NC State quarterback CJ Bailey met with the media to discuss the bowl game matchup with Memphis.
On playing a bowl game in Florida…
Yeah, it's really good to go back home because it's really cold here. So I'm ready to get back in the warm weather and just have fun with my second game in my state.
Y'all scouted Memphis yet?
Yeah, we did. We put most of the game plan in as well. We've got a lot of good plays coming. I feel like our defense is prepared, too. It was a great practice today, you guys saw it. I feel like we're really ready for this game.
We've got more practices coming up, so it'll be fun.
You wanna win, but you wanna have a good time in the bowl game, too. How do you balance that?
Last year was my first time in a bowl game. And the way I balanced it was to have limited fun, which is kind of hard. But I didn't try to have fun, I didn't force it.
I was just focused on the game. And I think winning is more important than trying to spend my time having fun at the bowl game. That's more important to the program and more important to me. I just wanna win.
Did that game last year leave a bad taste in your mouth?
Yeah, it did, and especially the way it ended, it ended in the right way. Coming into this year, we tried to correct that with the altercation at the end. But losing never feels good, and especially to one of us, the ECU. We had to prove a point in our first game this year.
We don't wanna do that next year. We wanna come in ready with a chip on our shoulder after a good win in the bowl game.
What's your plan for after the bowl game as far as like, are you planning to explore your options? Are you 100% committed to coming back? How do you plan to look at that?
Yeah, I plan to go home and talk to my mom and my dad and just relax and enjoy my time off.
How do you balance all those things? Because obviously, there is the portal opening January 2nd with everything that you're doing here, too.
How to balance it is just thinking about this game coming up. Let everything else handle itself. I'm not tuned into much of what's going on outside of what's in the building right now. I'm just focused on getting that win in the bowl game.
What ways do you feel like you grew as a player? Obviously, now that the actual regular season is over, I think a lot of those lines, how do you feel like you grew as a player and the offense grew as well?
As a player, one big emphasis that I had on this year was to be good at my leadership, which was really great. But as for my skillset, I'll say, just take what they give me. There's a lot of shots. We had a lot of shots this year. Sometimes it wasn't there. I had to find a way to lay it off or find a way to take off.
And my biggest thing this year was just finding those layoffs, getting the ball out of my hand and making good decisions. And I think I did a good job being better with that this year. And I feel like I can just build on that, build on my game in each and every way, with running, passing, being more accurate, everything.
This offseason will be great for me, I feel like.
People always talk about quarterbacks building chemistry with their receivers. How have you kind of built your chemistry with your offensive linemen?
I deal with those guys all the time. It's crazy because we just talk about that in the locker room. They’d just ask me, what am I getting them for Christmas?
And I'm like, I don’t know yet. So, but just having fun with them, just calling them and having little group calls, I talk to Jacarrius Peak a whole bunch. Just chopping up, laughing a lot, spending time with each other.
And our receivers, we're the same way, we're a big offense. That's why it's kind of been good. All of us got a big connection as an offense, and it's been building. I like that for us.
CJ, we've been talking to Coach Doeren and some of your teammates about what the bowl game means to you. Because obviously, some people say that they don't matter anymore unless they're a playoff game. But what does it mean to you to give this extra game?
It means a lot. Of course, we didn't win last year, and I never won a bowl game before. I need to win, win, and the program needs to win.
And we need to try to find a way to bounce back from all those losses we had. And it's gonna start from right here. We get this one right here, it's just gonna build for the future of the program.
And it's gonna keep stacking, bowl wins, bowl wins, bowl wins. And I just wanna start off with this one first.
