NC State quarterback C.J. Bailey met with the media following the Wolfpack's 34-8 road loss to Virginia Saturday evening.
NOTE: Click the video above to watch the full press conference.
On what went wrong...
Just not executing. We had a good game plan. I feel like we had a great game plan. I ain't been worrying about how we prepared for the game. It was amazing. How we attacked practice every day was phenomenal. But at the end of the day, it came down to execution. That's something that we couldn't do. Whether it was me making throws, making the right throws, or me completing passes, or us in the trenches, no matter what it was, we just couldn't execute. That's something that we're going to lean on. We're going to watch this tape. We're going to go over this tape. We're going to be better. We have 11 games left. We're going to make the best out of these 11 games, for sure.
You talked a lot about confidence in the offseason. Y'all really wanting to win the ACC this year. Not the start you wanted. How do you even rebound?
The confidence never went anywhere. We still got that confidence. We still got that swagger. We always believe in each other. We still believe in us, even right now. There's nothing going on mentally-wise. We're all together right now. To rebound off of that, we're just going to keep coming in and do the same mindset every day. No negative things. Just bouncing back off this game, for sure.
Did you feel like you were off a little bit at all with passing?
Yeah, of course. It happens. It happens. I just need to find a way to re-engage, get my feedback set right, and make the right throws. I was just making the right reads. It was on point. I just wasn't connecting. It led to a lot of stuff. In the first half, we couldn't get past our 50. We put our defense in a bad position. It was just bad luck. We had tips at the line of scrimmage. We rarely had tips at the line of scrimmage. Things happen. It was an odd day.
Kind of piggybacking off of regathering yourself, was it hard to regather yourself after the interception that sent you back to the sideline for the fumble? How did the coaches help you regather as well?
Not at all. It wasn't even hard to regather myself because I was still in it. My teammates were always saying they got me. You're good. You're good. Those words kept me going. I was there. I was in it. We just couldn't execute. That's all it was. It hurts when you can't do it. We're going into this bye week, and we've got to fix everything right now.
Even after a tough loss like that, what do you think you learned the most about this team after the first game?
We're a positive team. Nothing can shake us. Even this game won't shake us at all. We'll keep the mindset we talked about in the offseason. We've been through a lot already. This is nothing to us. We're going into this bye week, but we've got to rebound.
