Dave Doeren: "The Guys Had Great Energy"

While the world of college athletics, with the Big 10 and Pac-12 shutting down fall sports, and local colleges, with UNC-Chapel Hill moving classes online and closing residence halls, turns upside down, the upcoming football season proceeds for the ACC and NC State. 

The Wolfpack spent its first full practice in pads Wednesday, here’s a full breakdown of everything head coach Dave Doeren had to say after: 

Opening statement

We just had our first day of full pads, it was a lot of fun. The guys had great energy. I watched part of the film. That’s the one thing that’s fun about this group, they’re really enjoying practice and bringing a lot of enthusiasm. There’s a lot of mistakes we’ve got to fix, a lot of fundamental things. 

We went through a lot of different things today. First down, second down, third down. We moved the ball quite a bit. So we got into some good situational football. We had a few live segments during our individual drills, just to kind of get guys accustomed to the thudding, what we need to do, some black protection, finishing blocks and tackling. But it was a fun practice. There’s some consistency that you’re starting to see, less mental mistakes. Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the day. 

You talked about how everyone in the room might have to play. Have the coaches placed a lot of emphasis on building depth and getting those reps for those guys, who, in a normal camp, might not have gotten those reps?

We’ve put a lot of emphasis on that. It’s happening as we get in there. We’re moving guys. Like on the offensive line, [Ikem Ekwonu]’s playing all over the place, Joe Sculthorpe’s playing all over the place, Dylan McMahon, Grant Gibson. The ability to get reps now in case those things happen so it’s not like game week, and [Ekwonu] went from left tackle to left guard today. Joe Sculthorpe went from left guard to center to right guard. 

We’re moving guys around and giving them the opportunity to do that on defense. Val Martin has played end and nose guard. C.J. Clark’s played end and nose guard. Davin Vann’s played end and nose guard. So just giving guys these opportunities, at linebacker we’ve done it as well. It’s going to happen. Some of it’s not going to be because of positive tests. You could just be in a contact tracing situation due to someone in your classroom, even. We have to be able to move it around and in the case that nobody has any issues, we’re building depth so that we can use a rotation and keep guys in the game. 

Have any guys been working on both sides of the ball?

No, we haven’t had to do that. So far, we’ve been able to keep a three-deep with what we have. So we’re not really doing that unless that becomes a necessity. Last year, we had to do that with Cecil Powell at times. So there’s a few guys that have the skillset to do it, but, we’re not going to waste the reps on it until we need to.

Are there concerns about the information about COVID clusters on college campuses, including NC State, concern you? 

No, I think you kind of expected that when the students come back, you’re going to have an upswing in the numbers on the campuses. I think it’s more about just managing them. We’re testing here every week, and we’ve been good. We’ve had more scares than anything. A guy will have a headache, and then we’ll hold him out until he gets retested and he’s fine. There’s so many things right now that are symptoms of COVID, so any time a guy has one you pull them out, you quarantine everybody that’s in that tracking area. So we’ve had more removals, replacements a day later because we’re getting our testing back really fast right now. We haven’t had any real issues. 

But the campuses you’ve seen, that’s going to be a moving deal here not just in our state but others. We’ve got to leave it up to the campus to decide how we’re going to move forward. I think what we saw at UNC, they sent their students home but the athletes are staying. The article I read felt like that might make the football team even safer. We’ll just have to see how it plays out. Every day, you’ve just got to bend your knees and be flexible, try to stay as positive as you can and deal with it.

Do you want to see all online classes?

I’m not going to say that I want to see that here. I think in-person instruction is a powerful thing. I feel for all the students, not just in our state, but the high school kids, middle school kids, elementary school kids. I think that in-person connection, from an educational standpoint, that’s going to hurt our society over time. Can you learn in a virtual setting, yeah you can. Maybe it does protect the 530 student athletes if that’s what it ends up being, but I think there’s positives and negatives to all of that. I just hope that everybody that’s having the issues is OK. As a campus, I know Chancellor Woodson will do the right thing for us.

How encouraged are you in the install of Tim Beck’s offense? 

