NC State head coach Dave Doeren recently spoke on the Wolfpack Weekly Radio Show, where he discussed the shutout against Richmond, preparing for Vanderbilt, and much more!
Of all the great things that happened in a 73-0 win, what were some of the highlights for you? What were some of the things you were most pleased with in this ballgame, given so many incredible statistics?
Yeah, I think just the way we executed throughout the game, even with the break and the number of guys. Eighty-five players played. We probably had the fewest mental errors in a football game. Didn't fumble once. Had a lot of guys carrying the football, three different quarterbacks handing that off. So there are a lot of things that go wrong when you're talking about that many people playing.
But defensively, I think eight three-and-outs, two takeaways. Offensively, obviously, the rushing numbers were awesome to see. I like how we started, though. A 10-yard completion from CJ, an explosive run from Duke, coming off the defense's three-and-out to open the game. There's a lot to be happy about.
I think that's what we needed. We needed to go play really good football, and we did. All the focus was on executing. The points will show that when you execute, you can move the football, score well, and stop people well, man. So just put a premium on that, and that showed up on film.
Loved the demeanor the guys brought to it. They had fun playing. They were loose. And so we're learning what this team is as we go with 51 new players. Obviously, Week Zero was a failure, and so we learned a lot from that experience, and you can see there was a lot of growth in the next one.
I really enjoyed watching some of the starters' reactions as they watched other guys go in and succeed. It was almost like they enjoyed that as much as their own. As a matter of fact, Duke Scott told me after the game his favorite run of the whole night was not his. It was Dylan McCoy's. So when you get that kind of execution from start to finish, that has to make you feel good as a coach to watch from the sidelines, to see those guys who put in as much effort as the starters but don't get the playing time they do go in and succeed.
Yeah, I think for those guys that got in, unexpectedly got in, that performed well, they earned a lot of respect from their teammates and their coaches. It's one thing to go out, practice, and do it, but a lot of those guys didn't think they'd play. And then they get in, and they play really well.
So I think that's kudos to them for being focused and knowing the game plan, even when they didn't take reps in it that week, and to be able to go in there and play ball. I was happy to see that.
For a coach, it makes you want to do that more when you can, right? Because there are some games I've been in where you put your backups in and then they get scored on and scored on, and you're like, "Dang, these guys aren't going to play anymore." It's the opposite. And a couple of them are going to get opportunities because of how they're putting that game on special teams. It just builds trust. You can put a guy in there, and he can play like that.
There was something you said in the press conference earlier this week, and you just touched on the Virginia game. I don't want to harp on it, but there's a way you phrased it. You said, "Week Zero loss at UVA is a gift as long as you treat it as a lesson," which I thought was a great way to put it, turning something that didn't go the way you wanted into a positive. Was that exemplified in all those guys that you're mentioning going out there and showing their stuff, showing your depth? Noah Moss and on and on and on. So many different guys play and play with such great effort and spirit.
Yeah, all of us want to win 12 games. Every team that went through training camp talked about it. And so when it doesn't go your way, what's the response going to be? We had a great response, and many players played a part in it.
Normally, you're giving kudos to Noah Moss for the look he gave the defense. In this game, you get to give him kudos for his two great runs. And so I think this whole team understands, in this new day and age where you don't redshirt players, that at any time you could be moved up, and when you get an opportunity, you have to capitalize on it.
That was one of the great runs of the night. Unfortunately, it was called back for a penalty. There haven't been many hankies on the field for you guys this year. In two games, you've had six penalties. How impressed are you with that?
Yeah, and I thought three of them were bad calls. You call holding on someone; to me, the guy has to get twisted, grabbed, or thrown on the ground because there's grabbing on every play.
Brody Smith's was definitely a hold. You could see him grab, restrict, and turn the player, and I totally agree with it. But we coach aggressive football, and we coach aggressive football within the rules. I'm happy to see that those things are happening.
But you've got to continue to harp on those. We had no pre-snap penalties, no post-snap penalties. Those are big things when you talk about not beating yourself in a game. And so if we continue to be that kind of team that does that, plays really physical and doesn't beat itself.
