NC State head coach Dave Doeren recently spoke on the Wolfpack Weekly Radio Show, talking about Fall camp, previewing the Virginia game, and much more!
We've got Virginia in a couple of weeks, but coach, before we get into the Cavaliers, I want to go big picture. Let's talk a little about fall camp. Give us the zoomed-out version, the macro view. How has fall camp been?
Yeah, it was really good. It's a team that put a lot of time in. You can tell they worked hard this summer; they came in in really good shape. All the player run walkthroughs and things like that—our install is really clean to kick it out. When you start, you sometimes see a lot of mistakes, but these guys did a really good job. They invested, and that's what we asked them to do when we took our little break in the summer.
The players take over, and you get to see it. It's like coming in and opening up your presents, right? You get to see all the work and how it's paid off. And so the competition has been really good, both back and forth. And I always say that as a head coach, if your offense dominates, you're pissed at the defense. If your defense dominates, you're pissed at the offense. A good practice for a head coach is to have both sides make plays, so it goes back and forth. There isn't a time when the momentum goes away too far on either side of the ball. That's what you want to see in a practice, and we had a lot of those days.
I know different coaches have different philosophies on ones versus twos, but watching some practices and certainly watching some scrimmages, you've done a lot of good on good one-on-ones. What's the thought process behind that?
Yeah, it's all been good on good. And for a variety of reasons, you want to get as game-ready as you can when you can. Competitively speaking, I think it elevates your competition when you're going up against a guy who can beat you at any moment. And we've had good competition. Our depth charts change throughout camp on a daily basis at certain positions.
And so you get to see that guy playing against somebody else the next day. So, I think the ones-versus-twos might be a confidence builder for your ones, since they should perform better in those situations. That's not what you're trying to do in training camp. In my opinion, you're trying to compete and push each other and get better every day.
We've gotten used to this new normal now that is the portal, right? Like, not that long ago, it didn't exist, at least in this way. You mentioned you show up, the players had a little bit of downtime, and you see what you've got. Can you tell year to year how quickly they might mesh? There's got all these new guys and chemistry, and you're putting all these pieces together so fast. Can you tell me in fall camp early? And then, if so, how has that been this year?
You get a sense of it. I really think your leadership shows its head the most when times are tough. You'll find out what they're made of. And so when adversity hits, your leadership is really going to be who it is, and when everybody's undefeated during training camp, every team in the country is talking about being 12 and 0, and so there's a lot of positive energy in these training camps across the country, right?
So my job is to create chaos in practice at times, and I do that for a reason. You want to see how they respond. And this team has responded well, and that's been exciting to see. It is a very close team, and with 50 new players, you don't know if you'll be able to create that. And to their credit, like these guys, they have done a lot of crossover—offense and defense specialists. It's not an offensive team, a defensive team; it's a team like these guys hang out together, and it's been really cool to see that.
How unique is it that and did it help that element that you've got so many of C.J. Bailey's buddies back guys he's tossing the ball to and then even those guys knew like Popo, on the defensive side, that seems like such a unique advantage through the portal to actually maybe increase chemistry as opposed to scramble the eggs on that.
Yeah, I agree with you. And King Mack, Chance Robinson, Popo Aguirre, and Chino Aguirre, like all these South Florida kids, grew up playing on the same teams or against each other. So there are a lot of relationships built long before we recruited these guys, which does help with chemistry. But with that, those guys have integrated really well with everybody on this team.
And I think it's been fun to see. I think that's the hardest part of a portal. You don't get much time. And so you're counting on a lot of people's information. Other coaches, you call people on their staff—recruiting office trainers, administrators, whoever—at that school. And then if you have a player who knows them, you're talking to him like, "Hey, does this guy fit?"And our guys will tell us, like, no, man, you probably don't want to bring that guy here. Or, yeah, he's going to make us better. And so we've had a lot of good interaction with a lot of people. And it's been a good mix.
Let's talk about the captains and the assistant captains. Kind of a new thing here. Your captains this year are C.J. Bailey, Duke Scott, Popo Aguirre, Brian Nelson, A.J. Richardson, and assistant captains Keenan Jackson, Kamen Smith, and Isaiah Shirley. First of all, the theory behind the captain and assistant captains—you've got a great list of guys there.
