QUOTEBOOK: Dave Doeren's Monday Press Conference

NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media to discuss the upcoming game against Marshall.

Opening Thoughts...
It was a wild weekend and it still is for some.  A lot of prayers gone out, thoughts about communities in our state and the surrounding states with the hurricane.

Obviously here we weren't hit as hard as I expected... really proud of our operation staff. A lot happened last week in a pretty short period of time. We went from preparing for a really good football team in West Virginia to all of a sudden having to put plans in place for 115 players and all of our staff or families.

We put together a really good plan and it ended up being a very good way to handle a very tough situation.  Just thankful to get them all back here safely and thankful to our staff and all the people that helped us deal with what we had to deal with.

On a positive, we had a few extra days to get healthy as we waited it out.  Jakobi, Steph, and Dylan Autenrieth all practiced on Sunday.  Excited to have them back.

As you know, Cary Angeline will be able to play in this game. A lot of hype has gone into him and for him it's his first college football game in over a year. I think for us it's just exciting to get him back on the field and let him play and see where he's at but not put too much on him early and let him work his way into it like you do most young players, which he is.

We started as a staff last Wednesday preparing for the Marshall game after we had our plan in place for our team and worked pretty diligently on Thursday and Friday, not knowing if we would continue to have power or not. 

Then had a good day Saturday at home with our families watching football. I was at the team hotel with our team for guess it was Thursday, Friday, and part of Saturday as we waited the storm out.

So it was a good weekend to watch the football for our guys, I think unexpectedly. And then they came back yesterday. We picked things back up and got a good practice in last night preparing for a very good Marshall football team.

Just talking about them, they are 2-0 and 8-5 last season.  The biggest thing that jumps out as is they've got 17 of 22 starters back when you look at their offense and defensive teams and then the returner, kick returner is back. So very experienced team, a lot of fourth and fifth-year players when you look at their starters, six seniors and four juniors on defense... basically the entire defense that we played against and they played us well.

Offensively they have a great receiver that we really struggled against a year ago, particularly in the first half.  The other receiver, No. 7, is also playing well.  Both receivers are averaging 12 yards plus per catch.  All five offensive linemen are back, both running backs. The newest part of their team is their quarterback, and he's a young guy that is playing well, five touchdowns and one interception.

They have a new offensive coordinator, Tim Kransey, I'm very familiar with him.  I haven't coached against him, but I've followed his career. I think he's a really good young football coach and did really good things last year at Sam Houston State.

A very storied program, the best winning percentage at home in college football, 83% percent win percentage at home. 

Defensively 4-3, 4-2 defense, they do both.  They do pressure quite a bit, about 40 percent of the time. Their backend players make a lot of plays... their corner, No. 3, has improved a lot and looked really good on film. Cox is a really good linebacker for them... was good for them last year.

Really good football team, and we have a lot of familiarity obviously with Doc and his time here, coach Barlow and his time at Marshall. 

We know their fans will be great and we'll see where the weather goes. We're expecting to be wet when we play on Saturdays and we'll do our best to prepare for that as we always would. Question. 

What was your week like after the cancellation?
We went Tuesday and then found out coming off the field that the game was called and then met with the team Tuesday night and informed them that we're going to send them home unless they couldn't get home. Those players that couldn't go with a teammate or wanted to stay in Raleigh, were going to go with us to our team hotel here.

We just felt like if they're either with their parents or with us, obviously you're planning for the worst, so lost power and had flooding and not been able to take them to places to eat. I felt like that was the best way to know that everyone was safe and so we did that. We checked into our hotel. 

Thursday we transported them to our hotel or they went hom. Then they were with us there Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and everyone came back Sunday at 2 o'clock.

Did everyone make it back?
Yes, everyone made it back.

Coaches don't like change, how did you handle not playing?
It's not ideal, but it's out of our control too, so you make the most of it. I told the players you try to find a positive in everything.

We were a little beat up at the time and it was really hot training camp... I think having that chance to kind of hit reset, catch up on our sleep and it was good for all of us. 

