NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media following the Wolfpack's 56-10 win over Campbell Saturday afternoon.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Doeren’s press conference.
Opening Statement
First, we'd like to thank our fans that came today. There was a point there in the fourth quarter where I looked up, and I don't know how many were still in the upper deck, but you guys are awesome. To sit in the sun in a blowout game and stay the entire game, that's awesome. I don't know your names, but I see you, and it means a lot for the people that stay four quarters and support our guys. I appreciate everybody that comes, but I just want to point out those guys that stay the whole game. That’s impressive. Our players see, our coaches see, and it helps us in recruiting, so thank you. As far as the game, offensively and defensively, I felt like we played really well. We expected to and wanted to be aggressive with the play-calling on offense and build a lead. Obviously, we wanted to be explosive, and we were. I thought we caught the football really well and protected C.J. [Bailey] in the first half really well. Defensively, we're playing a lot of young guys. Jivan Baly got his first start at nickel and did a nice job. I thought Asaad Brown, playing strong safety for his first game, did some good things and allowed us to rest a couple of guys that we're going to get back, hopefully next week. It was good to see a lot of players play. I thought we did a good job on the line of scrimmage up front. I’m thankful for Coach [Charlton] Warren. What he's had to do the last two weeks was above and beyond the call of duty, and Charlton did a great job for us, stepped in, and allowed D.J. [Eliot] the opportunity to spend the time that he needed at home, and it was good to have D.J. back on the sidelines with us today. Special teams wise, I’m obviously disappointed that catching a punt is so hard, but I think, out of this, we found our punt returner in Terrell Anderson, so that might be the thing I'm most excited about coming out of the game: we finally got a guy back there that knows what to do. What you do in practice has got to show up in games. The special teams area continues to be a sore spot for me with our performance and the penalty on a touchdown. A lot of these are freshmen. Teddy [Hoffmann] is a freshman [as is] LaCorian [Hoge] who got the holding penalty, and it was holding. Freshmen guys have got to understand, when they're playing, it doesn't matter what age they are. They've got to be mature, and they've got to handle the game. I like how we responded today, and I’m excited about what remains on our schedule.
On keeping the starters in the game to begin the third quarter…
We wanted to come out and start fast in the third quarter. To me, we haven't been a team that has finished people this year. We've built leads and given up leads. I wanted them to go out and feel that that's what we need to do. Obviously there's risk in that — I understand that — but I wanted the starters in there on the first drive in the second half, both sides of the ball. I told them to score on offense and get a stop on defense, and then we'll get the guys in there. Then, it's their responsibility to continue playing the way we want them to play and not get sloppy.
On Bailey’s growth as a starter…
C.J. is playing well. He's played well all year, and he's not going to be perfect. There are plays he's going to learn from, but he's given us a chance to win. He's playing hard. He's making plays with his feet. He's throwing catchable footballs down the field. He understands the offense and where [Kurt Roper] wants him to throw the ball. He's playing with a lot of confidence, so I love how C.J. is playing.
On the explosive plays…
With Hollywood [Smothers] in the backfield, it creates opportunities to throw the ball down the field, and to stop him with light boxes, they're going to happen. People have to kind of pick what they want. When you get into single-high defenses and give us one-on-ones, we've got to be able to throw the ball down the field, got to force people to get out of that and start playing Cover Two. That’s what this team actually started to do today, and then they opened up the run game again. Your run game and pass game are friends. They've got to work well together. You can't be a dink-and-dunk offense with a good run game. When you have a good run game, it opens up down the field, play actions and shots, and you can't be afraid to call them. If you throw an incomplete pass, it's okay, but those are opportunities with the receivers we have that we've got to capitalize on.
If Bailey is an underrated quarterback in terms of national and ACC scope…
I don't know because I don't read what [the media says] out there, so if he's underrated, that's because [they] are underrating him. I think he's a hell of a player.
On Baly and Kenny Soares, Jr....
I was proud of Jivan. We moved him three weeks ago, maybe, to nickel from corner, not knowing we’d be down Jackson Vick. We felt like our corner position had good depth, and we were concerned. It was a good decision to move him there, and he did a great job today. There's things he'll learn from that film. Kenny brings a lot of energy on the field, and so when Sean [Brown] isn’t out there, there's a captain not in the game, and you need guys to elevate as leaders. I asked several of those older players to do that today, and Kenny's one of them.
On seeing the offense and defense control the game…
It helps. I don't know if it's a confidence builder or not — that's probably for the players to answer — but we needed to play well today. Obviously, we didn't play well a week ago, offensively anyway, and we had a lot of ground to make up. You've got to get better each week on the season, like we have, where our schedule does increase, as far as the ranked opponents coming, and we've got to get better every game. Unfortunately, on defense, it's just been a lot of injuries, so it's hard because it's a different player at times in certain spots that doesn't get the ability to get better, and now there's another guy playing nickel, another guy playing strong safety, or another guy playing Will linebacker. Offensively, we've had continuity, and so we needed to take a huge jump from last week's performance, and we did. I thought we did a lot of good things on offense today, and obviously [we have to] get ready to go play in some crowd noise now and play against a much better opponent, so it was something that needed to happen for us to be in a position to take another step.
