Dave Doeren: "It's Going To Be A Great Football Game"

NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media to discuss Senior Day and the season finale against rival North Carolina.

Opening Statement...
I'm excited for our seniors this week and to have rivalry week and senior day at the same time, for 12 guys who have been through a lot and done a lot for our program.

It's always an emotional day for the young men and their families.  

It's a day I remember very well as a player, probably the only game I remembered almost every snap of, as long as that was now.

These guys, all of them – even those who have been here a short period of time like Tabari – have made a lasting impression on me and our staff. 

Emanuel McGirt and what he's been through. Will Brown is a great young man to be around.  The Dabb twins... who are getting ready to go off to the world and one will be a doctor.

Stephen Griffin, Tabari Hines, Deonte Holden, Kishawn Miller, Jarius Morehead, Larrell Murchison, Jackson Quiggle, and James Smith-Williams... 12 very special young men to me, my staff, and our team.

We get to play our final home game against our rival... every one of these games has been heated. I know how much we want to win. I know how much they want to win.

To our fans, we will be in all Red, and we want to have all of you out there wearing your Red for us... cheering these young men on, honoring our senior class the right way. I know how much this game matters in the state.

For us as a football team it's about putting together four quarters of football and finding a way within the good that we've done, like the second half last week, of being consistent throughout, executing, playing hard, not giving people things.  

In that football game we lost, we won the turnover margin, and that's improvement.   It's keeping ourselves from giving up the explosive plays, which is a challenge against North Carolina's offense.

They are obviously playing well with Sam Howell at quarterback and their tailbacks are very impressive young men. Their receiving group has made a lot of plays for them throughout the season. I think coach Longo does a nice job schematically with what they do.

Surratt may be the most impressive guy considering he was a quarterback a year ago and now he's a 100-tackles as a linebacker. That's a unique story for them.

It's going to be a great football game.  I really look forward to the opportunity to compete and go out there and play.

How much have you been able to see them this year?
I've watched them every week. With our schedule being what it was, the Thursday games and four Saturdays we didn't play, I've had a chance to watch a lot of college football and we've have had a lot of cross-over opponents.

We've been able to watch them, whether through coach's film or at home.  I'm very aware of what they've been doing throughout the season.

Did you know they've had the world's most interesting season you could possibly have?
I don't think so. I think that would be us right now.

They have played close games that have gone down to the wire... is that the expectation this week?
It's a four-quarter game. It doesn't matter what your record is or what your injuries are. Last year they were a team that hadn't won a lot of games and took us to overtime with nine wins. We went  up there a few years ago when they had 10 wins and we were fighting to get into a bowl game and we killed them.

It's one of those games, you have to show up and play.  No one cares what happens the previous 11 weeks. It's what happens that Saturday.

How important was the second-half comeback to give you something to build on?
It was very important. I think our guys showed a lot of heart. 

We went in [halftime], in a tough spot, and to see the resolve of the guys, how they came back. To hold them to seven points in the second half and offensively have a chance to win it. There are a lot of positives in that.

Devin Leary continues to get better and better, and he has confidence. He stood up in postgame in the locker room and talked to his teammates as a leader, and they are playing hard for him now and believe in him. That's something we didn't have early when we were going through all the stuff we were going through. That's a huge positive.

Now it's just growing from that confidence we gained and knowing we have to put four quarters together.
Run game versus Georgia Tech was very consistent in attempts. Was that the thought process going into the year?
Our offense is not built to throw 60 times per game. That's not what we recruited all these guys for.

We want to be balanced, you know that, but we want our run game to set up our pass game.  We want to take advantage of light boxes when we get them, and we want people to have to put numbers in the box which makes it easier to throw. There have been games where doing that wouldn't have given us a chance to come back because we were down 21.

That's who we want to be. We want to be physical, win the line of scrimmage, and our offensive linemen take pride in pancaking people, get backs to the second level and let them do their thing. We want corners and safeties to have to tackle our backs.

That's a part of how we built this team, and we have good talent in the backfield to feature.  Jordan, Bam, now Ricky back in the fold. The hard part is in the middle of the season we lost some tight ends. That hurt our run game some, and now Cary and Thomas Ruocchio showed a lot of things in that last game, which helps. We moved Derrick Eason to play some tight end because we're down to that, and Derrick is doing some good things for us.  It's allowed him to have a role, but it's different than Dylan and Dylan.

We've had to each week with a piece being pulled out figure out, how we're going to do this? I thought last week we were able to do it pretty well in the run game, and that sets up our quarterback.

You saw last year with Ryan, when people have to put numbers in there it opens up a lot of RPO game for us.

Disjointed weeks... regular week with a holiday that's a family holiday. How does that affect how you prepare?
It is Thanksgiving week, and we'll take time to be thankful with our players... Thursday after practice we'll cut our developmental guys loose to go home and they'll rejoin us for the game on Saturday.  The local travel guys can go see their families and Thursday night we take the whole team to the Angus Barn, it's an awesome feast.  

Hopefully the game pants will fit on Saturday.

All those rivalry games were against Larry. I don't think I'm breaking news, you didn't have a wonderful relationship with Larry. You do have a tremendous amount of respect for Mack. Does that change the dynamic in this game?
No. I don't think I had a bad relationship with Larry, I just think when you're rival coaches there will be certain things you don't do together. I think we were cordial with other, but I'm going to compete hard against whoever that guy is.

I'll do the same with coach Brown. I have great respect for him, I always will, but when you put the ball down it doesn't matter who is on the other sideline. You're coaching your guys and you want to win.