Yeah, Mike Erwin deserves a lot of credit for that. He's been documented on his work in terms of our team leadership. And Mike came to me. He's been working with the Canes for a while and just said, "Hey, this is a concept I want you to think about." He's like, now that I've been with football for a year, you've got a massive roster. You got a lot of guys, man. And what they do in hockey is delegate some more things down. And these are trusted, respected players that the team respects. And you have an alpha. You have a captain. But they also have just like you do on your staff. You have a head coach. You have an offensive coordinator. You have a co-offensive coordinator. You have a chain of command, per se. And you see it in the military. You see it in business.
And it made a lot of sense. And when we had this conversation, I said, what I need to see, though, is how many true leaders there are in that room. Because I'm not just going to slap a title on a guy like it's a participation trophy, like the players have to want that. And when we went through the captain's voting, there was a lot. There were eight guys who had a significant number of votes. And so it spoke to what Mike was talking about. And for the captains, I think they're excited about it to know that these guys are also empowered to go to them and say, " Hey, I need Keenan. I need this done. And Keenan's going to do that because CJ is going to ask him to, right? And there's respect there.
I'm glad you brought up Mike because I noticed at one of the practices a week ago, right during practice, you were huddled up with him having a conversation. Just the value of having a guy like that, someone who is an Army graduate. He's served twice on active duty and has been to war, so to speak. And how can that translate over into a sport, particularly like football?
Yeah, Mike teaches leadership at West Point, right? Like, so he's pretty good at it, and he's done it. His boots have been on the ground, literally, and he's led men, and he's been led by great men. And so I think, for me, it's a great resource. Thankful to Boo for introducing him and me, and just being able to parlay that into teaching our players without me in the room, because I think that's the secret sauce—it's a free space for them to talk, right? Like there's no judgment.
There's no one who controls playing time. It's truly about leadership, growth, and adversity. And so it's been a really big help. And I think last year was year one with Mike. This year, year two, it's been even better because he's learned what football is about. He'd never worked with a football team until last year. So it's a completely different animal for people who don't understand. Like, there are a lot of things going on in there, and 125 players and 70 staff. It's a big organization. So I think he feels more comfortable and confident teaching with these guys as well.
Coach, I want to talk to you about the big fellas, the big guys at the point of the snap, who never get quite the love. They always get loved like a group, but let's talk Jimarion McCrimmon and Yousef Mugharbil and Spike Sowells Jr., Kamen Smith, Teague Anderson, these guys, some returners in that group, big fellas who looked the part and have played some new, some we know what they offer, right? How has that unit been in fall camp?
Yeah, really good. I would add Rico Jackson to that because he will play a lot for us on the line. I think you're going to see those six guys, and I'm proud of them. Like they've taken every rep of training camp. There's a really good chemistry in there. They're tough. It's a really, really fun group to watch. Spike does a great job, commanding it in the middle. And Kamen has become a really good leader, obviously, with what you see in the voting to be an assistant captain.
Jimarion is so consistent. I mean, his personality, his workout, his play—it's the same every day. And it's awesome to have a left tackle like that. Yousef is a brawler, like a tough road grader type dude in there that moves people really physically. I mean, he's having a blast. I mean, you've been through hell if you know his story. And so really excited for him. And Antiq was a lot of football, man, and a very experienced guy. And so it's a good group. And Rico can play four spots on the line, either guard or tackle. So it gives us a really good swing guy there to rest somebody out, there fresh as the game goes on.
Sometimes it's hard to find a left tackle, but boy, McCrimmon just came right in, and it seemed to be the perfect fit from the get-go.
It's similar to when we played UConn a few years ago, and I saw Joly on their team. I was like, damn, that's a good-looking dude right there. And then he went to Portal, and we recruited him somewhere. Jimarion went to Portal, and we played ECU. I knew what kind of player he was, and I have a lot of respect for the coaches over there at ECU. And so when I called them about him, they just raved about him as a human being. And that made it even better. A nd he wanted to stay in state. He likes it up here. He's not from North Carolina; originally, he really likes it up here. And so we were high on his list. He was high on ours, and we were able to make it work.
Coach Tujuage knew Teague Anderson for a long time. He had a relationship with him. He actually said, when we first figured out Teague and the right tackle, he was on the show and said, “Teague has a temper.” He said, “I had to work with Teague on his temper.” All I could think was, gosh, that might be a good thing for a right tackle. If you can harness it the right way, you've got tyou'veet it together.
