NC State's CB Jackson Vick, QB CJ Bailey, and HB Duke Scott met with the media to discuss the 41-31 win against Appalachian State.

NOTE: Click the videos above to watch each press conference!

CB Jackson Vick

Jackson, how important was it to get out of this game with a win, regardless of the final score?

Yeah, we really needed this one. Everybody knows what happened last week, and we're just playing this in-state program. We always want to go undefeated in the state. We got a couple of in-state programs, and this was a really big win for us as we came down to the wire.

Jackson, I wonder if you could walk me through those last two plays, the third-down and fourth-down plays. It looked like you got your hand on both of those balls.

Yeah, we were locked on, man. We knew they were going to go for it on the fourth down, so we were locked on, man.

Jaren made a great play on the No. 1 receiver; let me get over the top on third and fourth down. Just good technique. My coach had been talking about my technique the whole game, so I was really honing in on the details. Those last two plays were very big.

What was the difference in defensive execution, defensive play when App State was able to come back and tie the game?

We knew we had to stay together. That was the biggest thing, staying together over those last few moments. And we knew it was going to come down to our backs.

We executed. We all came together on the sideline. And the leaders — it's on the leaders. As I said early in the season, it's on the leaders. The leaders stuck together tonight.

The offense only had 65 yards in the third quarter. How important was it from a defensive perspective to pick them up?

Yeah, complementary football is everything in this program. So when we're down, we know we need them to get us right. And when they're down, we need to get them right.

We have to do our job. Whoever has the hot hand, that's who we have to go with at the time. So defense started off slow in the second half, and then offense was finishing a little slow. So we had to finish the game, and that's just complementary football. Everybody showing up when their name is called.

Jackson, you mentioned last week. At any point, does that start to creep into your mind when you're up by 21 and all of a sudden it's tied? Do you start to have some bad memories of last week and sort of how that game went?

Yeah, I wouldn't say we have bad memories. I'll say we learned from those lessons last week. Whenever we learn those lessons, we keep them in our heads.

We don't look at it as a bad thing, but as a chance to learn from it and grow from it. Finishing the game was big tonight. We finished the game on defense, and we didn't really get to do that. We had opportunities in other games.

So that's just a big thing, just always finishing the game on defense. That was a big thing tonight, finishing.

QB CJ Bailey

CJ, what was the biggest difference in the third quarter for the offense? It seemed to be like you guys were stuck in neutral a little bit.

Well, first, I want to address something. Our line just played their asses off. The trenches became that game, like a run game. I'm so proud of the display they put on that field.

They pushed hard in that third quarter. That was the biggest difference. They just started moving bodies, moving guys around. We started pounding with Duke Scott, Davion Gause. They were running hard, and I'm so proud of those guys in our run game, in the trenches.

That's where it starts. We tell those guys every day, like, it starts with y'all. It's like with me. It starts with y'all up front. And that's what they did in that second half, so I'm proud of them.

To follow up, what's it like to have a guy like Duke that you can just hand the ball to and let him go to work?

It's just very relieving. It takes a lot of stress off me as well, and just giving him the ball and letting him run is an amazing sight. It's an amazing feeling when you're going from first-and-10 to first-and-10 again. It's a great feeling to have Duke Scott in the backfield for me.

Did you get nervous at all when App State started its comeback?

Oh, not at all. It was just a very level-headed mindset. We've all been in positions like this before, where we had to go down and score and make a play. It was a lot of guys trying to give words and stuff like that, and I was just like, "Hey, everybody, relax. Just calm down. We got this, bro. One play at a time, we're going to get down there and go get in the box."

Duke Scott, he did a great job with that and helping us out. There are a lot of guys who were leading from the sidelines and helped us out as well. But at the end of the day, we just had to keep a level head, understand that we've been here before with that drive.

And to follow up, how do you ignore all of the outside noise so you can do that, so you can keep that level head?

Just gathering, putting ourselves together. We can't hear anything when we're together. I did a good job with just bringing everybody up at once.

Let's come up here and get in the huddle. Get in the huddle on the sideline before kickoff, or whatever the case may be, and talk to each other, feeding each other good words. That was the best way to block out everything. Nobody can hear if we're talking.

HB Duke Scott

Do you feel like you really got going in the first quarter and then settled down until the fourth quarter? What was that like for you, I guess, as a running back, finding your rhythm early and then getting it again late in the game?

It was one of those things where we started off hot. As the game went on, they started making adjustments, and we started to open up our playbook a bit more, with a few more passes and stuff like that. So we just took it a play at a time, and we started moving the ball.

The flow of the game is just the flow of the game. So when I was needed, when my number started to get called again in the fourth, I was ready to deliver.

To follow up, how do you keep yourself locked in for that moment when they start giving you the ball again to just go out there and do your thing?

I'm always locked in. I'm always ready for my number to be called. It's not a situation where I'm stepping back in or stepping back up. I'm just ready.

So if it's a game where we start running the ball out, I'm ready to go.

Duke, obviously Jackson mentioned what happened last week. You guys are up 21, and all of a sudden you find yourself in a tied game. Did some of those thoughts come to your mind, kind of, "Here we go again?" And if not, how did you block those out?

Not at all. Personally, those thoughts never come to mind. I think we do a great job of, whether we're down, up, or tied, we're always trying to build and build and finish the game.

So when we got tied up, we were exactly where we wanted to be. It wasn't a situation where we were nervous or scared. We put our fists up in the fourth quarter because we knew we were going to fight, and that's what we did.

You said after the UVA loss that y'all were not happy with the offensive performance as a whole, including the run game. I think y'all have rushed for over 150 yards in each of the last three games. How important was it to get that test early, and how do you continue that?

We knew at UVA it wasn't a game that we wanted to keep putting on tape, and we knew that they were a good team. So having that early test, we found out where we were at, and we didn't like that.

So we knew we were coming to practice and were going to work hard every day because that's our résumé. I knew I didn't want that on my résumé every game of the season. So that work that we put in all the time, all the after-hours we put in to make sure that we're not going to put that on tape — that's what we do.

Is that kind of the same mindset as you move forward from last week as well?

A hundred percent. We played a great game last week, and it's just unfortunate how it ended, but that's something that we want to keep doing. We want to keep putting up a lot of yards on offense, keep scoring, and finish games.