WEEKLY PC: Dave Doeren Shares Thoughts On Upcoming Pitt Matchup
NC State head coach Dave Doeren fielded questions from the media on Monday and he discussed a variety of topics, ranging from the bye week to the upcoming matchup against Pitt.
NOTE: Click the video above to watch the press conference.
Opening statement…
All right. Yeah, good to be back in game week. Team definitely took advantage of the bye week, not just from opportunity to rest and get healthy with some players, but after seven weeks, a lot of things to look at in all three phases.
Biggest thing, we haven't played complimentary football yet this year for four quarters, and it's game to game which side of the ball really plays well or which part of the game that side of the ball plays well. And so it's a team that has a lot of improving to do, and there's not a lot when you get into each game. It's different phases at different times and uncharacteristic for us.
It's been something that for a long time we've been able to do, offense playing off the defense, defense playing off the offense, special teams, setting up both sides. And so, huge area of emphasis with our team. It's something that's talked about a lot, something we just need to do better, and obviously it always a head scratcher for me because you're always talking about it.
You're always emphasizing it, but when you watch our games and particularly the ones people focus on or the ones we lose, that's what shows up, in the Duke game, special teams really hurt us. And, I mean, in a huge way in that loss, obviously turning the football over in this last game and offensively missed opportunities.
And there's games, where you see our defense pits a shutout in two halves of football and then, other halves not that way. So there's been a lot of ups and downs. It's an awesome team to coach.
These guys are really hungry to get better. It's been a really good week of learning. And you always start inside out at the top and go all the way down to the bottom, when you're studying where you're at and what you can do better.
So I'm glad we were able to get some guys some rest and get them healthy. And we get ready to go play another road game, against a pit team that's playing really well. Pat and I have known each other a long time, have great respect for Pat, and, came into the league around the same time.
And offensively, they made a change at quarterback, and the freshman is making plays for him. He's got a big arm. He can run, had a 45-yard touchdown scramble in the first drive there of their last game. He's got great weapons. Desmond Reid, one of the better tailbacks in the ACC. And really good receiver out of the backfield as well.
Has elite speed. Hard guy to tackle. Very similar to playing Claiborne at Wake. I think the receivers are really good after the catch. Kenny Johnson is an excellent punt returner. Just had another touchdown as a punt returner.
Raphael Williams, another receiver. Quick guys, it's not matchups where you worry about height as much as, how quick they are and how good they run after the catch. And they've had some injuries on the O-line, so we'll have to see on game day, I'm sure, where that is for them. But offensively, up-tempo, they've scored a lot of points. And they're fast starters offensively, when you look at their games. They've scored a lot of points in the first half.
On defense, it's a fun group to watch. They're very aggressive. They blitz, it's a pat system. And, they're putting guys in the box to stop the run. There's a lot of what we call hot pressures, six guys, two under, three deep. A lot of press quarters, one-on-one matchups where we got to win our one-on-ones.
When it's pass protection, whether it's an O-line, a tight end, or a back, they're going to try to get six one-on-ones with what they do. And they're linebackers. And I know they've had some guys in and out of the lineup.
But, it doesn't matter. You turn on the Syracuse film, I think the linebackers are playing really good. They got good wiggle. They're good pass rushers. They get off blocks. They're disruptive up front.
Safety's tackled well in space. And they've had several corners play this year. And so it's going to be a battle, obviously a road game, and playing against a team that is playing good football.
When you look at them, three straight wins, and that's after they made the quarterback change. So a team that has confidence in playing a team. From our standpoint, it's got a lot to prove.
And we got five games left, and we're excited about each one of them, starting with this one.
Hey, Coach, what was the biggest thing you learned about your team, whether it was, seeing them in practice this week or what you were able to see on film through these first seven games?
Well, first of all, I've been saying it since January. It's a fun group to coach. There's no pouting.
There's no pointing fingers. There's no blame. It's just guys owning what they do, coaches owning what they do, players owning what they do and wanting to get better.
And that's what makes this a fun team to coach. And they all know that we've given away two games. That's how I look at it. I know the opponents will say they beat us, and we look at it like we handed two games away against Virginia Tech and Duke because we made too many mistakes.
And winning always starts with not beating yourself, and I think that's the area when you look at us. The two games that we came up short where we felt like we gave away football games, it's execution, and it's not one player.
