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NC State Football

Dave Doeren: "We Don't Play The Game For Comments On Twitter"

October 12, 2020
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With NC State coming off back-to-back road wins and sitting at 3-1 after a three-game trip, the Wolfpack will look to improve to 4-1 in its first matchup with cross-town rival Duke since 2013. 

Head coach Dave Doeren met with the media via Zoom to discuss last week’s win against Virgnia, the matchup with Duke and more. Here’s a full breakdown of everything he had to say: 


Opening statement

Just going back to the game, recapping the UVA win, it was an awesome win on the road. To play three straight road games and win back-to-back ones, I thought we really played complementary football in this game. The offense got us off to a lead and the defense stopped the run, forced four turnovers. Special teams, I thought we punted the ball really well, we blocked a punt, [Thayer Thomas] had a nice return. Scoring on defense in a time where we needed some momentum with Alim’s play. 

I think we were very efficient in the run game. We definitely had some great runs after contact. Between [Ricky Person] and [Bam Knight], we had 91 yards after contact in that game at the running back position. I was proud of those guys, it was a big point of emphasis. The receivers mades some contact catches against tight coverage and [Devin Leary] put the ball in some good spots on some critical areas on third down. 

From an offensive standpoint, positives, we didn’t give up a sack against a very good front, multiple defense that does a lot of good things. Rushed for 4.5 yards a carry, no fumbles. I thought [Emeka Emezie] made some really nice catches, [Cary Angeline] had a nice touchdown. Thayer and [Porter Rooks] both made big plays for us in the pass game. 

I thought Devin was really good early. I think in the second half, it was wet and it was a tighter game. We had some throws he could have made and he’ll learn from. But he did some good things, and there’s some things he’ll learn from in this game. It was obviously a defense that gives you a lot to look at. So for Devin, I think that’s an experience thing, the more that he gets to see those things change on game day, the better he’s going to be. 

I was very proud of our backs and their ability to get yards after contact. It’s not always pretty running against a loaded box. Those guys had a lot of attitude runs. I think that feeds our offensive line and our tight end group to play hard for them. The negatives on offense, we were poor on third down throughout the game. Both of our opening drives in the first and third quarter, we were three and out. And we had three penalties on offense to open the second half. On each of those three possessions, we started on first and 10 with a penalty. So we beat ourselves, and it put us behind the chains. It’s hard to play football that way in the ACC. 

On defense, positives, we stopped the run. I thought their tailback was a really good player coming into the game. I thought our defensive line really battled. The linebackers fit the ball well, we tackled well. We forced four turnovers. We played really well on third down. I thought [defensive coordinator Tony Gibson] did a really nice job mixing coverage and pressure, not making the defense predictable. 

I thought the goal-line stand, second time here this season to have a goal-line stand was awesome to see. The kids played 100 snaps on defense, so they played a lot of football in that game. We were able to play a lot of players. Almost everybody we brought on the trip that was healthy was able to get in the game. The best part was we scored, there’s nothing like a big-man touchdown. It was fun for the team and for [Alim McNeill] to get that opportunity. I was happy for him. 

Negatives on defense, we’re young in the secondary, especially when [Tanner Ingle] went out. There’s just pictures that happen, formations, information the offense gives you by formation that we’ve got to be better at communicating. It didn’t cost us, there weren’t any busts or anything like that, but you can anticipate things. That’s an experience factor that we’re missing right now. The defensive offsides penalties were critical errors in the game and obviously an area that we need to improve and we’ll work hard on this week. 

The score before the half, on defense, we had a post coverage called, there should have been a guy right in the middle of the field and a true freshman doesn’t do his job right there. He’ll learn from that. At times, in the second half, we were out there a lot and you could see the impact that had on our technique at times, particularly in coverage. We’ve just got to play tighter coverage when we’re in man to man and when we do that, we’re very effective. 

I thought our special teams, for the most part, were really good. I think Chris Dunn definitely deserves a mulligan. He missed a long field goal, it was a high snap and then he had a miss later in the game which is uncharacteristic, I know he’ll bounce back from that. I thought Trent Gill was fantastic in this game, our punter, holder and kickoff guy. All his kickoffs were where we wanted them to be, great distance and hang. He had two pooches inside the 10, one inside the 5. I thought Thayer had two good returns. 