I like how Tim teaches. He does a really good job compartmentalizing things so they’re not just memorizing things. There’s a system that goes with it and he teaches it well. The words have good word association with them so that guys can understand the why behind why it’s named. He’s got good plays off of plays. It’s been fun watching Tim and the offensive staff work with the players. They’re very comfortable with it. He’s put a lot on them. He’s really challenged them mentally. There’s going to be some mistakes, but it’s been fun for me to watch. I think right now our guys want that. They want to be challenged. They want to be pushed. Being home for so long, they’re so competitive, and they want to be in that environment where they’re having to think and be motivated that way.

Is there a particular position group on offense that you’ve been encouraged by so far? 

The depth at running back right now is fun to watch. They’re playing hard. Coach Roper’s doing a very good job. Delbert Mimms had a really good day today, he’s someone that we haven’t really talked about. You know the ones that have been out there getting a lot of the pub. But it’s just fun to watch the rotation of guys come in and there’s a lot of pride in that room to not let the level of play change. 

That would be the group that I think, particularly today, saw some things that I liked, but the interesting part of our team, as you guys know, we had a lot of guys out last year, a lot of young guys were forced to be on the field before they were probably ready. Now you bring back all these players that were out, and you bring back a rotation that provides us some depth and experience. So now it’s just continuing to fine tune fundamentals, techniques and figuring out who can do what the best.

Have you seen a difference in Emeka Emezie? 

I think he’s really hard on himself, and I think at times he’s been his own worst enemy that way, getting in his own head about his expectations and disappointments. Right now, he’s consistent. He’s taking it one day at a time. He’s having fun. He’s very aggressive in practice, he’s been very consistent. That’s just part of the process of growing up and dealing with all the things that you have. I’m proud of the progress that he’s made and really just approaching the day right now. He’s very focused, but he’s having a good time out there and smiling more than I’ve seen him smile in three years.

With all the young guys at receiver, how important is it for him to be a leader and set an example?

I think what’s special about our receiver group is not just now but just going backwards, Steph Louis, Kelvin Harmon and Jakobi Meyers, those guys set a standard on how they work in that room. They’ve taken guys under their wings. I know Kelvin took Emeka under his wing, and Jakobi and Thayer, and now they’re passing that down to Devin Carter and these guys are holding each other to do it. They make each other do certain things in that room that’s different in the way they work. It pays off. There’s a certain way that coach McDonald expects those guys to train and practice. He’s very hard on them. The nice thing is the players are really elevating that for him now.

Will offenses be ahead of defenses this year?

I could see where tackling could be sloppy early on because of the inability to [hit in the spring], but I also think the fundamentals of the game, the blocking, the ball security, I worry about how many turnovers there could be from an offensive standpoint. The quarterbacks haven’t been hit. The offensive linemen are having to pick up a full speed-blitz and things like that. I’m hoping the product on both sides of the football doesn’t suffer because of that. The fundamentals of the game, penalties, guys not being able to handle playing so many plays. 

I think the biggest thing we’ve seen, it’s not that they’re weaker, it’s not that they’re slower, it’s that their stamina is not as good, because we didn’t have them in the offseason program like we normally would have. When you get fatigue, you have more mistakes. That’s when bad things can happen on special teams. You see balls get turned over, interceptions thrown, missed blocks that turn into forced fumbles for defenses. I think that’s going to be the biggest thing, especially if the weather’s super hot early in the season for some people. 

Do you plan on hitting less in the buildup to this season than you have in the past? 

What we’ve been able to do since we were able to start so early and space it out is spread out the work. So we’ll hit the same amount but not in as many days consecutively. So for us, we’re not practicing back-to-back days but once a week. So it’s a Monday-Wednesday-Friday, then Saturday. So they’re getting some time off in between from a recovery standpoint, but the number of days of contact doesn’t change. It’s just over a longer calendar period to spread that out and help with recovery. 

Are you moving guys around at different spots more?

We’ve talked to the team a lot about it. We’re doing it where we know that we’re going to have those issues. I think the offensive line is one position in particular, obviously left tackles can play guard, right tackles cna play guard, guards can play center. So we’re trying to give those guys the ability to do that. Someone asked earlier about playing guys both ways. We haven’t done that, but, special teams is an area where one of our personal protectors was out today so we had to slot a guy over and bump a guy to a different position on the punt team. So I think we’re talking about it but also doing it. The guys are handling it well.

