NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media after the Wolfpack’s loss at Notre Dame.
NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview.
Opening statement…
To start off, give Notre Dame credit. They bottled us up defensively as man... packed the box, and we weren't able to take advantage of one-on-one coverage. I thought we had four or five down-the-field throws that we've been making, and at least having a chance to make plays on.
It just didn't happen today, and unfortunately, when you get main three as much as we did today, you have to be able to win some one-on-ones down the field. Teddy made a couple plays for us, but we had Noah deep. We had Joly deep, so just one of those days where we didn't connect.
I thought defensively we were putting some tough field position. I was proud of the defense in the red zone. Those two turnovers, a goal line stop, they did some good things. It's just hard playing on a short field repetitively when it comes to the score, but we played a really tough first half, and the third quarter changed the whole football game.
What did you see in the third quarter, sir, that they asserted themselves?
Well, we couldn't get a first down. When you're out there on defense for most of that quarter, and we had a few guys get knocked out of the game, and the depth isn't great, as you guys know already, and wore us down, playing a lot of minutes there in the third quarter.
We had some manageable third downs. We didn't stop them, and they executed offensively. They did a good job, so like I said, you got to give them credit for what they did in the second half.
You guys really haven't struggled to score points this season. What do you attribute seven points to?
Well, CJ was off a little today. There's no other way to say it. I told him in the locker room, he's a great player, and he's played really good for us this year. I'm not blaming him at any point, but he has huge expectations for himself, and so do we. I felt like we could run by their DBs, and we did.
Every other game, guys have paid for that, and we just didn't make them pay today. It gets you off the rhythm when you're throwing shots down the field, and you're incompleting those shots. Obviously, it's second and 10 now, right? We're getting behind the chains. It's just one of those, I hate to say it, it's just one of those days where he wasn't as good as he's been in some of our other games. Notre Dame did a good job in the box. It was hard to run the football.
On playing seven straight games without a bye week…
Definitely, yeah. Seven straight games without a bye is tough. We had eight last year.
This is the second year in a row we've dealt with that. We definitely need this opportunity to reset mentally and get the guys off the field.
You talked about the deep shots. When you can't connect, it takes you out of rhythm. Do those start to pile up in-game? Did you see how you guys had five or six points in a row at one point?
Yeah, especially when you start getting down two and three possessions on the scoreboard. Especially when you're not running the ball. We tried to run the football, but successfully. We're getting into situations where you're pretty one-dimensional at that point. Their pass rush at times was good. It's a good defense. They did a good job today. I'm going to give them credit.
Was there anything schematically that surprised you?
No. They did what they thought they did for the most part. I don't know the percentage, but it was probably 75% for the game. When it's working, keep calling it. It's working.
Caden said he doesn't feel like you guys have played a full game of complementary football this year. What do you think it's going to take to get that down the stretch?
I wish I had the answer. It's not because we don't talk about it every week. That's what I told the guys. We've had games where we put lights out on defense. We've had games where we put lights out on offense.
We've had games where special teams was really poor. We need to put all three phases together. It's a five-game season now. That's going to be the focus of this thing, finishing with three-phase football, not familiar football, and getting better.
On how Coach Doeren thought the defense played…
Yeah, I thought they played really hard. They believed that they could stop them. They were physical. There was a lot of really physical tackles in that game. I knew Notre Dame would make some plays. I was disappointed that they got behind us in coverage a couple of times.
I thought our matchup should be okay. Their tight end was better than I expected. I thought we played exceptional for them. They're a big, tall kid, and got behind us, which I didn't expect them to be able to do.
You've got a bye week, and then you've got these five games you mentioned. How do you massage, okay, we've got to have a sense of urgency, but at the same time, we can be good enough to do this. How do you massage that sort of...
The guys know that. Yeah. They know. I'm not in there trying to tell them what to do. They know what to do right now. They're frustrated, and they should be, because they feel it. They feel like they're better than they're showing, and we feel it as coaches, too. Just rally, get around these guys, try to get them healthy, and have a great finish. Thank you.
