Doeren: "It's Going To Be An Awesome Challenge"

NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media to recap the Syracuse win and preview Louisville.

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Opening Statement...

First I just want to say thank you to our fans and our administration... game ops folks for the atmosphere we had Saturday for the Military Appreciation Day. It was electric and a lot of positive feedback from all the people that were there and the recruits and my family and everybody else so thank you for that.

I would love to have another great night this Thursday at the Carter and expect to. It was an honor to get to 200th win in the stadium on such a great day.

It was a good win for our football team over Syracuse, against a very talented offense. To come out of that game against a pressure defense and not turn the football over on offense and not give up a sack and run for over 200 yards. I thought that we did a lot of positive things.

We kind of beat ourselves up in the first two drives in the third quarter which was disappointing, to have to third down drops, but obviously it's situation we can learn from.

I really love the first half both sides of the football how we played. I thought we lost our focus on our edge in the third quarter and that's been discussed, and it will be a great learning experience for our team. It's good to learn something through a win like that.

Defensively, we had a good rush. We had four sacks and nine TFLs, good disruption, two fourth-down stops, and an interception to start the game.  It was a great play by Johnathan Alston.

Moving on to Louisville... a great team. Obviously with a Heisman quarterback returning that leads the ACC in total on offense... 575 yards a game, 40 points and 300 yards passing number one in the ACC. He also leads his team in rushing and has great weapons around him... two receivers average  17 yards a catch and a tight end that's very athletic. They have two big backs over 200 pounds that run hard.

Coach Petrino is a very, very good football coach... very balanced offense,  good play caller and a tremendous opportunity and challenge for our defensive guys.

Their defense is top 25 in several categories and has nine seniors on their defense and a very experienced and well-developed group. They've had their injuries in the secondary like us and not sure where they're at with guys returning. They've had two weeks where they could not play with those guys and still play well. We'll see who shows up in the two-deep when we get to the game.

They have a very disruptive front, four senior defensive linemen and rotational guys that are juniors and seniors. They have a sophomore that is just coming in sparingly but has already has made a huge impact on their defense with five sacks and 9.5 tackles for loss.

So Thursday night you'll have two Top 25 teams fighting on national television. Great opportunity, great challenge for our program and for theirs, and I look forward to it.
 

How much will you have to show them from last year's game to motivate them? 

No, I don't think we have to show any of it.

Not to take anything away from Louisville because they beat us, but we didn't play well at all in that game and we were still not over what happened the week before.

Whether that would have changed the outcome or not we'll never know. But I know our players, that left a bad taste in their mouth just on how they took the field and played. To our credit, we played hard for the whole game and tried to have a comeback there in the second half but that wasn't our best coaching, wasn't our best playing, and we look forward to playing against a team that has gotten the best of us the last three times we've played them.

They're very good.  Offensively, you turn the film on and even when things don't look like they're going well he just makes things happen. He's a great quarterback and has really  worked hard in the offseason... you see it in his passing game.

They've recruited well, they've got big guys receivers.  It's going to be an awesome challenge for the guys.

But to answer your question I don't think last year showing that all that is needed to motivate our group.

You have that win over Florida State. Does it feel different going into a game like this?

I just think it's a different team. It's an experienced football team. We haven't had that before. In the past we've been building a program and and a lot of cases playing with sophomores and freshmen and that's just not what we have this year.

So it's different because of that. We haven't paid any attention to the negative or the positive. We've really focused these guys and focused ourselves on what the task at hand is.  I told them to get off of social media and just focus on the gameplan. You only got a couple of days to learn it and get it right.

That's been our approach. No matter what, after this game will be halfway through and we'll reset, see where we're at, and move on to the next week.

Injury Update On Dakwa Nichols...

He had surgery on both knees he tore his patella tendon in both knees.  I've never seen that before  in my life. It was crazy, but he's doing well.

I talked to him on the phone an hour ago. He was in really good spirits. His family was with them. Coach Kitchings was at the hospital with them before the surgery. And our training staff has been with him throughout, but he's in great spirits. He'll focus on getting healthy, and he's got a few things to turn and for an internship and he's a college graduate.

It's really a disappointing thing for a great young man, but he is doing well.   I appreciate you asking.

What do you think about the Black uniforms... changing uniform colors?

I think there's two things with that. One of them is your current locker room. The guys like that. They like to have occasional changes and not just the same thing and to keep things fresh for our current players.

From a recruiting standpoint, it's always a hit. Every time we've had an alternative Jersey either announced or worn we've had a commitment almost that day or the next day. It does have an impact.

It isn't something that maybe some of the more traditional fans like, but it is a reality in today's recruiting, it is reality in today's youth... to keep things that way. We try to keep it as close to our brand as we can. I think if you look at this uniform you'll see the lettering and trying to tie it into the wolf and different things like that, but I think it's exciting for the young guys and it's definitely helped us.

Does facing Eric Dungey help prepare you for Lamar Jackson?

Well he's on a whole different level athletically.

Eric Dungey as a competitor and as a passer is tremendous. There isn't anybody like Lamar Jackson. There probably hasn't been since Michael Vick.

He's just so fast. His ability to get to top speed is incredible. So we have to do a great job of trying to keep him like we did Dungey, trying to keep him in the pocket, and if he runs having guys that can overlap. Tackling  is the next thing, can you get him down? He's a 200-plus pound guy. He runs through contact. He's a tough guy.

I have a lot of respect for him.

We practice tonight. We haven't practiced yet. We met yesterday and the guys started their film and recovery process and got a good workout in in the weight room.