It's not one side of the ball. It's all three phases taking turns and not executing well enough. And so these are fixable things. And the thing that's fun is that's what the kids are doing. They're in here working. They're great in meetings.
They're attentive at practice. Injured players that can't play are out there coaching guys and trying to help them get better. And so it's a really joint cooperative group from that standpoint.
I think the leadership is a big thing on a football team, and this group has been outstanding about setting the tone, about when they don't play well, hey, that's on me. I got to do better for you guys. And so that's been, the biggest thing.
I know it's a long answer to your question, but a lot of times you come in and you look at your self-scout and you watch all these games, and you can point at one player or another player and say, man, we got to find a different guy. Like, that's not what's going on. There's just a lot of guys that need to execute, and it's just one of those seasons where at times for us, that guy is, where's the ball going? That's just how it works.
And so you got to do a really good job of knowing that your margin for error is small and executing is a premium. Self-scout gives you a lot of time to look at what's been efficient and what hasn't, and how can you either get rid of that from your system or how can you do the things that you're doing well more times, different ways, dressing it up with formations and disguises so that your success rate is higher.
Does it make it harder to correct it when it's something different game to game that's not going right rather than if it was, something on offense or defense you could really circle in on?
Yeah, it probably does. If you had asked me going into Notre Dame game if I was concerned with, how C.J. was going to play, I would have said no. He had a great week of practice. And, like I told him after the game, man, you just had an off day. Like, he had three guys behind them in coverage. And when you go to practice, all three of those are completions every single day. Like, that's what you expect.
As a coach, you can only expect to see on game day what you see in practice repetitively. And with him, his accuracy down the field has been phenomenal. And so that was not what we expected.
And then when you miss on throws like that, what happens is now you get behind the chains and now you're punting and you get behind in the game and now you're pressing a little bit. And so it's not one single thing. And part of this for us, as you guys know, it's not just been because it's one player.
We've had a Rolodex of players on defense because of injuries. And so that's been the other part is, when you coach 11 guys and they play in a game and then you go to the next game with the same 11, then they can take game one's experiences and build on game two. And then you go to game three and the same thing.
And for us, it's been a different safety, a different linebacker, a different nickel, a different this, a different that. And so that growth isn't the same. And fortunately, we've been able to, as you saw, I thought we played really well on defense against Notre Dame.
And we've been able to build with that group all the way through the bye week, all the way into this Pitt game planning. And so I'm hopeful that that early season growth we didn't have, we're able to capitalize here in the back end of it. But it's just what you deal with.
Every day you come in as a coach, what is the things we got to do better at? And every single player, it's where are we focusing on you? When you watched your seven games, what stood out, like what was repetitive? And I'm talking fundamentals. I'm talking every single part of their game. It may be their first step, it may be their second step's not in the ground, their hand placement, their pad level.
If there's something repetitive that's still on film and we're coaching it and coaching it, the player has to fix it or you got to put somebody else in the game. And so you're doing that across the board. And like I told the team today, you get in a game, you have your starting 11 on offense and defense and special teams.
You got a handful of guys that rotates. You're probably playing 18 guys to 20 maybe on each side of the ball. And you're asking each one of those players to just do 1%, one more thing in their game with these bye weeks.
And if you can get that at 100% rate, you have a dramatic amount of improvement in a game. And that's what we need because these games that we're losing, the one possession games that happened earlier, with Duke and Virginia Tech, those are two or three plays in the game that are different games, right? And so that's two or three plays, two or three players making plays. And that's what it comes down to.
It's going to be no different this week with Pitt, these kind of games. Played against Pat a couple times. I mean, they're going to play really hard. They got really good athletes and they're well-coached. We got to show up and we got to execute. We got to take mistakes off the film.
You mentioned some of those injuries and just, like, getting guys rest this past week. Is there anyone that you expect to be back that you can share with us yet?
No, I'm not going to talk about it until I have to.
Yeah, Dave, this question maybe isn't directly tied to this game, but I just kind of wanted to get your opinion on how you view the ACC now, maybe the parity versus maybe when you entered the league back in 2012, 2013.
I'll be honest, the whole time I've been in the league, every game has been a fight, and it has. And who the teams are on top is changing more now. But, I mean, you can look across the board, man, and you see teams you don't think are going to play with that team, and they do, and sometimes they beat them.
And, Stanford had a heck of an upset against Florida State this week. I mean, I think you go across the board in this league, there aren't any easy outs. Obviously, with the portal, a lot of teams have opportunities to change their rosters, and, that's been talked about to ignosium.