I thought [Levi Jones]’ blocked punt was a great play. He did a really good job communicating with coach Goebbel on the sideline previous to that play about how they were protecting and that he could beat his guy using technique. So I was really happy for him. It should have been a scoop and score opportunity that we didn’t get, but we got the ball there. I love blocking punts, I thought that was awesome. 

The fake punt was probably the most disappointing part of the special teams. We actually repped that play in practice. We aligned properly, defended it and just didn’t in the game. So that’s an area we’ve got to get better. I love the way our guys are buying into their preparation and practicing with an edge. They’re seeing that their investment does give them results, and two weeks in a row, something we can build on that way.

We now move onto a cross-town game here with Duke, a game that’s been played since 1924, and it’s only my second time in eight years getting to play against Duke, and first time playing them in Carter-Finley. I know they’ll be very well-coached. I know they’ve had a tough go of it with turnovers, but they’re a really talented group on the defensive line, really good football coaching staff. I know their kids are smart and tough and they’ll play really hard against us. 

Just looking at them overall, like I mentioned, they’ve turned the ball over 19 times, and you can’t win doing that. I know that’ll be an area that they work really hard on. Their quarterback’s [Chase Brice] a Clemson transfer, as you guys know. Their running backs really stand out to be. They’re tough kids, they run hard, they’re downhill, they don’t get tackled on first contact very often. Their receivers have good size. They have a 6’-5” receiver in Jake Bobo, and the tight end’s their leading receiver. So it’s nothing we haven’t seen as far as what they do in terms of their spread, no-huddle, pistol offense and all of the elements that you see from spread. 

For us, it’s going to be about getting better. Continuing to work hard on stopping the run, being sound, playing hard, playing 11-man defense. You look at them on defense, I mentioned this already, but, just turning the tape on, [Victor Dimukeje] and [Chirs Rumph II] jump off the film on their defensive line. They’re very impressive. They’re very well-coached up front. They’re disruptive. But you take those two ends, and together they’ve got 10 TFLs and nine sacks between the two of them. They’re powerful guys, their mike linebacker makes a lot of plays. 

They’re not an overly-complicated group, they play really hard. They line up where they’re supposed to. They’re very disciplined in coverage. They’ve got 18 sacks and 32 TFLs in their games, so they can cause some problems. They’ve been put in a lot of tough situations defensively because of their turnovers and that’s made their statistics a little skewed. But they do jump off the tape D-Line wise. 

For us, it’s just a chance here to finally come home and try to get in a little bit of a routine playing home games. We will have Tyler Baker-Williams back this week. It’s nice to add someone to the secondary. It’s been a group that’s been losing players, and so we’re excited that he’s back with us.

How much confidence do the guys gain from two wins? 

In each of our three wins, we’ve won them in different ways. I think in the Wake Forest game, our offense really carried the load in that game. They played a really good football game for us. And we were able to score a bunch of points. Then you look at the Pitt game and it was through the air. The defense stopped the run and the offense threw the ball. You look at this game and the defense really set the stage with the takeaways in this football game and our special teams plays. I think our guys have learned different ways to win games. 

The one thing that’s common in each of our wins is that we prepared well. The one thing that was very present in our one loss is that we practiced poorly on that Tuesday. We made that known. The guys have owned it and I love the team accountability that we have that the guys are holding each other to a standard that they expect and they’re not afraid to call each other out when they’re not getting what they want effort wise and I think that’s raised our level of play. 

Would you like to play Duke more often?

I think just in general, you’d like for every recruiting class to have a chance to play every team in the league. The way our rotation’s set up currently, we’ll play UNC every year and then we’ll play one of the other teams every seven years. So I just don’t think that’s fair, not just because they’re down the street, but you come to play in the ACC, you should play every team. It’d be great if you could play home and away against every team, particularly when you’re talking about a team in the Triangle. 

It’s pretty crazy to think you could come to NC State and never play Duke your entire career. That’s happened for multiple players. So I’m excited that we get to play them. I look forward to being part of a game that goes so far back and I don’t know if they’ll ever change our scheduling model, but I would definitely be somebody pounding on the table for them to do that. 

What would be the pros of playing a local team more often? 

