do your job. And if you don't, you won't go on the field. And I tell them that all the time. And they take pride in that, and that's what they go out there and they do.
There's a lot to prepare for Virginia Tech this week, given the fact that there's so much change going on with that program.
I think anytime you're playing somebody, you're playing yourself first. That's really what it comes down to. It comes down to being able to execute your scheme. It comes down to playing with your fundamentals. It comes down to taking your game plan and executing it at the highest level.
Right, because it doesn't matter if you're coaching against a team that doesn't have their head coach, right, and you gotta let go. And now they got a new interim, or it doesn't matter if you're coaching against a team that's been there for 12 years.
I mean, I think it just comes down to understanding what you have to do and executing it at a really high level. Because if you go out there on the first game, defenses are probably gonna show you some things that you didn't get to see. And so you're always gonna be ready for something to be thrown at you, and you just gotta play the rules and execute.
How does it feel to have three senior tight ends as your first year as a tight end coach?
Yeah, I would probably say it doesn't happen often. And just like I told these guys, you guys do a really good job. It's about the guys more than anything. I can coach them, but at the end of the day, I got my cleats on right now for practice, but I don't get to lace them up on game day. And those guys gotta go out there, and they gotta execute.
And they gotta trust their coach, and they gotta do their assignments. They gotta know their job. They gotta understand the game plan. But these guys are the ones that are bringing it to life on game day.
One of the unique things that they always say about the tight end coach is that it especially prepares you to be a coordinator one day, because you learn the blocking of the line and the pass routing, pass routes of a receiver, which you have yet background. How much has it been fun to be able to convert both the run game and the pass game with teaching these guys?
Yeah, it's been awesome, to be quite honest with you. I mean, being a receiver, playing receiver, you try to learn the ins and outs of the pass game. Like when I was a receiver, I wanted to know everything the quarterback was doing. I wanted to know his read. I wanted to know his drop. I wanted to know his alert. I wanted to know his hot. You want to know it all, right? Because that way it allows you to play faster on the field.
And just learning the run game, it's been awesome. For me, I'm a very competitive person, and I like seeing violence on the field. I like when guys hit each other, right? So I love everything about the run game, and I love learning about the first steps. I love learning to love about the blocking combos, when to come off, who shouldn't come off, where we're spotting this, where the backsides should go to, and it's awesome to be able to learn that.
And there's a bunch of great coaches that I've worked with that have helped me out, and they've done a good job of teaching me everything they know. Kurt's awesome. He's been around the game for a long time. Very smart coach, and he's done a really great job with this offense. But once again, it's never just one person. It takes a village to be great at anything, right? And we got a bunch of great coaches. We got a bunch of great kids, and we're led by great men.
I know you don't coach the position, but what has it been like to see Ashton get a few snaps out there in his last couple games?
Yeah, it's awesome because that's my brother. But at the end of the day, it's a game of football, and I've tried to let him live his own life since he's been here. I never wanted to really overshadow that or try to get in his way of his time at college. I had my time, and I played my games, and that's here and gone, right?
And so now this is his time, and I just really want him to be able to enjoy that. My biggest thing to him has been just getting him to understand that, one, don't take anything for granted, and two, it goes by like that. It just feels like yesterday, I stepped on campus, I blinked, I graduated, and now I'm into coaching. And so for him to be able to do that, especially for our family, my mom, our stepdad, it's awesome. We're so close to home, it's been awesome.