But this league has always been a well-coached league. The kids play really hard, and there's really good quarterbacks. And when you have good quarterbacks, you have a chance to win.
What is it like the last two weeks to be able to see guys like an A.J. Prim who are trying to take advantage of what they're doing this year, or maybe see some of the younger players who you could tell how much they've improved maybe since they arrived as mid-semester guys a year ago?
We evaluate those guys every week. We watch scout film with them on Fridays and bring them in and talk to them. There's certain guys that have gotten better.
There's definitely a guy, as you go through the roster and look at, some of the young guys that are getting chances to play that will show up on game day that are freshmen. And, with our team health being what it is, it hasn't been a typical bye week.
Like, in a typical bye, we would have had a rookie ball like a bowl game for the rookies and let those guys go scrimmage. And, I mean, where we're at, we can't do that. We can't afford to lose a player in a rookie bowl when we're as thin as we are in certain areas, with the hope that we get some guys back at some point.
But developmentally, like Adrian Farrow came in here at 237 pounds in summer two, summer one, excuse me. And now he's 270. He's covering kicks. I mean, he ran 19-something miles an hour the other day in practice at 270 pounds. And he was a guy that was one of the, last recruits to get in camp. And just a great example of one of our players that's really doing good things as a true freshman in the developmental program.
You see his body change. You can see him getting better. And because of that, he's getting rewarded with playing time.
I know over the years, as the seasons progressed, there's been goal adjustments and goal expansion, how you navigating that process. This five-game stretch, have you spoken to your team in regards of maybe this is like a mini-season or, something of that ilk in terms of goal adjustments and what are you expecting to see?
We got a lot to play for. I mean, I told him today, I expect to win every game we play, every single game we play. And we prepare that way, and sometimes we do, and sometimes we don't from an outcome standpoint. But we have five games to play, and, you go 5-0 in those five games, you're sitting here with nine wins.
We got a lot on the table. And so take it one at a time. And to your point, you do. You go in there, hey, we got five left. Let's go 5-0. And that's the mindset.
And you want your guys to understand, I'm the one that walks in there as the head coach. And if I don't believe that's going to happen, there's no chance they believe that. And so I know what this football team is capable of because I've seen it in spurts.
And it's just a matter of getting this mixture right where you see it for four quarters because when that happens, really good things happen. And you've seen it in games where we were down by 10, down by 14, whatever those scores were.
In the second half, it's fire, both sides of the football with the UVA game and the Wake Forest game, where we had comeback wins and we played really good complementary football in those two second halves. And so it's just, getting that mixture right where we can do that from start to finish.
NC State hasn't had a 1,000-yard rusher since Reggie Gallaspy II in 2018. What do you think has led to that? And what have you just seen from Hollywood?
Obviously, he's an elite kind of back, but just seeing that kind of has him positioned to hit that number this year.
Yeah, I'm not going to get into the offenses from the last few years. I mean, to me, it's about this offense. We've got a really good running back, and I think 1,000 yards is selling him short.
We've got to do everything we can to get that guy touches. He's a really good football player, and the more he touches the football, the better.
Yeah, Boo Corrigan has been really supportive of you and the program, even during stretches where other people might not be. What does it mean to have an AD who is so behind you and what you're doing with the program?
Yeah, I mean, I have a lot of respect for who I work for, and Boo does a great job leading this athletic department. I think we see things eye-to-eye. I understand the expectations and what this program's supposed to accomplish.
You're in and you're out, and sometimes we meet those goals. Sometimes we fall short. He understands how hard we're trying to get that done, and we fight for him. We fight for all the people at this university and all the fans, but ultimately, I understand this business, too.
It is a results business, and it's crazy to see all these midseason or even early midseason decisions that are being made with so much football to play. But, I'm thankful to work for, somebody that understands there's a lot left on the table, and this is a group that has a great culture.
They love being around each other. They're fun to coach, and he sees all that. He's behind the wall seeing it, and I know he's the one that's got to take the heat from the outside, but Boo's a strong man. He believes in what he believes in. He's got strong convictions when it comes to how he leads, and I have a lot of respect for that.
Yeah, Dave, I wanted to ask you about your third-down defense. It feels like first and second down, you guys have been really good this year, been in a lot of third-and-long opportunities. Has there been something you guys saw consistently maybe that's been failing on that down for you this year?
