NC State OC Kurt Roper met with the media to discuss CJ Bailey, the new offensive pieces, and much more!
NOTE: Click the video player above to watch the full press conference!
On spring practice, getting out there and seeing the offense and getting through the field.
It's great to get started. Obviously, the game is different now. At the end of the year, there are changes, a lot and a lot of rosters in college football. And so, when you get out here, and you get to go full speed on the football field, you're seeing guys really play for the first time that you've got to integrate into your system, into your offense, and figure out who you can count on to make plays for you.
What was it like for you to have CJ back for three years?
Obviously, after three years of the conversations, it's just different. It's obviously a huge thing for us and a huge thing for our offense and the university. But as far as football goes, when a guy's in his third year, you just keep making jumps. And, you always try to speak the same language as somebody. And now, it takes time to get that. And that's happening more and more with us.
What do you kind of see with the various options, the new transfers that you're able to bring in?
I think kind of what I alluded to, your rosters are different. And that's really what we're out here trying to do, is who the playmakers are, who the guys that we're going to be able to count on. Keenan's back and has played a lot of football for us, which really helps. And he can play any of the positions that we ask him to play for us.
But beyond that, we're trying to build the depth and trying to get, I've always said, we've got to find three guys that can play for us. And then you've got to build it to four and five as the season goes on. And that's what we're in the middle of right now as far as the wide receiver position. But that's a lot of positions for us. That's tight end. And that's obviously certain areas in the offensive line.
Is the receiver from Buffalo kind of a different toy that you may not have had in the last couple of years?
Yeah, he's different. I wouldn't say I wouldn't use the word toy because I'm a big believer, you go in the game, we've got to be good with running our offense. And he can do that. You look at his numbers, he caught 50 plus, 50 plus two years in a row. And I was fortunate.
I had a guy named Jamison Crowder at Duke who was an excellent football player. That's probably a 5'8", 5'9" guy. But a guy even before that, a guy named Donovan Varner, who is top 20 in the ACC, who's probably closer to 5'7", that we've had. So I've been able to have guys like that contribute to this offense. And he's a dynamic athlete.
You'll have been able to bring in some guys who either grew up in the same area that CJ did, competed with him, or against him. How helpful has it been to have those guys who are familiar with him?
I think it obviously is a good thing. They know each other. Again, they communicate. They already have a bond and a relationship and all that. The whole key now is, yes, they've been throwing routes with each other for a long time, some of these guys. But now they've got to integrate into our system.
They've got to understand our terminology and how we do it. And that's what we're spending our time on and trying to work out the finer details of it. But have they thrown a bunch of curls and hitches and goes? Yes. And now we're just trying to marry it to the language that they have to understand.
What's the most important thing about spring training? With the season so far away, is it fundamentals? What is most important?
You know, it's a good question. From an old coach, Coach Cutcliffe, a long time ago, when I was 24 years old, spring football, you think of players, not plays. It's our responsibility to get the players better and see who can play for us.
Obviously, you have to get your system in, and they have to learn your system. And it's got to be flexible enough to challenge them mentally on the field and those types of things. But this is really about, offensively, they make you put five offensive linemen on the field. They make you do that. They have ineligible numbers.
We're going to have a quarterback. We have five other guys that we can put on the field. And our job is to find the guys that we want the ball to go to. And that's really what spring is about. If a guy's on the field, man, we're excited about him getting a football.
I mentioned CJ. This is taking a big jump for your career. What's the biggest, or just the thing you’re seeing the most?
Well, I mean, it's just understanding of your system, but applying it to defensive football. I always say this. For a quarterback to truly understand what I'm talking about, he's got to be able to see it in his mind's eye. And that takes time. And that's visualization.
And I think back, and I tell the story all the time about coaching Eli. I would talk, and we would be around the table talking to Eli. And after he'd been there a while, he would look up into his brain like he was seeing it. That's just how he was. He'd look up, and he'd say, okay, coach. And that's where CJ is now. We don't have to see a picture or a video or any of that. We can just talk now. And he can process what I'm saying, and he can visually see it in his mind's eye, if that makes sense.
That's a good segue. I was going to ask you, the pressure is probably different, but what did you kind of learn about the Eli experience? Coaching him, the pressure and the hype. And then now you see 20-some years later, quarterbacks dealing with pressure and hype.
That’s a good question. And this is a long time ago. Eli came back for his fifth year. And so this was 2003, his fifth year in college. And it was one of those he could leave or come back or whatever. And he came back, and the very first game of the year, I can't exactly remember the order, but I think it was the very first game of the year we lost to Memphis at their place. We lost like 41-31. And that was a tough loss, right? And you leave in the locker room, and that's challenging. And we beat a couple of teams that we were better than.
And then Texas Tech came in with Mike Leach, came to our place, and we lost 49-45. So we were 2-2 starting Eli's senior year. And, you know, that's hard and challenging for him. He's coming back to compete for a championship. Well, that year, the rest of the year, we went 10-3 and went 7-1 in the SEC and only lost to LSU, who won the national title. We lost to them 20-17 and missed two field goals in that game. And our kicker was the kicker of the year. And so it ended up being an outstanding year. We went to the Cotton Bowl and beat Oklahoma State in the Cotton Bowl.
And the point I'm making is, man, you just take it one game at a time. Just because maybe something doesn't go your way early in the season, you just plug and keep playing. And so my point is, the pressure of this is, man, you just approach it the same way. There is no pressure. We just go attack these one at a time as they come. And we'll look up and see how it goes at the end of the year.
You were great with how you used Will Wilson last year. What is it like polishing up the throwing aspects of Will Wilson this spring?
Obviously, he was very helpful to our football team in certain situations. But he is – I didn't recruit him just to do that. We recruited him because of his ability to play quarterback. And I'm a big believer in college football, you've got to be able to throw the football to score enough points to win the game. And Will can do that.
He can process the information. He can understand concepts. He's got an elite arm. He's accurate. And so it's been fun working with him and just growing that part of it, just developing him as a quarterback.