Our pregame discussion—I'm jumping around here a little bit from the penalty— you and I touched on it really briefly. You mentioned that the tight end room in the run game acts as an extension of the offensive line as blockers. So my question is, how much credit should they get for eight rushing touchdowns and all the success that you racked up on the ground? I'm talking about Preston Douglas and Hunter Provience and that unit.
Yeah, that's why they were two of our players of the game. We gave six O-linemen who played a lot for us and the two tight ends because you rushed for 400-and-whatever yards, and they're a part of that.
The receivers are part of it. There were some blocks. JoJo had a great block downfield. Chance had a great block downfield. Keenan had several blocks. So those guys were fighting and scrapping for those guys to get explosive runs.
Everybody was a piece of that. How often on film, and maybe against Richmond to some degree because Duke Scott broke a ton of tackles, right, you look at some monster explosive plays, and you go, "That's an unbelievable individual effort by a great running back," or you go, "He was barely touched, and he ran 50 yards, and that's blocking." Is Duke Scott a guy that sometimes goes, "Well, he really ripped that off himself?" The arm tackles aren't going to bring that guy down.
Yeah, I think a good back doesn't let the first guy bring him down. It's a challenge I made to those guys in the team room. If we're going to have explosive plays, a couple of things have to happen, and one of them is making the first guy miss.
Explosive plays usually happen because of missed tackles or busts, one or the other, on the defensive side of the football. Most defenses will have at least one unblocked player at the point of attack, a safety or a corner, and you'll have to make that guy miss or run through them.
And so Duke and Bullet are both very capable. As you saw, several of the other backs are, too. Our job's to design runs that can get those guys to that second-level defender, and then they've got to do what they do.
God gave them the ability to run, and those two guys are strong. So they're going to run through a lot of people, and as you saw, they can make you miss, too.
Playing off of that a little bit, we have a question in here from Mr. Tony Haynes. We saw him this weekend. I actually didn't know this was coming. We're fielding questions for Tony. Tony goes to the yards-after-contact numbers here. I've got to feel like that would be pretty high.
Yeah, I don't know it off the top of my head. It's definitely high. I mean, it's over 100 for sure.
Holy cow.
With you after the 73-0 win over Richmond, getting you prepped for the Vanderbilt Commodores. Head to Nashville this weekend for a game at Vanderbilt. We talked a lot of offense, as you'd think we would last segment, 73 points put up. Let's talk about the zero that you allowed, the defensive side of the ball. That's as impressive, maybe, I don't know, 73 is a lot, but zero is pretty impressive also against anybody, no matter who you're playing. So defensively, we talked penalties a little bit. What jumped out to you on the defensive side of the film that really shut down the Spiders?
Oh yeah, I wanted to get better leverage on the football. We gave up seven explosive runs against Virginia on misleverage plays, and we had none on the perimeter. And so that was a huge point of emphasis.
I like how we played in coverage. Very tight coverage, contested catches if they were caught, a lot of pass breakups. Guys fit the run well. They shed. I made a big point about not just being in your gap, but shedding blocks and destroying blockers and getting to the football, and so you saw a lot more of that.
There's a lot more improvement still coming in those areas. I think we can grow from that game. I thought there were some really good individual performances, and we were able to play a lot of guys again on that side of the football.
So I don't care who you play. It's hard to get a shutout, man. It's really hard. And the one time that we turned the football over, they stopped them there as well. And so that was great to see.
Coach, one of the positions we were looking at was the succession with A.J. Richardson. Who was going to be able to play? You played a lot of guys at that position. Bailey Benson got the start. What were your impressions of him and the other four guys that played?
Yeah, I thought Bailey played well. He was in his alignments, assignments, good in coverage. Got his hands on a ball in an RPO. He didn't have many tackles. The ball didn't come his way a ton in the run game. But he wasn't nervous. He went in there and played good football, and so it was good to see.