Not good enough, and I think there's multiple things. Some of it's pass rush. We've got to get our pass rushers to win more one-on-ones, and I think there's been times where we've had success with that.
Some of it's been coverage-related and where we're just not, we're too deep in the back end and too shallow in the front end, and there's intermediates, and so that's been an issue. At times, it's been execution. We had a great blitz dialed up at a perfect time in one of the games.
I think it was a Duke game. It's going to be a sack by Sean Brown, and our edge player is supposed to take the back release and then doesn't, and they throw it to him, walks in for a touchdown, and that's a third-and-eight that should have been a sack and maybe a sack-force fumble, so that's execution-related. And so there's multiple things.
With the bye week, we spent a lot of time trying to look at what we can do better in that area, and then obviously you get a little extra time to practice that stuff, and so hopefully the attention to that will allow us to move forward. I do think, the other piece of this is the Rolodex of players we've had to play with.
Haven't had a consistent group when it comes to the secondary and the linebackers and then even the pass rushers from that standpoint because we were missing Sabastian, for a half after the targeting penalty.
So you've had a not-continuity, and then, with Coach being gone for, two games there, the coaching continuity changed. So it's just been a lot of things on that side that are a little bit out of our control.
But now with this break and everybody's here, and, hopefully we can keep these guys from having any more injuries, praying for that, that you can see growth because I agree with you.
It hasn't been good enough, and when you get people to third long, that's when it's supposed to be fun. Like, that's when you turn it up and you get after the quarterback, and we just haven't been good enough on that down.
And just a quick follow-up, it feels like since Virginia Tech, your outside corners have played really well. Could you just evaluate what you saw from them through the bye, just watching them back?
Yeah, I'll be honest. I think they've played well all year. I mean, that's not our issue. I mean, the issue has been more balls being caught in the slot areas on our nickels and safeties than on the outside.
I think our perimeter corners have played exceptional on deep balls, breaking up passes, not getting past interference calls. Like, I think those guys are playing really good football.
We've got to get better, defending the slots and the tight ends that you're seeing catching deep over routes or your seam balls, corner routes, what we call slot fades, those down-the-field throws. We have not been as good. And so that's an area we have to improve.
And, we've played three different nickels. We've played three different safeties. So, that's part of it. We've got to get those guys where they're on the field every week getting better. But I think that's where we've been impacted more than at the corner position. I think those guys have played really well.
Coach, you've mentioned the leadership and the accountability in the room being really spectacular. Are there any players whose voices have emerged in the past two weeks that might surprise us or surprised you and really stepped up and grown?
I don't know if it would surprise you. I think Jacarrius Peak and Hollywood Smothers really used their voice with the team on the field during games. They're passionate guys, and you get to witness that, and the guys you would expect to talk are doing that inside the building. But those two guys really stand out.
I think having Jackson Vick back on defense, even though that was his first game and he would probably tell you it wasn't one of his best, it's nice having him back on the field with Asaad because he brings a lot of confidence, charisma, plays really hard, practices really hard every day. Just having an older guy in the secondary that has a lot of confidence like him, having him back in the mix helps.
Yeah, Coach, you mentioned Asaad being at safety now. What's it been like for you to see him kind of play back there, especially as a young guy making a moving position in the middle of the year?
No, I'm proud of Asaad. I can't remember when it was in training camp, but, it became pretty clear that he and Jackson at nickel were two good players stacked on each other. And we knew we'd have to rotate in that first game with ECU with their tempo and have a good slot.
And so having that depth, but we wanted to start cross-training Asad so that if there was something that happened, we can get our best 11 on the field. And clearly with the injuries we've had at safety, something has happened. And so being able to move him was something that was a little proactive on our part with the training aspect.
I think Coach Warren does a great job of that, talking about nickel, strong and free in that room. So they're all learning it and hearing it. And he's a good football player.
His progression, he came in last year as an undersized, skinnier guy, put on the weight, worked really hard, got on special teams, became one of our most trusted 11 on special teams. And that's how his, trust has been built. And that's how it is.
You earn your reps and you earn your opportunities. And Asad's done that. I'm not surprised at all that he's making plays at safety. And he'll keep getting better there with the reps. He'll keep getting better. And it's nice having a safety, him and Jackson behind each other.
Either one of those guys can cover the slot. The other one can fit the run or blitz. And it just gives you some versatility with those two guys on the field together.