Yeah, I think that your emotions are a critical part of football, and you don't want your emotions to control you. You need to be able to use your emotions as fuel. And over the years, we've seen players learn how to do that. A nd Bradley Chubb learned how to do that. Payton Wilson learned how to do that. They weren't even keeled guys. They were high-motor, high-energy, angry people when they played the game. Right. And in their last year, Davin Vann's, another good example, they learned how to harness that and play even better throughout the course of the game. And so, with guys that have that, Teague is an example. It can elevate his play if he learns how to use it the right way.
I want to talk about moving Spike to center. He was a hard guy to keep off the field last year. He got some snaps. He played guard. Was it a natural transition for him to move to center? And how's he done in that move? And just so, a short period of time here?
Yeah, I mean, he was the center in high school. So that's what we recruited him to play. It wasn't really a move. We played him at guard to get our best five on the field.
Flip side of things. We're talking big boys. We're talking trenches. Chase Bond, Josiah Victor. We all knew about. Some new names, maybe Farrow and Prim, who are returners, didn't get as many snaps last year as they might this year. But you're looking at Sabastian Harsh, who was really productive last year. He was a really good player. You got KaTron Evans. Now he's a new name relatively in the camp, at least. How is the defensive side of the ball? Look, as we're talking here with the big boys in the trenches there, what's on the flip side?
I'm really excited about our tackle nose guard position depth right now. I think, with KaTron being available, that will hopefully stay that way. Having him and Jojo inside as a rotation. I love that. And AJ has gotten a lot better as well. So DT surely is playing really good football. Prim is a guy. In the first 10 days of training camp, he looked really good. And then he had a hand injury. He's fine now, but it set him back a little bit. And so we got to get him back because he was playing better than anybody on the edges the first week of camp. We need to make some plays there.
We're going to miss Cian Slone a lot. We're going to miss Sebastian a lot. And so those guys you mentioned who are playing have shoes to fill, and we need them to play well. And Harvey Dyson's a guy we brought in to do that. Sterling Dixon is healthy now; we brought him here a year ago to be an edge presence for us. Josh Warren, we just recruited you to be an edge presence. Chase Bond was the previous year's best pass rusher, and I expect him to be a good player.
And I think Adrian Farrow, man, he just showed us how tough he was on special teams last year. And so I'm proud of him and his growth as a D-lineman. Same with Colby Cronk—worked really hard on the scout on them and in the weight room. So there's depth. Now they need to prove that they can do it on game day. There are a lot of guys who need to show up who haven't done so much as the other guys we had.
Go back to KaTron, whose appeal was made public yesterday. It is basically extended from August 24th through September 9th, which means he would be eligible to play in the Virginia game. What is your thought process? What is your plan for him, and how do you get him ready to play a football game?
Well, I mean, since he was eligible until July 24th, he's been with our team since he got here, and we've retained him. And then during the window that he couldn't be, he wasn't. And then when he was allowed back, he was. So, I mean, it's not like the guy's been working at McDonald's for six months, like he's been working out and practicing football every day he could. So I'm excited we're going to play him. He's a big, strong presence in the middle. He's a great human being. His kids love him on the team. And so I'm excited for him and hopeful, you know, that the case will go his way.
He is a big boy. He is a big fella in the middle. You lose a lot in the tight end room. It's a great tight end room last year. One of the best blocking tight end rooms in America last year. Three pros, right?Justin Joly, Cody Hardy, and Dante Daniels at various levels. Dante's in the CFL. And those guys were either pass catchers or road graders. So Preston Douglas is back, right? There are other names that need to emerge. What's the tight end room been like here in fall camp?
Yeah, I think it's a room that has a lot to prove because of who we lost. But I know that group worked really hard, and they're excited to play. I think they have a big chip on their shoulder. They want to be a group that's not the one that, didn't get it done. And Hunter Provience, the national champion at Montana State, had a tremendous fall camp. Preston Douglas is really athletic and can do a lot of the stuff that Justin did in the past game. He can run, and he's a tough kid. Played well on special teams four years ago. And so he's been in games, made a catch in the bowl game. And so, those two guys will be our top two.
And then we got some young guys underneath them who need to grow up and play early. I think Tex Vaughn's a talented freshman who could play right away. We'll see. It's going to come down to what he does in practice. But Ian Flynt's a guy that could help us. I want to get Gus Ritchey back from the I.R. Probably be mid-October. He'll help that room as well. He's a tough kid, and he played well in the bowl game when he got some reps.