It’s a natural rivalry. You have a team that’s within 30 minutes. We go in every grocery store, and you see NC State, you see Duke, you see UNC. There’s stuff everywhere, and yet we don’t play them. To me, it’s just a natural rivalry game. It makes sense, geographically, to play a team that’s that close to you in your own league. So it’s kind of a common-sense deal in my opinion. 

Alim McNeill talked about Joshua Harris clogging up the middle on goal-line stands. What does it mean to have a player like that, and what kind of growth have you seen from him?

I’m really happy that Alim was giving Josh the love, because that’s what it’s all about, sharing that. We’re proud of Josh. Josh went through an injury last year and has worked really hard to get himself to get himself into a position where he can play. He’s found a role in our defense and he’s really taken advantage of it. He’s not out there for a ton of snaps but he’s making his snaps count. He’s working really hard everyday on the scout team, he goes up against Grant Gibson every snap. And so that makes him a better football player. He’ll continue to get better. When we get into that goal-line package, you’ve got [Harris], Alim and [C.J. Clark] inside, that’s almost 1,000 pounds. That’s stout. That helps keep the middle firm and allows us to make plays off the edge.

How good was Porter Rooks against Virginia, how has his development been and how much better can he be? 

He’s been a sure-handed player since he got here. Now he is making the tough catch, and he is making that consistently. It’s really nice to have a rotation like we do between him and Thayer, where you have sure-handed guys that can run good routes and make tough catches for the quarterback. Now I told Porter that that was the first game I’ve seen him play where he had a different way about him. 

He was a very aggressive player, I thought, in that game. Not that he’s not a consistent player, but his personality came out a bit on Saturday. It was fun to see that. I told him that I saw him grow up in that game. He had a lot of energy about him. He’s usually shelled up, doesn’t say a ton and just plays really hard. He had some emotion to him Saturday, and it was very obvious. He’s got a lot of good, good things coming his way if he just keeps working the way that he is. 

How is Khalid Martin doing after his scary injury against Virginia Tech? 

Khalid is making progress. He is gaining all of the things back that you would hope he would feeling wise and doing physical therapy. He probably will not play this year. He is not done for his career, to our knowledge, but it’s going to take a while. He’s so out of shape now too because he’s not able to go through all the things that players go through. We are going to take our time with it, but he is recovering and doing well. I appreciate you asking. 

How good is it to see how he’s improving? 

He’s great around the guys. He’s very enthusiastic with them. He’s very good at just encouraging his teammates. Just seeing him in that light for them is good. I think it’s good for our staff. You never want to see a player get carted off. It’s horrible when you see something like that, particularly in his situation with the way it was. We are very happy and blessed that he’s able to do all the things that we were hoping he would be able to do. It’s going to be a time-period thing that, with us only having 11 games, is probably not in that window. 

What does playing an in-state opponent mean, particularly as it relates to recruiting? 

I think all the in-state games carry recruiting ties to them. There’s going to be players that we go head-to-head with them on. Obviously beating them on the field is always something that helps you. Recruiting, as you know, is basically not happening right now in person. We are losing out, in my opinion, on a recruiting opportunity because this would have been a huge crowd for a home game, which is always a recruiting tool for us with our guys. 

Playing in front of 4,000 is a little bit different than playing in front of a packed house here at the Carter when it comes to the recruiting aspect of things. But with postseason conversations, if kids are choosing between us and Duke or us and Wake or us and UNC, the head-to-head games always matter to what they are looking at program wise. 

How good is it to have momentum going into this game? 

Our guys have a lot of confidence, but they’ve also been humbled this year. I think that’s the biggest thing that we talk about. Two weeks ago people were throwing you on the wood pile, and now they are bragging about you. You just have to remember that you are one day away from being a hero or a zero around here. So, we’ve got to focus on the present and getting better, and focus on the details that gave us two wins in a row, and not get caught up in all that. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who we play; it’s how we play. That’s kind of the focus of this football team. The fact that it is a team that’s nearby creates conversation, but the outcome is going to be based on our preparation and our practice and our execution on game day. 

Do you talk to players about the outside criticism, and how proud are you of how they handled that after Virginia Tech? 

