NC State head coach Dave Doeren spoke with the media after the 41-7 loss to No. 15 Miami.
Opening statement...
Yeah, congratulations to Miami, they played really well. I thought their kids were well prepared and executed. We had a hard time, obviously, when you turn the football over twice in the first quarter, and it just became a time of possession mismatch.
We were not able to stop them, even though we held them to some field goals enough, and offensively, when you look up in the third quarter and you see 400 yards to 87, 25 touchdowns, or first downs to five, I mean, we got it handed to us out there tonight.
And it's a bad feeling, and offense, defense wasn't good enough. Highlight of our football team was our punter tonight.And that's sad when you have something to say like that, but Caden [Noonkester] did a tremendous job. That's really the only high point of this game.
We got a bunch of good kids that will go back to work, and that's what we're gonna focus on.
Hey, coach, I gotta hand it to you. Your birthday's, what, December 3rd, right? I have a couple of family members on that day. So it's a good birthday to have. So I was just kind of noticing that I have to loosen things up a little bit. With all due respect, you played a great game against Georgia Tech number eight. And do you feel like you needed to play as much of a perfect game knowing full well that Miami has lost the two unranked teams? They're gonna look to put a lot of points on the board so that they can try to get back in the college football playoff picture.
Yeah, still caught off guard on my birthday question there.
Well, I'm trying to loosen it up. Hey, it's a family member's good birthday.
Yeah, I mean, look, the last time they came to Raleigh two years ago, I don't think they scored a touchdown. And so I knew they would respect us and put their best foot forward. And across the board, they're a very, very talented football team.
And the fact that they didn't play up to their ability in a couple games, you don't expect that in our game. You expect them to play as good as they can play, and definitely have seen that throughout the season in some of their games. And their skill positions, their tight ends, their quarterback when he's on, their running backs, their right tackles.
Fantastic player, I mean, their D-line's as good as anybody's. And we played Notre Dame. That's a really, really good D-line that was out there tonight for them. And so he's got a lot of talent. So our margin for error is very small.
And first drive, we have a positive play on the first play. We knew we'd get him to jump offsides on the second play. We only have a play call, and our receiver jumps offsides. And we didn’t have a play call, things like that. You just gotta really execute in games like that, and find a way to get into the fourth quarter where it's a game. And then anything can happen, and we did the opposite.
We turned the football over twice in the first quarter, what a recipe for disaster. And weren't able, depth-wise on defense, to play that many plays and play the way that we needed to play.
You guys didn't cross midfield for like five minutes left in the game. What did you kind of see from them? They inconsistent, what kind of led to inconsistency?
Well, we couldn't block them. I mean, it doesn't matter what you call. Every time you call play, you see a guy in the backfield on the snap. And they're splitting double teams, running around guys, blitzing through guys. They played way faster, way more physical than we did tonight. And we gotta give them credit. Obviously, we need to get back to work.
Was that a product of stunts, anything, just team speed?
Same stuff they do. I mean, they blitz opposite the back. They slant their line when they do it. There wasn't a whole lot of new things about them when you saw the ball. They just executed better than we did.
Coach, the birthday thing was designed to lighten your mood a little bit. But last week-
I just got my ass kicked. I mean, you're not gonna-
I understand, I understand.
It ain't funny to me, do you understand that?
No, I'm not trying to be-
I do this shit for a living. Okay?
No, I understand. Okay. Last week, obviously, Miami went ahead and beat Syracuse. Was there anything that you actually could take away from that particular film that you were able to apply in your preparation for that?
I mean, obviously, we didn't apply anything. We didn't execute.
NC State has got two games left. I know you said you did not talk about the bowl when I asked you that earlier. How do you approach this next two weeks, this build up?
One at a time. One at a time. I mean, everything's about, right now, getting back to Raleigh, getting our guys healthy, getting them refocused, and playing for State. And then you got two teams that are both fighting as hard as they can to resolve their seasons, and so it'll all be about them. And then after that, it'll be about the next thing.
You mentioned the blocking. Was it more interior?
No, it was everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, it was everywhere.
Compared to teams past, do you think it'll be harder to kind of keep this locker room together for the final two games?
No, they'll be together. I'm not worried about that. Will we be good enough? That's what we got to do.We'll come and execute. And we've had spurts of that all season. We just had a great game of that against Georgia Tech. And so this team won't quit. I promise you that.
What are your thoughts about Malachi, Toney, that could make a lot of plays and throw some back, too?
Great player, can do anything on the field. Obviously, you saw him throw one tonight, throw two, maybe. But very talented. The fact that he's 17 years old is pretty amazing. They got a really special player in him.
CJ had the turnovers early. And there was conjecture that maybe when he had the turnover in Durham, that maybe that he got misaligned in his head. Did you see anything, and what was your response to the turnovers in this game?
Just told him to keep playing, just to move on to the next play. And obviously, we have a lot of faith in CJ. He's shown that he's a great player for us. And you can't get on a kid about something he already knows he messed up and make him better. It's more about getting him to move forward and get to the next play.
Let him get on the iPad and see what happens and move on from it.
Some thoughts about Carson Beck, the quarterback. Any thoughts about the way he played?
I thought he played really well. I mean, he completed his last 13 balls. I told our staff during the week, I mean, he throws the prettiest deep balls, I've seen. Gives guys a chance to run underneath it. He's very accurate. Only chance you have against him is to get a lot of pressure and get him frustrated. And if you can do that early, you got a chance and we weren't able to get enough pressure on tonight. Thanks.