Da'Karri got some reps in there. Ziggy got some reps in there. And so those guys will all continue to get reps until one of them secures the spot full-time. Da'Karri's got a role for us, and Moreta's playing more and more. I think he's a guy that's got a lot of ability and can do a lot of things for us at that JACK position.
Harvey Dyson's been really good. You also have Elijah Satchell, who's a youngster who certainly looks the part, my goodness. And then Josh Warren has had some moments as well, hasn't he? And Ke'Von Carter.
And Sterling Dixon. We're playing five different guys, and when we get into our base defense, you'll see two JACKs on the field together. And so that's where you're seeing two of those guys playing, Ke'Von on one side and Harvey on the other, Sterling, or however it plays out.
But I've been impressed with that rotation, and all of them bring different things to the table, and we keep each other fresh.
I really like how Harvey's playing in the run game. That's one thing I wasn't sure about when we signed him. I knew he could rush the passer, and he's done that for sure, but man, he's been stout in the run game.
He's done some good things setting edges. On the defensive line against Richmond, I believe the starters were Bond, Abraham, and Shirley. Against Virginia were Adedire, Evans, and Shirley. You have multiple guys who can play those positions. What are you trying to accomplish early on here to try to figure out a rotation there?
It's competition. Whoever grades out the best in these games will get the next start, as competition breeds competition in practice.
They're all going to play. They've all earned the right to play, and how much they play is based on how much they produce in the game and how few mistakes they make, like losing gaps and things like that.
But I thought O.J. (Omarian Abraham) had a great week in practice last week and earned the start. We'll see where it goes this week. Some of the best defenses I've been on; that's how it was. If you get two or three equal players, let the game talk about who's going to be the first one out there for the next game.
And Isaiah Shirley even went back to his tight end position a little bit, got a few blocks in there, graded well.
Yeah, losing Cody Hardy, kind of a big hole in the lineup there. Shirley did a really good job as a freshman in that spot. We were waiting to see what the guys we signed and developed would do, and with Gus out, we're kind of a man short in that room.
It was an easy plug-and-play to get Say back in there and let him do what he does. He did a great job, man. He had some good blocks in short yardage and at the goal line for us. I bet the big fella got excited to play on the other side. Two pancakes. So he did a good job when he went in there.
I can imagine that conversation. I think Darius Johnson had a pancake in the end zone on one. Did he?
Yeah.
Good, good.
I was hoping he'd get a bottle of syrup. You mentioned he was an unsung hero in the presser. He's a different type of player than Cody Hardy, but they both did a lot that didn't show up in the stats. Darius is out there just plowing people, kind of like a true fullback. You don't see enough true fullbacks anymore. He's kind of like a fullback.
He is a Swiss Army knife for us. He plays tailback and fullback in our goal-line and short-yardage situations. He starts on almost every special team, and he can do a lot. So it's great having a guy like him.
It's almost like the package deal with Will, on the Will Wilson formation. When you see Will come in, he's going to come in, but you also got to put your team in some football situations that, in a tight game, you may not be able to. We saw Will Wilson throw the ball a lot more than he has before. What were your impressions?
Yeah, I thought Will did a good job operating the offense. He went through his progression. He threw accurate balls. He made good decisions with his feet.
And that's big because people look at Will as a goal-line runner, and now if you're defending Will and you saw that game, you're like, "Dang, the play-actions are real."
And so there's a lot more that's coming, and this package continues to grow and morph kind of as Will develops as a player. And then we've got to do a good job with formations and motions and just trying to dress it up.
Give different eye candy to help in the run game. Eight rushing TDs, and we went to defense in this segment, but if we are talking Will Wilson throwing balls, Keenan Jackson, leading receiver in the ballgame, how good can he be? What's Keenan Jackson's ceiling?
He's Mr. Consistency. He shows up every day.
He's always prepared. He works really hard. He's tough. He's got a big catch radius, long arms, and the ability to track the football. He can make catches.
He's not always the fastest guy, but he's fast enough and knows how to get open. He's crafty, and he and CJ have good chemistry.