Yeah, we definitely have to address it. I think there’s a lot of people out there that get off on being negative on social media and being a turncoat on their own team at times. It’s just fuel to the fire for our guys. That’s how we take it. We are going to play our butt off for our wife, our family and for each other and for the people that constantly support us. For the people that don’t, that’s the way it goes. We’re not going to spend time on them. We’ve got to look really hard at ourselves and the people that love us. We don’t play the game for comments on Twitter. We play the game for our families. We play the game because we want to be successful in life. We play the game because we love our brothers. We play the game because we love to compete. All that other stuff is just distraction and noise. 

We definitely address it. As you all know, every young person has their phone in their hand a lot, so it’s hard for them to ignore it. They have to learn how to do that. It’s a skill set that sometimes they don’t learn until they get a loss on their record. They learn quickly that there’s a lot of fickle people.

How do you address the other side of social media when guys are getting compliments after good performances? 

We talked about it yesterday. You focus on ‘how did you get the results?’ You got them by getting beat and realizing that you’ve got to practice the right way to get the win. Then you did, and then you repeated it. You just need to continue to stay process oriented and block the distractions and focus on the things that are giving you the results, not the things that are creating the distractions. 

Was it good for Joshua Pierre-Louis and Taiyon Palmer to get experience with Tyler Baker-Williams out? 

Both of them have gotten better in his absence, so we’ve created depth at that spot; depth that we didn’t know about coming into the season. I’m really excited about both of those players. Like I told you two weeks ago, I thought Taiyon played really well against Pitt and JPL played really well against Virginia. Those two guys have created depth, and they’ll help us moving forward. 

Tyler is going to come back. He’s been gone 28 days when you add them all up with his quarantines, and he hasn’t been sick. That’s the hard part of this thing with contact tracing. He’s not going to be able to play 100 snaps. We’re going to have to have a rotation at nickel, but it’s great to have him back. He was playing as good as any guy on our roster in training camp. That’s a nice thing to get him back in the lineup. 

How good will it be to have a bigger crowd this weekend? 

Yeah, I’m definitely thinking that being around a fanbase will be nice for our players. They would love to have some real crowd noise as opposed to pumped in. With what it is, the fact that they’re getting to play in front of their families. The last game we just had families there, and now there’s going to be 4,000-some tickets. 

From what I’m told, our roster will get tickets, our staff will get some and some of our students will get tickets, which is great for them, and some of the donors that have helped us through this tough situation that we’ve been in. It’s not going to be a big crowd, but it’s going to be a crowd that is very loyal to these guys. It will be nice for them to have more than they had at the last game, which I can’t remember the number but I think was 400 maybe. To 4,000, we’ll take that improvement. 

Have you looked at film from Duke from past years with David Cutcliffe calling plays again? 

No, we haven’t. The fact that we are so far into the year, you kind of have an idea of what he is going to be. The one thing when you don’t play a team is that you still watch everybody. I think that’s the one thing that we don’t talk about. In preparation I’ve watched Duke on defense for the past seven years. I’ve watched Duke on offense for the past seven years. 

Even though [Cutcliffe] wasn’t calling plays maybe, I know that he had his hand in it. I know that he was very much a part of their offense. That’s just who he is. You can study what they’ve done. You can study the evolution of their offense based on who their quarterbacks are because obviously they’ve had running quarterbacks and now they have a drop-back quarterback. Things have changed that way. They were an offset team, and now they are more of a pistol team. He’s always jumped in empty. They are going to use tempo. They are going to be physical. They have a big tight end. We have a good feel for what they are going to be, it’s just going to come down to executing. 

You’ve lost a lot of weight the past few years. How hard is it to do that as a head coach, and did David Cutcliffe doing the same influence you? 

No, I’m happy that Dave is doing well that way, though. I just had a ‘no mas’ moment basically where my clothes said ‘If you don’t lose weight, you can’t wear me anymore.’ I felt like I wasn’t my best self three or four years ago. I wanted more energy. I wanted more focus. I wanted to be a better representative for my players, so it was just something I needed to do. Is it hard? Yeah, it’s hard. I like food. I like to eat. That’s hard. You’ve just got to have a good regiment. You’ve got to work out, and you’ve got to learn how to cut your portions back and be consistent. I’m human like everybody else, and unfortunately I like some of the foods that aren’t fat free. That makes it tough sometimes. 

 
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