NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media via Zoom following the Wolfpack's 73-0 win over Richmond Friday evening.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Doeren’s press conference.
Opening Statement
I’m really proud of our football team. I’m proud of our players, first of all, and the way that they allowed us to coach them, the way that the staff took criticism. I think everybody sat in there after underachieving two weeks ago and had a tough pill to swallow. We had14 days to have to eat it, and we did a great job, and that's what you want. You want a response, and I told them that in my pregame speech today. They went to work that next day, and we had some really physical, competitive practices. It was all about the preparation. It wasn't about the team we were playing. It was about 11 guys doing their job, doing it [on] consecutive plays over and over and over, making fewer mistakes and just executing. I'm proud of them. You had the lightning delay — you have great momentum, and you have a lightning delay — and the guys didn't lose any focus. They stayed hungry and came right back out, and that's a great sign, so I'm proud of the guys. I'm thankful to the fans that came back. That was a bummer [that some fans didn’t come back after the delay]. We had a really good crowd, and then some of the people didn't come back, and I just want to thank the ones that did. It means a lot because we need that place packed. We need it packed every game, and so it's a bummer when you have something like that go down and have to sit in the locker room or in the parking lot or whatever it is for 90 minutes. Individually, for the defense get a shutout, the offense to score 70-some points, to have a young man join us who didn't even know how to put on a football helmet as a kicker from the soccer team [Drew Lovelace] and do what he did tonight as we get Nick [Konieczynski] healthy, it was just a lot of good individual performances. The little things that happen throughout the game, Teague Anderson goes in and plays center for three quarters, and he hadn't played a snap of center in a game. He played a lot in practice but never in a game. Little things like that really jump out to me. The way the offense was able to function as we rotated after the the starters were removed, production just kept going. I thought Will [Wilson] did some really good things running the offense, and the running backs played extremely hard. They got a lot of yards after contact today, and that was great to see.
On scoring 45 points after the weather delay…
Like I told them, we had a lot to prove, and just because we played good for a quarter and four minutes, I didn't care how long we sat in there. We needed to come out hungry. We had a lot of football left, and there was 10 minutes left in the second quarter when we were able to start playing again. I'm just thankful that the guys understood. I was very clear during that break about what I expected when we came back. Again, it's not about who you play; it's about how you play, and I wanted to see them execute for four quarters and continue to play with that energy and level of fun that we played with. I think that's really critical for this team to play loose, to play well, and they did that today.
On utilizing Jonathan Paylor...
I'm happy for Jonathan. It's been a long time for him to get those moments. He's been waiting two years to play, and so we got him a touch on a reverse, and then he got a really nice run on an outside play, a power read run that he got. I hate that he didn't get in the end zone, but as you return from an injury like an ACL, getting your live work and having success and running through people, that's a big confidence thing for him. It's huge for the team when you have a kickoff returner with his speed and now a confident kickoff returner. It's just another weapon.
On seeing the offensive line win in the trenches…
When you win at the line of scrimmage, everything on offense works… everything. The quarterback has more time. The running backs [get] bigger holes, The wideouts and tight ends [get] more time to get open. You're just going to score a lot more points when you dominate up front, and we were able to do that today. We have a much better group [that] we play in the next one schematically as well, a really, really good football team coming up. I'm just proud of the way they played today. We get two weeks now to look at what we were in week [zero], what we were in week two, and where we need to go from here. There's a lot of things we can do better, but we were physical and played really hard up front, so I'm proud of those guys for that.
On C.J. Bailey’s performance…
He distributed the ball. He played on time. He was accurate. He did some things with his legs when he needed to. He took care of the football. I thought he played a really clean, good football game today, and he was great in the run game too, getting us into some plays and carrying out his fakes. I thought he did a great job.
On Lovelace joining the team…
That's part of this new age of college football: as they shrink our rosters, you're going to have fewer guys on your team. Nick had a minor injury that he'll bounce back from pretty quickly, and the last thing I wanted to do is over-kick Kanoah [Vinesett], and then he's got a problem, and so we were just trying to find somebody. We called over Kevin Hansen in compliance [who] knows the soccer roster really well. I called him and asked him if there's anyone that he thought the soccer team wouldn't use this year that we could benefit from. Drew's name came up, so we called over, and he wanted to try. He came over and showed us what he could do. It's not the same as Nick, but he did a great job. Seriously, he could not put on a helmet 10 days ago or whenever it was that we added him, so I’m proud of that kid. He’s a guy who played in the national championship in soccer last year. He's been in big games, so we knew he'd have poise and competitive spirit. I’m happy for him, and it was great for our team to be able to do that because it took some pressure off of the other guys.
On balancing how well the team played against Richmond versus what needs to improve for the upcoming Vanderbilt game…
When we watch the film, I'm sure a lot of that'll be talked about. Tonight, we did what we were supposed to do. We dominated the line of scrimmage. Guys took care of the football. Defense got the ball back. It was a dominant performance in every phase. We did what we had to do, and I'm not going to downgrade or our opponent.There's a lot of good FCS football teams. Richmond's been one for a long time, but we also know that we're getting ready to play Vanderbilt and then App State, and we’ve got some really good teams coming up. We're going to do a lot of good-on-good again. I think that's really good for us, and we’ll get our guys ready for the next one, but tonight, we're going to celebrate what we just did.
On his postgame comments with Russ Huesman…
He said we have a great team. I told him if there's anything we could do to help him or his staff, and I wished him luck.