Hate to look at a bad situation as a positive, but we did get something out of it.

I think we made the best out of a bad situation.

Did you have a lot stay back?
About a third of the guys stayed here.

Thoughts on Cary Angeline's role in his first game...
Our receivers are playing really well. We're going to get him going in practice this week and see where he's at. He's been on the scout team getting ready. It's not going to be like all of a sudden he's out there getting 30 catches in a game.

He's going to have to work his way into playing and blocking, but he will play.  He'll be a part of what we do and he'll work his way in.

We're excited to have him back. It's definitely a position that needs to play better, and I know they are excited for that opportunity.

Are you concerned about the first road trip?
Well, it's an opportunity, and I look at it more like that than a concern. It's an a chance to play in a good place. It will be sold out, I'm assuming... a night game there. It's going to be pretty good environment.

Our guys will be excited about it, a chance to play in their place. We liked going on the road, something we look forward to. It's a chance to be with your team and you against everybody else. Our guys enjoy that. 

What's your plan? This we a regular plan?
We're planning on practicing on the turf because they have a turf field, so we'll either be in the indoor or outdoor turf based on the rain that we're getting. Hopefully it will be outside at least one or two of the days... use the wet balls like we have in the past.

Nobody said anything about needing to get there early yet. 

Grant Gibson is listed on the depth chart on offensive guard...
Grant played center in high school and we asked him to start snapping during our QB quarterback exchange period just so if a bomb went off... Sculthorpe backs up Garrett but he's also our sixth-best, so if we had a situation where he went down and Bradbury we wouldn't have a guy because Kollin Byers went down in training camp.

Grant started doing that for us and it's really is a function of how well some of the other guys were playing.  He just wasn't getting a lot of snaps on defense, and I think long-term he can be a lot like Bradbury over there. 

He's very smart. He's extremely intelligent football-wise, and he already knows how to play. He practiced it yesterday. He was our center of all the two reps yesterday and he was great.

He's excited about it. We're excited for him...  We moved Garrett over there and gave him a chance to to learn it so that when we lost the starter that we had we were able to plug it in and it gives us that same opportunity now with Grant there.

I think it makes our football team better, and it gives him a better path.

Did you get to evaluate the run game?
Well, we got better on the line of scrimmage with our o-line from week one to week two. We're still inconsistent, one guy here or there.

We struggled at tight end last week... that's a position I know coach Faulkner wants those guys to play better.  That group will play better, having some personnel changes there will help too.

Getting Dylan Autenrieth back is a big deal for some of our run game and adding him and Cary at the same time presents more opportunity for us personnel-wise. 

Trent Pennix will continue to get better. I think that's the one thing that we saw, not just from the game, but practice since the game, he's playing with more confidence and faster.

We're young company... 82 percent of our points are from guys that haven't scored yet. 

It's going to take a little time to get it where we want, but I do feel like we're going in the right direction.

Do you want to have a 12th game?
I would love to have a 12th game personally, but it has to fit what we want.

We have a bye week that we want to keep for the reasons it was put there... middle of the year before Clemson and everyone else. 

Obviously you want to be in the best bowl game you can be in and having that, if you can win it, gives you another opportunity to move up.

It's got to be the right team, and you've got to find the right opponent that's willing to come here. We want to play a home game f we do it obviously, but those conversations have started. 

When it becomes real you guys will find out about it.

Thoughts on Brady Bodine moving up the depth chart...
Ricky is still out, just had a muscle injury in his leg and so he's out. Brady took advantage of an opportunity in the game. He's always been super dependable, a great special teams player for us, and he just knows what to do all the time.

I think sometimes there's a lot of value in that.  He's going to hit the right hole. He's going to play with good pad level, he's tough, he knows the protections.  He can be in there for Reggie on third down.

I think that's it more than anything. It's just we already know Trent's young, and it's not having another young guy there... it's a veteran behind them before we can get Trent and Ricky going again.

That's where it is.