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NC State Football

Dave Doeren: "It's Huge For Their Character"

October 3, 2020
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NC State head coach Dave Doeren and his team came up with a huge victory Saturday, knocking off No. 24 Pitt 30-29 for their first ranked road win since 2017. There was a lot to like, from some big plays in key moments on defense to Devin Leary’s game-winning drive. 

Doeren spoke to the media via Zoom following the win, here’s a fullbreakdown of everything he had to say: 

Opening statement

That was a heck of a football game. I’m super proud of our young men and our coaches. We talked about fighting, throwing the first punch, continuing to throw punches and throw punches and make sure we throw the last punch. We’re very resilient. They know it’s a long year, they know there’s a lot going on in this COVID era that makes things challenging, and they really hung together this week. So kudos to them for doing that. We played a really good Pitt team today, a well-coached football team. I thought we had a good plan. I thought we used our tempo well on offense, changing our cadence up and getting them to give us a lot of free first downs in the first half. They adjusted, we adjusted. 

Devin Leary really played a stellar game in his first start of the season. I’m very proud of him and the way the wideouts caught the football, the tight ends. The running backs took care of it on the road. We said no turnovers and we were able to do that.

Defensively, we hung in there. We had some good red-zone stops. We had a goal-line stand. We had an unfortunate deal where we had a pick-six that was called back, and I personally didn’t think that was a very good call. But the guys still stopped them on that drive. I just thought they were resilient. We are down in personnel right now and so those guys really had to suck it up on that side of the football. I’m proud of them; I’m very proud of them.

I think it says a lot about the fight of these kids and these coaches. I’m very thankful for the way that they take a tough situation, make it theirs and do something with it. So I’m proud of them and thankful for them.

You talked about the youth of this team. To go on the road, be down and have a game-winning drive, what does this do long term for their character long term?

I think it’s huge for their character, it’s huge for their confidence. It’s one thing to say we can do it; it’s one thing to believe. It’s another to just go do it. It’s a tremendous thing for your quarterback to know that it doesn’t matter what’s on the clock; he’ll drive us down, score and win. It was a really good drive. There were some good play calls for Tim Beck, kids executed well. They managed the clock and the time. The O-Line protected against a really, really good defensive line. It’s a huge character deal to answer your question, and the resiliency that they showed, it was awesome.

Can you address how thin you guys were in the secondary today, and when you look at a guy like Tanner Ingle coming back from a couple of times he was down today and the grit that he showed, how did that carry over to the other guys to get the job done?

We found out on Thursday that we wouldn’t have Tyler Baker-Williams because of contact tracing. So we had Joshua Pierre-Louis, a true freshman, start his first game. We moved Taiyon Palmer during training camp from corner to nickel, and then last week had to move him back to corner. So he didn’t take a rep of practice this week at nickel, Taiyon didn’t. So Pierre-Louis goes out of the game and we had to teach two linebackers how to play nickel on Friday. So yeah, when you take Chris Ingram out, Teshaun Smith out, Tyler Baker-Williams out, it’s pretty crazy what we’re dealing with. At free safety, Khalid Martin is out. Rakeim Ashford is out. I think there’s six DBs that aren’t playing that are in our two-deep that aren’t playing. So we’re very thin. So it says a lot about the heart and toughness of that group. They need a cold tub, right now, is what they need.

How excited does it make you for you guys to fight through everything going forward?

It says a lot about the toughness, the grit of these kids, I think, the togetherness of this team. A lot of people wanted to just throw us in the trashcan after last week. That’s the world we’re in right now. These kids just hung together. The coaches hung together. There’s a lot of football left. We’ve got eight more games, nine counting today’s. I think we’ve embraced the chip on our shoulder, and we’re going to continue to do that, and try to make the most out of the players that we have to coach, and get ready for another great game next week at Virginia.

With all the injuries last year and the situation last week, did it feel like today was the first chance we got to see Devin Leary with a full deck on offense and normal game script?

I think that’s a really good assessment. I think as hard as it was for him to not play in the Wake Forest game, it was the right thing for us to do coming out of the quarantine that he had. It’s given him time to get back to where he needed to be. He’s done a great job of taking coaching from coach Beck. It was nice to see him with starting wideouts, starting offensive linemen, three rotational tailbacks and all the tight ends. I think you got a glimpse of what he is and what he could be.

Pitt got a lot of yards, but you guys made some big stops. What was the difference?

It’s just heart. They played a lot of football. There was a time where, offensively, we weren’t really getting a whole lot going, and we were out there a lot. I thought defensively, that third quarter, it was just a lot of heart and toughness. You don’t want to bend but don’t break. You want to make plays. I think they got in some unbalanced and we didn’t adjust well a couple times. They had guys wide open because of that. So we’ve got stuff we’ve got to clean up. But when it counted, they stood up, made some really key plays in key moments and showed a lot of resiliency and toughness. 

On defense, you held them to just 92 yards rushing, can you talk about their play in the run defense and specifically Alim McNeill’s role in that. 

It’s a joint effort when you stop the run. It’s not one guy. Having Alim in the middle helps. It always starts inside out, but as you guys know, we didn’t play well in the rushing defense because of our edges, or the second week, for a myriad of reasons, so it was great to see them get that shored up in game three. I thought we tackled better. There were some really good tackles in this game. Some crisp contact plays on defense. They were striking people. It wasn’t just dragging people to the ground. They were striking people in the run game. And so that was fun to see that, some knock-back tackling. Guys were getting into game shape. Hopefully we’ll have enough guys to continue to play. But it was fun to watch them fly around there for a bit. 

How nice was it for you to see a vertical passing game and how happy are you for Emezie? 

That was awesome for Emeka. He was struggling these past couple weeks because his role wasn’t too big yet. He just kept fighting, kept working, kept practicing. Coach McDonald does a good job with him. I was really happy for Emeka to make that play and he’s earned it by continuing to work hard. That was a big play for us on that drive. Obviously the fourth-down conversion with Thayer was huge, which led to the touchdown. Devin was nails, man. He did a great job reading coverage and putting the ball where it needed to be. 

A lot was said during the week about Pittsburgh’s pass rush. How big was it that your offensive line kept them off Devin pretty much all day, especially with having Justin Witt and Tim McKay. 

They took last game to heart. We worked really hard on our pass-rush fundamentals this week. There were some things that we got exposed on in week two. That’s what we have to do. We have to take every week and try to get better. I think our offensive line took giving up six sacks in a game to heart. They saw what they were up against with Pitt’s D-Line and coach Garrison and them had a great plan. The tight ends and backs were part of that too. There’s a lot of times where they’re in there protecting. And then it’s just Devin throwing on time, so not giving them too much time to get to him.

You said Devin was nails. With 1:44 on the clock and he’s calm and composed, how much does that calm everybody else down? How contagious is that throughout the offense?

That’s what they need. We’ve been waiting for him to become the guy. We’ve always known what his arm was. This team believes in him. You can see it in the locker room. They rally around him. He’s just calm, poised, he’s got a really, really good arm. He’s a tough kid. He really played a heck of a football game. I’m very proud of him and very happy for him.

 
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