Is it more right now or the same amount as normal?

It’s more right now, for sure. We definitely don’t want to get into game week and all of the sudden you have to have 10 guys for whatever reason and you’ve never lined those guys up in different spots. We’re giving them that now so that they’re not freaked out by it later. 

Has Thayer Thomas looked more fresh without playing baseball?

I think he was menatlly fatigued too, coming out and going from the fall to spring to fall the way he did. I think it wiped him. He’s so competitive and he works so hard. I think it wiped him out from a mental standpoint as much as it did physical. He’s fresh right now, he’s got good stamina. He made a nice play at the end of practice today on a third-down catch. He definitely has reaped the benefits of the recovery on his body and his mind. 

How important are transparency and approachability in this situation?

I think it’s a big deal. They’re going through a time right now that no one in the history of our country has had to deal with from an age group standpoint. What’s on their plate not just as college athletes, but just as young people. The number of narratives that are out there and people that think they know what’s going on or don’t know what’s going on, and the politics that’s involved in all of it. 

There’s a lot of stuff on these guys. So I’ve told them, there are no bad questions. We’re not going to hide a single thing, we’re going to tell you everything we know. Keep raising your hand and asking. And the guys have been awesome about it. What I don’t want is for a player on our football team to feel like they don’t know everything they need to know. That’s the last thing. We’re going to make decisions as a team. We’re going to do things together. We’ve done that already. It’s been really good for them. I think it helps them mentally to be able to go out there and know that we’re all in this.

Like I told them, this isn’t just the players dealing with it. Our coaches want to stay safe too. We’ve got staff members that are in their 60s. We go home to wives and kids. We don’t want them to get ill. So we’re all in this, and we’re all doing everything we can to protect each other. 

What did you see from Tyler Baker-Williams and what are your expectations for him this season?

He’s playing at a high level right now. It’s really fun to watch him. He’s playing physical, he’s playing fast. His man-to-man skills and technique have improved. Freddie Aughtry-Lindsay’s done a really good job with him. He’s just more mature. He’s played a lot. He’s got game experience. He’s not nervous about anything, he understands the scheme. He’s a smart football player. He’s a guy that can play both ways. He’s one of those guys who has football aptitude where if we ended up in a situation, he could go over and play on that side of the ball. 

He can be a returner. He’s got a lot of things going for him. I think that’s just what happens when you play. You get a lot of game reps. Your coaches believe in you and you get that repetition and confidence in what you’re doing. He’s one of those guys that looks like a returning guy who has a lot of experience. He’s fun to watch right now. 

Have you heard anything about the Yale COVID saliva tests?

I’ve read about it, but I have not heard that it’s coming our way yet. That’s above my pay grade. Whatever they tell us we’re going to use, we’re going to use. I know Rob Murphy and our trainers downstairs in sports med are going to use what’s recommended that’s going to give us the most accurate results for our team. Right now, we’re getting ours turned around in about 24 hours. So that part of it’s been pretty good.

You had a lot of injuries at corner last year. How is that group shaping up now that everybody’s healthy? 

I think we had linebackers at corner in one of the games. It was tough last year. It’s been fun watching. Teshaun Smith’s really having a good camp. So he’s back and looking good. Shyheim Battle’s looking good so far. Cecil Powell, those guys are playing well. Out of the young players, Aydan White has a really good skill set. We’re excited about what he’s been doing. Chris Ingram hasn’t practiced yet, we’re hoping to get Chris back. He’s doing well. We’re just not rushing him back. But he’s doing well in his rehab, just taking time. 

Taiyon Palmer has done some things. I think he’s still going through that trust phase that guys have when you come back from an ACL. Even though you come back and you’re running around, there’s still certain hurdles that you have to go through before you truly believe in it. But it’s been great having those guys back on the field and a lot more fun than last year at that position. Malik Dunlap made a nice play today. There’s good depth. I think we’re rotating seven guys throughout practice and they’re all getting their turn.