Doeren: "Our Focus Was Excellent"

NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media following Thursday's practice.

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Have you talked about the importance of not letting one turn into two?

One of our team goals this year that we talked about as a program is a 1-0 philosophy, which means at the end of the game you have 24 hours to celebrate what you did or to focus on what you need to improve on. At the end of that, we have our team dinner Sunday night to put it away and move on.

The leadership council started Sunday morning... they were texting everybody on the team and moving on.  I thought our focus was excellent.  I think that's something that obviously we went through last year, and the guys have talked a lot about in the locker room as far as just moving on to a new week and new focus... a new opportunity.

You mentioned B.J. Hill sending out the text... is that unusual for his personality? Does that surprise you at all?

It's not in the locker room.  I'm thinking in front of people he doesn't know he's not an outspoken guy, but with his teammates when he talks people listen and he doesn't say a lot but usually when he says something it's like he did. 

He was the one that sent the message out, “the 24-hour rule is in effect guys, and it's our job to go out there and win the game next week.  Let's make sure we do that.”

Were you curious to see which guys would step up and fill that void?

It's always interesting to see the guys that weren't that way, and they become seniors and they feel that clock running out on them.  You see different things emerge, and he's one of them.

I think Tony [Adams] has become more vocal.  I know Tony's vocal around you guys, but he hasn't always been that way with his teammates.  He was great this week talking to the offensive line.

How is Mike Stevens progressing?

He was out there yesterday. We had individuals yesterday, and he went through it. Today he's recovering, and we're hopeful that he'll go through everything next week. 

They are going to move him in slowly and progress him.  We'll put him in skelly and if he does a good job in skelly we'll move him into team reps with the goal of playing and in next week's game.

So he is still progressing the way you guys are hope?

Yeah, that's the goal right now.  I saw him this morning.  He felt great, and his muscles are sore. But that's what you expect when you don't do any football for a couple of weeks.  He's doing really well.

Is Big T ready for 60 or 70 snaps?

We hope so because that's what we need. He missed camp which means he didn't have the opportunity to get into football shape.  He's been practicing for the last two weeks.  He looked really good yesterday and today. He struggled on Tuesday, conditioning-wise, because of how many plays we run, but he was excellent yesterday and today. Each day he'll keep getting more and more in shape.

He's going to start at right tackle so we feel like he's ready to play.

Between Mike's injury and the suspensions, do you feel more settled this week and knowing you could have Will and Mike back next week?

Next week will be adding guys in.

This week we're still without them. We know where we're at. We know what we have.

The good thing is that the young guys that played... they're going to be better in week two because I know it doesn't matter how prepared you are, you're going to be nervous for your first college game. So I think we see great improvement out of those guys that played in their first game last week.

Depth wise, you get a bounce next week.  We're going to add in at both of the spots you mentioned and that sort of helps to gain some depth back.

Has it been more difficult for you? It does seem like there have been more things that you've had to deal with, discipline-wise, than in years past.

I think the one incident has taken a lot of my time, but it hasn't distracted our football team. The fact that they were freshmen that weren't going to play in the game anyway didn't disrupt our depth. That part of it, from a locker room standpoint, it was not a disruption, but from a coaching standpoint  when there's things like that I have to deal with it takes time away from other things that you could do.
 
It's just part of the deal. I mean every day you get a new opportunity and new challenge and you've got to figure out the best way to handle it.  I feel like I've done that with our coaches and our players .  We just have to keep working through it.

With Will Richardson, you said that was from the spring and you had prepared for it?

Correct.

How do you feel Nyheim Hines and Reggie Gallaspy complement each other?

I think they're great. 

As far as from a defensive standpoint, you've got one guy that can really run that shifty and runs hard and another guy that's a real downhill runner.

So those plays they are in on are the same plays but they fit differently because of how they see them as running backs. 

I like that, that rotation.   I think it gives us something.  Whether it's short yardage, or first down second down, even third down, the different things they can bring out of the backfield and create opportunities for Eli from a play-calling standpoint.