Hunter Provience, you mentioned the national championship that he won. They didn't lose a game after their first two. They won out, did Mon—na State. You know that Cat Grizz and all that is. You see a player of Hunter's size at that level accomplish what he accomplished—how confident are you when you see that? You go, oh, I know that works. That works at this level because I've seen that before.
Yeah. I mean, when I was there, first of all, it's not Cat Grizz. It's Grizz Cat.
Excuse me.
But when I was there, we'd beaten that school 16 years in a row. And so it was a heated robbery. They still hate each other. It's awesome to be a part of. If I ever get a chance to go to that game, I'm going to be there. But I knew they'd be tough. That's the thing, man. Those kids from Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon, and land like from the small towns are tough dudes, man. And so I knew he'd be tough. Great film. Getting to know him as a person made it easy. The other tight end we haven't talked about is Vander Ploog. Vander, man, what a tremendous athlete he is. And so, just getting him healthy. He's practiced this week, but he was out for a while. And so that room has some good parts. Like it's just a matter of getting it all going now.
Is there something to having a guy who's been in a championship environment, whether it's at Montana State, whether it's Miami, whether it's Georgia schools,s that you have players from those schools that you have on your roster now, is it part of their DNA to be in that environment that can help them in this environment get to that championship level?
Yeah, I think in the locker room, Ondre Evans comes from Georgia, and Vander from Oregon. These are playoff teams, right? Like, obviously, Miami's in the national championship game. We got three guys from there. So it helps. And for Hunter to be in the national championship and win it. So they know what it looks like to get there. And I think they'll be great sounding boards for the team when the time comes.
C.J. Bailey quarterback room that the ACC and the country are well aware of, C.J., and then Will Wilson and all that he did last year. What was C.J. trying to work on in fall camp? What do you think he got into fall camp and thought I'm gonna try to was it just off, leadership Was it you know, not necessarily spinning the ball. Was it physical? Has he put weight on what the offseason has been like for C.J., and how's fall camp been for him?
Well, if you ask him, he'd say he worked on everything. I mean, I don't think there's anything that he feels like he's the man at. Like, one of the things that makes him who he is is that he's competitive and wants to get better and better and better, so it's upper-level learning in some ways. Because he's got experience now and he can lean back on that. Even the simple things are getting better at carrying out ball fakes after he hands it off, like, there are just little things he's doing now. Where his eyes are on plays, trying to look people off, understanding defense is way better.
So involved in their protections now, where he used to, Kurt wouldn't let him even think about it, like. And now he's directing traffic and checking plays. And so, he's just in command in a different way, which is what you would expect as a third-year player in the system. And a guy that's played as much and competed as much. But his leadership is probably the most noticeable difference; besides, if you haven't seen him, he looks great physically right now. He's put on really good weight, but the way he's commanding the room, his confidence in his voice, the way the team's responding to his voice, all those things, it's been fun to be a part of that
You've had years where you've played one quarterback, two quarterbacks, or even five quarterbacks. How rare is it to have a CJ Bailey at the power level to play three consecutive years at the same school and become the starter for three straight years?
Yeah, don't remind me of five quarterbacks. That was terrible. But yeah, it's what you need to be able to do at that spot. Like, Jacoby was the three-year starter and played every game. Ryan Finley, a three-year starter, played every game. It's been a while since we've been able to do that. Unfortunately, it's just the way it worked with guys getting hurt. So, we need CJ to be upright. We need him to be our guy, and Will's got a big role, and Will's getting better. For those of you who were able to come to our scrimmage, he can throw the football. He's doing a lot of good things beyond just goal-line and short-yardage, and we're excited about his progression. And it's a good room. Kurt's done a great job, not just in who he recruits, but in how he develops these guys and sees their progress.
It's very easy to go to practice and see that both of them are better than they were a year ago. He was a hot commodity, not just here, but elsewhere. Were you nervous at all that you might lose him? And when did you find out you weren't gonna lose him?
Yeah, it took some time. Nervous? Yes. I mean, that's just what head coaches do: worry. Unfortunately, that's why I'm bald. We worry a lot, and I knew he wanted to stay. Like, that I did know, and his dad wanted him to stay, but I also know that the market's real, and the money's big for these guys that can play like him. And he had to do the right thing, take his time, and assess what his opportunities were. Talk to his representative and make sure things were the way he needed them to be here, and that everything lined up the way he wanted. Thankfully, we were able to get that done because he belongs here. He wants to be here, and he's a great representation of this program.
