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NC State Football

Dave Doeren: "We Respect Them A Lot"

October 31, 2019
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NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media one final time before the Wolfpack's road game at Wake Forest.  Check out what he had to say.

NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview.


Tabari Hines said that Wake Forest really gets up for this game.  Do you think they treat this more like your UNC game, where you guys see it as another game?
We definitely see it as an in-state rivalry game.  It’s the longest standing in-state rival from a consecutive game standpoint. We’re aware of that.

With our football team, and even in the UNC week, we just have to be the best us. If I spend all my time talking about the rivalry... it’s about how we’re going to play in this game that matters. 

From being here, the build-up to certain games hasn’t been good for us as opposed to the focus to play well.

We respect them a lot. We want to be undefeated in the state, and that’s something we still control right now. This is the next step to doing that, and we have to play a really good football team.

Do you think with Devin Leary having a little more experience now you can open up the playbook more, or did he have the whole thing versus Boston College?
I think opening up the playbook is the wrong thing to do. We have to execute the playbook.

Whatever the plays are, whether we have 50 or 100 in the gameplan, we have to execute.  We have to catch passes, protect our quarterback, see the run lanes, finish blocks.  We have to play football.

Devin is excited and has done a good job. I’m excited for him, and I think he’s got a good look to him, but adding plays to a guy going into his first start? That doesn’t make sense.  It’s about executing plays.

Cecil Powell is moving back to defensive back.  How difficult is it for a kid to bounce back from one to another?
Remarkably not difficult for him.  He played both ways in high school so he’s used to being on both sides.  He was recruited by other schools as a wideout so he has that skillset, and it’s out of necessity for us with four corners out.

To have the ability to have even a two-deep at this point is pretty crazy. The fact that we have De’Von, Malik, Kishawn, and Cecil, we still have four guys we feel really good about.

What did you see from Joshua Harris at Boston College?
Josh has done a good job.

He was in a position when he got here where he needed to lose weight, and he’s dropped 25 pounds. He still needs to get lighter.

He played well with his hands, and I think conditioning will always be a factor when you’re at a place where you want to be in the 320s probably with him.

He’s got better each week since he got back from his injury, and that was very valuable for him to be out there. He eats up a lot of space, he can take on double teams, and he can knock the pocket back. It’s about him being able to sustain it now with his conditioning.

What do you want to see from your rush defense?
There are so many things we have to do better than we did at Boston College.  Run defense starts with your leverage, guys being gap sound, and it’s about tackling. For us, all of those things matter and the games we’ve done that well we’ve played really, really good football.

It’s the fundamentals of run defense. Wake Forest does a nice job where a lot of plays are runs with passes, the RPO game, so you’re defending both a majority of the time.

 
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