NC State tight ends coach Gavin Locklear met with the media to discuss Ashton Locklear’s touchdown, the development of Preston Douglas and the tight end room, and much more!
NOTE: Click the video above to watch the full press conference!
What’s it like for you to see Ashton score on Saturday?
It’s an unbelievable feeling, and I'm in such a unique position. To be here coaching, and now he’s playing. I can’t tell you how many people across the country have had that feeling over time. I’m sure it’s probably not a lot.
You manage a lot of emotions because, on one hand, you’re trying to be a coach and not treat him any differently than you treat anyone else. If anything, I’m way harder on him than I am on anybody else.
When you see kids have success, your first reaction is to celebrate. Because on the opposite side of that, they might not have that success, and then you’ve got to be there to help pick them back up. To see him go out there, execute a play, do exactly what he was supposed to do, and finish -- it was an awesome feeling.
Have you been surprised at all by how quickly guys like Preston Douglas and, initially, Vander Ploog, when he was healthy, were able to step up and take over the tight end throne so far?
Not really, to be quite honest with you, because what you guys see on game day is what I see every day. That’s what I see Sunday to Friday.
It’s funny you say that. I was just out there talking to them, and I told them that from Sunday to Friday, I’m going to push them so hard mentally and physically that when they get out there on Saturday, they’re able to play free, play fast, and make the plays that come their way.
That’s how we talk about it. Whether it’s in the run game or the pass game, it’s our job to do our best. Those guys who came in and the guys who were already in our program knew that we had a standard we played by in our room. It was a big standard to uphold.
The one thing I love about all the guys in our room is nobody shied away from it. Playing tight end is hard, man. You’ve got to know a lot of football. You’ve got to be a very smart football player. You’ve got to have a feel for it. You’ve got to have stamina. You’ve got to be able to run routes. You’ve got to be able to block.
Preston’s 235 pounds, and some of the guys he blocks are 260. For him to go out there and play the way he’s playing is impressive. But it’s what he does every day out here. Same thing with Hunter [Provience] as well.
How much improvement have you seen in Preston's blocking? Would you say this was possibly his best blocking game?
Yeah, a ton. When he first got here, he was a guy who played receiver in high school. The one thing that, in my opinion, you really have to try to instill in a kid when it comes to blocking is the will and want to do it.
The minute you don’t see it at the standard you want, you’ve got to correct it right there. All those little lapses, over time, add up when you don’t correct them. We always talk about building our habits.
First, he came in, and he wanted to do it. It was just more of a technique thing. We’ve really drilled the technique over the last two years, and you can see it showing up for him on film. now
He’s not afraid of anybody. He’s not going to shy away from anybody. He’s going to run in there, throw his face in there, and give me everything he’s got.
Part of blocking is physical, but it’s also a lot of mental work, too. It’s knowing where to go. We’re going to practice structures and things like that, and he’s going to have an idea of where he’s going. But that doesn’t mean that when we play on Saturday, a defense can’t come out and do something completely different. He’s got to be able to make it right.
When Stephen Brown’s on the field, he’s got a chance. What’s the learning curve been like for Brown and [Tex] Vaughn as two freshmen?
Yeah, they’re doing a good job as well. I played receiver. So you’re kind of out there in your bubble. A lot of people think there’s not much thinking that goes into receiving, but there’s so much to it because you’re thinking about different things.
How am I going to win on this route versus this technique, that technique, or this technique? What is my adjustment here? What about this coverage? How does this guy play me? What is his technique like?
That’s what those guys thought about a lot in high school. A lot of times, they’re also wide open.
Now they’re having to understand what a three-down front is, what a four-down front is, what my barrier is, what is a single, double or triple, and what are our gap-scheme combinations?
Getting them to understand that is definitely a learning curve, but they’re just like Preston. They want to learn. What it really comes down to is, one, mentally understanding it and then physically just repping it over and over and over again. That’s what we’re getting out of practice.
On how good it is not having to worry about redshirts anymore when playing guys like Brown and Vaughn...
Yeah, I think more importantly for them, it helps build confidence. Anytime as a player you can get on the field, really, it’s whatever capacity it’s in. Sometimes it might be one play a game. Sometimes it’s 73 plays a game. Sometimes it’s 50 plays a game.
Anytime you get out there, your coach has to trust you to put you on the field. Steve had made an awesome play in practice on a fade, and he gave our staff the confidence to put him out there. So we did.
That’s where a lot of things come from. What we see on the practice field is what we’re expecting on game day.
For him, I think that was a big confidence booster because, as a freshman, sometimes guys are playing and you sit back there. You’re used to being the guy, and you’re used to being out there all the time. It doesn’t always happen that way.
For him, more than anything, it was a confidence booster. For Tex, it’s a confidence booster. He goes out there, and we ask him to do some things in the run game. I mean, he’s fearless.
For those guys, I think it helps build their confidence. It’s, “OK, I can play this position at this level.”
What did you like about Stephen’s block in the end zone on that defensive back?
I mean, it was good. He tries to win on the route. The guy’s outside leverage on him, so it’s a hard look. I would have loved for him to be more physical, as we talked about. But at the end of the day, he finished the play.
That’s one of the things we’re extremely hard on in our room: finishing a play. It’s not good enough to think, “I do my assignment, my assignment’s done, and now I just move on to the next play.”
You don’t move on to the next play until the referee has the ball, he’s put it back down, and we’re ready to call the next play.
I think the two guys for us last week who played a lot—looking at them on the bench after the game—it looked like they just played a seven-hour football game. I was able to sit there and say to them, “This is what it feels like to spend every ounce of energy you have helping our team win a game.”
How good has it been to see Preston become a bit more of an explosive player, not only getting in on those short-yardage situations but also catching the ball downfield?
You turn on his high school tape, and that’s what you get. You know that’s what you’re getting in him. You could see some of that last year in practice, as he was getting opportunities to show us.
But it’s the same thing, man. It’s building confidence for him. You can see his confidence rise week in and week out, practice after practice, meeting after meeting.
Now he goes out there and runs routes, and he’s just thinking, thinking, winning all the time.” For him, that’s really important because, especially in our offense, we’re going to throw the ball to tight ends.
You had a guy like Justin, who was a great talent, and my mind wasn’t, “OK, this year we drop off.” My mind was, “This year we go higher.” We raise the bar, and it goes even higher. He’s doing a great job of making plays in our room that come our way.
He really wants the one from last week back early in the game, the contested catch. That’s what I really try to prepare those guys for, those contested-catch moments.
If I throw you a hitch out here and nobody’s around you, I expect you to catch the ball, and that has everything to do with focus. But if we throw you a seam ball down the middle of the field and the corner’s overlapping and you can’t see him, we talked about it in practice. That’s what we prepare for.
Every catch we try to make in practice is a contact catch because those are the ones that show up in the game to change it.