We'll practice tonight under the lights to kind of get that atmosphere a little bit and then we'll be back into our morning routine tomorrow and then all of a sudden we're playing. So it's kind of where we're at.

You could feel it.  I told the guys how proud I was of them for getting that win. You could feel it immediately how excited they were for the next matchup.

Do you like the Tuffy helmet?

I do like I do like it.

Chris [Boyer] and I met in the summer and it's actually how we planned it... to wear it in the games that w have and to have it on the field because we have a month before we come back home to play.

I don't know where we'll go from here, but I do like it. 

It makes us unique. It's a brand that nobody else has that picture, and for us, from a branding standpoint, really draws attention to what NC State is.  Will we continue to wear it every week. I don't know yet, but I do like it.

If we win, I'll guarantee that we'll wear it next week.  I guarantee it, but we have to get the win first.

I don't think we were poor preparing for big games last year. We just didn't finish. We played really well against good opponents last year, really well, other than the Louisville game. 
We prepared well, our guys played well. We just didn't make a play to win the game at the end [against South Carolina].  I've been impressed with our preparation in every game this year whether we're playing Furman or Florida State. 

We've had a ton of guys watching film, and I just think they're buying into the process of what they need to do as an individual to be ready to play in a football game the right way. Some watch more film than others, some of them watch film together, and you see a lot more guys just partnered up with people studying the tape and sitting in their coaches offices.

Things like that makes you feel great.

Mike Stevens played 33 snaps... how does he feel?

He felt great.  He  made a talk on his first snap in there, which was good to see him go in there and have total confidence in it.

He made a couple of plays, gave up a deep ball, and I think all those things are things he'll get better from, and I think that's what he needed. He needed to get out there and play, and having that rotation in an 87-play game for defense was important.

Louisville's a fast tempo team too. So this is the second week in a row, on short rest no less. We're going to have to play a lot of snaps.

Can you elaborate on your superstitions?

Some of those things just don't need to be shared.

I'm sorry.

How is Dexter Wright doing?

He's doing well, and tonight he'll practice.  He practiced last week.

Our intention is to have him play on special teams and be able to be in the game on defense if he looks good. I'm hopeful.

He asked if he could play on the punt team last week, and I said no because I hadn't seen him tackle or play at full speed yet in practice. Justin, our trainer, thought he was really close to being 100 percent so tonight will be a big night for him.

We have two of our coverage units that he'll get reps on tonight.

Nyheim Hines looked like he had an ankle injury.

He just cramped.

Kelvin Harmon, you called it a drop, but I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he landed on his shoulder.

He's okay.  He just has a bruise. That was a drop though.

Ryan Finley has the top active streak in college football without throwing an interception...

He's playing smart, but he's got lucky too.  He's had a couple of drops by their defense, but that's part of the game.  That's why they're on defense, right? Because they can't catch?

It's just a matter of time. I mean he's not going to be perfect for the year, but he's making good choices. He's putting the ball where it's hard for them to get to it. He's throwing it on time, and the guys are fighting for the ball. Jakobi Meyers' catch was a great catch, where he took it away from their defensive player.

That's what you want. You want him to give them great opportunities.  Like the throw to Steph, the touchdown, was an incredible throw.   The one to he hit Steph in between the coverage on the sideline was great. Those are big-time plays by him, even the scramble to extend the drive that he made was a big-time play.

Just being smart and trusting the next down is going to be a good one. If you watch our game last year against Louisville, the entire game [our defense] was on a short field.  It was awful. The entire game.

So we got to try to flip that script if we can and give our offense and our defense the best opportunities to play their best football.

Finley also seems to make the right decisions in the read option...

It's good blitz control.  If you can run some option and control how they are pressuring you, make them balance up.

I've always felt like if you're playing a team that's good with option, good with screens, and can drop back and throwing the ball, be balanced... that's tough.

Coach Ledford has done a good job in adding some of those elements they did at App to our run game.  

How key is it when all the linemen are taking advantage of attention Bradley Chubb gets?

I think all of them have to feed off each other and take advantage of one on ones. That's the biggest thing as a pass rushers, if you're getting singled you owe it to the other guys to win, and some of them aren't.

Those guys have done that, and you'll see our edges at times will force the quarterback up into the pocket and those guys have an opportunity. Vice versa, sometimes we'll win inside and flush them out.

Those guys have to be disciplined in their rush lanes and keep the quarterback where he's supposed to be and make plays when they have the opportunity.  Coach Huxtable and coach Patrick have done a nice job with some of the designs that we've had to free them up based on protection tendencies where we can get guys one on one.

Jerod Fernandez had 14 tackles... how has he improved?

He's very consistent. He's improved himself athletically.

A lot of those, they were just throwing little hitch routes to the number three receiver, so they all were not run-game tackles.

Against Syracuse, their number one receiver in that game was their number three receiver... in those trips and empty sets and throwing hitches to him so he was able to make plays there.
I really like his preparation, his consistency, his toughness, how much it matters to him. It's very personal for him.

He and Hux have a really good relationship when it comes to how the defense is supposed to look,  getting the front set the right way, and the different line-stunt things that we do.

Talk about being ranked for the first time since 2010.

Well it's good recognition for our program, and it's well deserved. It's still early in the season, and there's a lot of football left. After week 12, if we're in the top 25, I'll be really excited.

Right now it's just... we appreciate it, and it's great to have it out there publicly, but we're going to focus more on what we need to do to stay there.