One thing I forgot to ask you in the postgame, and this is my fault. How did you handle the delay? What did you try to do? What was your message to them?
How much time did you give them off their feet? Just that whole process.
Yeah, when I first got in there, I said, "We've got 30 minutes. I'll let you know." I said, "Just right now, get off your feet, get a snack, get something to drink, watch your iPads," because we have those to review the game.
I said, "The coaches are going to meet. We'll be back with you." And then we're getting updates from the operations staff on, " Hey, there's another strike, another 30 minutes, so on and so on.
And so after about 30 minutes, I went in there and just kind of, " Here's where we're at. I got the coaches on the iPads with their guys, coaching them up, and ran around the locker room probably 10 different times, just encouraging them to stay focused and reminding them that we've only played one quarter of football. Like, we can't relax right now.
I want to see you play four quarters of football. And the guys did a great job. I was really proud of them for coming back from a 90-minute delay and playing the same way they had before.
We played Notre Dame here a few years ago. We were playing them really well and ended up in a similar situation; we came out flat. And so the first thing I thought of is that we're not letting this happen again. Like, we've got to make sure these guys come out on fire.
And they did. Along those lines, in terms of facilitation and communication, just what's it like? The halftime goes away. There really is no halftime, and then the fourth quarter was actually shortened, right? Five minutes were taken off. Are those just discussions between you and Coach Huesman, or is the referee involved? How does all that work?
The halftime thing came after, like, the fifth lightning strike. It was getting long in there, and I'm just like, "I don't think we need a halftime right after this. Can you find out if we can?"
So our ops guy calls the game ops people, who call Richmond's, and then everybody agreed, yeah, we don't need a halftime.
And then the fourth quarter came up later in the game with our lead. I guess it's happened in two other games, as far as I'm aware. I've never been a part of one of those before.
But again, our ops guy, Kevin, came up and just said, "Hey, this has happened twice this year. If you want to talk to the other head coach, we can see if they'll shorten the game."
So yeah, I said, "Yeah, if he wants to do it," because at that point they were getting short on players, right? And that wasn't best for his team to continue to play, and they were kind of banged up coming into the game, it looked like.
So, for them to get out of the game, go home, and get back to their season, it was the right thing to do.
So that's just a physical conversation that you have with the coach?
I didn't talk to him. I talked to our ops guy, and he talked to them.
Yeah, we buried the lead on this one. We do need to take a break. We've got to talk soccer in the next segment, obviously. Naturally, we need to do that.
It's really an unbelievable story: put a helmet on a kid who's never played football before, have him do so well, and he becomes basically the most-used kickoff guy you could imagine. Drew Lovelace, who played soccer on a national runner-up team, played in 23 games. He started 17 at midfield for the national runner-up, scored five goals for the NC State men's soccer team, lost his eligibility there, and changed sports. How does it come about? Take me through the decision.
I wish it had never happened, because then Nick could still be out there kicking it through the back of the end zone. I hope we have Nick back for this game, because we need him.
But when Nick got injured, the conversation was, " How long is this going to be with the trainers? And I said, " It's a temporary thing. Like, all right, well, we've got to find someone who can make us not have to use Kanoah on kickoffs because there is wear and tear with these guys over the season. The more Kanoah has to kick off, the more you put him at risk. I don't want to lose him as our field goal kicker.
And so, if there's anyone else that we can have. We called the soccer staff. Actually, I called Kevin Hansen, our compliance guy, first and just said, "Hey, if I want to do this, can I?" He's the sport AD for soccer, and I said, "Well, hey, talk to the coach over there and see if he's got anyone that he doesn't need, maybe a reserve player with a big leg."
And so Drew's name came up, a guy that they're not using, who's out of eligibility but had one left for another sport. So we brought him over and kicked him. He still has to get better for us.
We need touchbacks. You kick off 10 times; that's tough duty, but you don't want nine of them to be returnable, and that's what happened in the game. Richmond did us a favor, fair-catching all of them, really, because that's a lot of opportunities to advance the ball that they turned down.
