NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media on Wednesday to discuss his team and preview Friday night's game against Florida State.
NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview.
Opening statement...
It's been a great week, short week, but great week. Guys had good energy, and they're definitely excited about playing at home. Opportunity to play a really good football team and story program. More than anything, just when you play like that, you want to get back out and show what you got. And I think they showed that in the meeting room, they showed that in practice, and we're one day away from game week Friday already. It goes fast, so looking forward to getting back in the stadium.
What is it about playing at home, especially at night, do you think a team tends to play better rather than on the road?
I think it's team to team. I think, someone asked me that yesterday. It depends on your home environment. We have a great home environment, and so this one, Military Appreciation Day, is always my favorite home game of the year. I think, our military presence in North Carolina is huge. It's very, very special to me, being from a military family, my wife being from a military family, and so you have the pageantry of that, along with a sellout and a packed house, and, if you were playing at a place maybe where there's 20,000 people there.
It'd probably be a different answer to the question, but for us, home field is an advantage because of who we have in the stands and how loud they can get in the student section, and, there's some teams that have a bad game day at home, and so going on the road might bring energy to them, I think that's not the case for us right now, and, the teams I've had that have played well on the road, obviously, we were very mature football teams.
We weren't dealing with the injuries that we're dealing with. Every year is different when you look at those kind of things, but, we have a great home field advantage. It's been that way for a while, and we're excited to be back in the Carter.
Could you briefly share the military connections with your family, maybe since you've been here, things that you've done to emphasize highlighting this particular game?
My dad served in the Navy, stationed in California during Vietnam, and my father-in-law, Stan VanderWoude, he served in Vietnam, was in the Army, and so both of them were a part of that. My grandfather's both served. Sara's grandfather's both served. So, our families are rooted that way, and so, chain of command and respect and understanding our freedom isn't free, something we were raised with, and I don't take that for granted, and 95,000-plus troops stationed in our state.
Things that I've done personally, built a lot of relationships with current and retired military over the years here. I've had opportunities to go to MARSOC and learn to go to Westport, Bragg, and now Liberty, to learn and share ideas. I've also had a former military in the program here.
We've had a current guy that's working with our team, Mike Irwin, who's former military, special forces, so it's ingrained, not just for me and my upbringing, but, with what we do programmatically to bring these guys in, and obviously football is not life or death, but football, command presence, leadership, getting guys to learn how to be leaders, getting guys to be able to grow in leadership, to speak accountability.
There's a lot of carryover between what they do, training their troops and what we do training our team and how we try to build and mentor leadership within our program, within the branches of the military, and so I have the utmost respect, and I think any time we can, as coaches, grab on to things that are parallel, and use those things to help our guys learn, it's great, and so I've really enjoyed and will continue to enjoy, the relationships that I've built, crossing over with them, and hopefully it's, the reciprocity because there's so many of them here in our state, it makes the access pretty easy.
What have you seen as the biggest difference for CJ in particular when it comes to playing at home versus playing on the road? Is it just the road game atmosphere or is it something different for him?
I think it's two really good defenses, Miami and Notre Dame. I think if we would have played them here, I don't know what the outcome would have been, but those were really good defenses, and so I think you have to look at that as well. They're two top-ten defenses you're talking about, and so the personnel that they're playing with has something to do with it, and it's not just CJ.
It's him not having enough time in some games, us not being able to run the ball in some games, us being behind in some games, right? But the kid's a battler. He fights. Every one of these games is a lesson for him and the guys around him to get better.
Is there a specific player or players who might have surprised you with the way they've stepped up this week?
Not really. I mean, this team's got good leadership, and the guys that are playing with us asked them to continue to lead and talked a lot about these being the last. I had my team meeting the last 12 days of the regular season, and the last 12 opportunities to be in one room as one team unless we can, get an opportunity to keep playing, and that's not guaranteed. We have to earn that, and so it's like an hourglass.
You have the sand running out, and there's not much sand left in there for the seniors, and so really upping our urgency in how we play because the brotherhood in our team room is really strong, and those guys, all of them, want our seniors to finish well.
You mentioned the home environment. How important is it, for you to be able to get a sold-out card?
Yeah, it's huge. I mean, when you take a job somewhere and you want to be in a place where you can recruit from the state, which we're able to do, there's great talent in North Carolina. You want a home fan base that helps you win games, not just with crowd noise, but sold-out stadiums help recruiting. They do, and I've been talking about that a long time, and so when a recruit hits the in-state schools and we're one of them, there's a difference on game day.
Everybody knows that, and so it is an advantage for us in recruiting. It's an advantage for us in crowd noise and the atmosphere. Just come out here in the parking lots before the game. You can see that people are excited about what's going on, and everyone wants to win.
I get that, but the environment that we have on game day with Carter-Finley Stadium and with our fans and our students, it's really, really good, and it's taking time. People used to leave at the end of the half and they were gone, and now the stadium's staying full more often, and those things are really big in the growth of our program.
Let's talk about that just about every year as far as the Friday games and how difficult it is to get recruits in for those games, too, but how nice is it to have it a little bit later in the season where some players might have already finished their season and can actually still come out on Friday?
Yeah, I think Thursday night and Friday night, you get great coverage, right? And so that's the positive of that. And your fans, it's great for them. For high school recruits, unless their seasons are over, which, to your point, some of them are, it's harder to get them in your stadiums. And so at this time of the year, we're in playoff football at the high school level, and some of them have finished, some of them haven't, so we'll get a portion of them to be here for game day.
But it's give and take.I do like the coverage that we do get on the Thursday night and Friday night. Prefer those games after a bye or to open the season, just from a health standpoint, and, being able to get guys fresh and keep them healthy throughout the season. But there is a huge advantage, I think, when you're not in a short week, to playing those night games during the week because of how much television coverage you can get.
What type of athleticism have you seen from FSU, and are any position groups where they stand out maybe?
Well, it starts with the QB. He can really run. He's like a tailback when he takes off, and great acceleration. They have a huge receiver, that can run well. And 19 and 12 are jet-speed guys that get the ball in a lot of ways for them, the handoffs and reverses and tunnel screens. They're dangerous in space, and in their return game, they've got great speed, which is what you'd expect.
You watch their punt team and their missiles, number threes, they're starting at home, and you can run and watch them. And I don't know how many times anyone's blocked them this season on a punt. The guy's the first guy down the field every time.
And so it's what you'd expect. I mean, it's probably the most talented Florida State team we've played in the last five opportunities when you look at their across-the-board depth and speed on the field.
And so, we're going to have to show up and play really well. And they've been in a lot of really close games. They've lost four one-possession games. So, very close to having a different season down there than they are.