And he will. He'll get better. It's not something that he can't do better. You saw his first kick went into the end zone, and so he has the leg strength. He's a good kid, man. It's been nice having him on the football team.
The guys have taken him in, and he helped us out. Helped us through a game where that guy played a big role. So the first one he put through the end zone. Some other ones were—I don't really want to call them sky kicks, but they didn't make the end zone. Was that by design, or was it just one of those things?
That was all he had in the bag. The only one we had, by design, was Kanoah's to start the third quarter, and that wasn't what we intended. We wanted that ball to go much deeper than it did.
And so that's part of the deal. Sometimes it doesn't work out the way you thought it would, and everyone likes, "What are they doing?" Like, exactly. What are we doing? That's not what we want to do either. We want to kick the ball through the end zone.
We can place a football in a certain spot, give us an advantage, and it just came up really short on his attempt.
Still, one return for nine yards for Richmond. That's pretty good.
Yeah, it was a good day. Special teams, besides the one punt fumble, I thought played really well.
I'm watching them fair-catch this thing in the breaks. We're trying to figure out, hey, Drew Lovelace, we've got a soccer guy. Talking about, well, they're fair-catching all of them. All I could think is, coverage is perfect. This is exactly what Coach Doeren wants.
This is everything. What an unbelievable performance. So they didn't have to come to you and convince you? You guys came up with the idea to go pursue Drew? I'm trying to figure out if somebody walked into your office and said, "Coach, I've got a great idea for you. Let's go to the soccer team."
I mean, look, if he had said no, we might have had a campus tryout. I'm serious. You're down to one placekicker when Nick's out. You can't put everything on one guy if it's one game, two games, three games. He's not used to that load.
And it's a big load when you score a lot of points. That's a lot of kicks, and there's a lot of practice that gets them ready for those kicks. That's what people don't understand. There are only so many bullets in the gun. At some point, their legs get tight, or their hamstring or hip flexor or quad, and now you're dealing with a guy that can't kick field goals.
And so we're fortunate to have the opportunity to add Drew to the team.
It's a great story. It really is. We've got you for about another minute here, and then we'll cut you loose. Vanderbilt real quick, going to Nashville. The Commodores actually are 2-0 for the fifth straight year. They haven't done that since the 1930s. They won 10 games last year.
They're on a stretch of really good football with the Commodores, the best they've ever been. Ten wins last year was a program best. Clark Lea's done a great job. He's got a good football team. They're very physical. There are a lot of kids on the team who were on last year's team.
And now they're going to play their freshman quarterback. He's really talented. Big arm, big kid, can run. So they're going to be a really tough team to play, and I like how they play. They're physical.
It's going to be a physical football game. I told our guys that today. Like, this is an old-school game right here. It's going to be smash-mouth football. And so it's going to be fun.
It's going to be one of those that challenges you in the box, and then there's going to be play-actions. You've got to do a good job defending those. But it's a good football team, and I look forward to playing down there.
You mentioned Jared Curtis, and Coach Lea did make the official announcement that he would start against you guys. It seems like that would be the progression that they were leaning toward. He's a five-star recruit, the highest recruit they've ever had at Vanderbilt, but watching him, you can see he can make all the throws.
He doesn't just have a big arm. He has the ability to place the ball and good touch on the ball. Rolling out, he throws a good football. How complete of a player is he just to be this young?
Yeah, he's talented, man. Effortless when he throws the ball; really good location, deep-ball touch, arm strength, and mobility. He's a good football player.
So now his first start's coming up, so we've got to do a great job against him. We can't let him be in a rhythm and have all day back there patting the football. We've got to stop the run. That's one thing. They're a dedicated running football team, and if you can get it where he has to beat you, see if he can as a true freshman. That's really what you've got to do.
And I know he has the arm strength and the talent, but he still doesn't have the college experience, and that takes time. Things are going to happen that he's not used to.
He seems like a really poised kid, though. He fumbled on the goal line, picked it up, and found a way into the end zone. A lot of guys would have just fallen on the ball. So, a lot of respect.
