Dave Doeren: "We Have A Great Group Of Guys"

NC State comes back from its bye week at 4-2 and with four of its remaining five games at home. Even with Devin Leary out and a number of other injuries, this team still has a chance to finish with a very good season. 

Head coach Dave Doeren spoke to the media during his weekly press conference about the season so far and what lies ahead. Here’s a full breakdown of everything he had to say: 

Opening statement

For us, it was a really good week of reflection, a chance, after six straight weeks, to self scout, first of all. That’s where we started and really digging into our own film. Giving us time to take the time to study, offensively, personnel, plays, efficiency on plays, tendencies, formations, back sets, tight ends, wide receivers, all the different things. And to get some rest and recovery, be able to reset. 

On defense, it was the same thing. You’re studying yourself, how you’re defending formations, where you’re having problems, what guys are doing well. And then to take that information and collect it, sit down as a staff and review it. Have one-on-one conversations with players that have played a lot of reps and talk about our goals for our bye-week practices and how we can improve fundamentally with each player, and having a plan for them to do that. And then building a practice schedule that allows them to do that. I felt like we had a lot of success that way. It was really good. The players were awesome about where they needed to get better. 

We had enough time, really, for the coaches and the players to hit the reset. It’s the mid-way point of our year, and obviously we’re 4-2. Four of our six games were on the road, where we were 50%, and the two games we had at home we won. But a lot, I think, has gone on mentally for coaches, players and staff. When you take the COVID, the absences, you’re going to play, you’re not going to play, you open with Louisville on Thursday, no, you open with them on Wednesday. We’re going to change the schedule, you’re going to open with Virginia Tech. Then we can’t play Virginia Tech because of COVID. Then we opened with Wake Forest. 

There was a lot of stuff that went on there. Fall camp started and then it stopped. [Devin Leary] came back and started playing really well, then he gets injured. So there’s a lot that’s been going on. So I think the whole team and program took this opportunity to really sit back and hit reset, look at a five-game season here to finish with four of five at home. We had great energy in practice last night. We practiced last night and we’ll practice tonight to get used to the p.m. time that we’re going to be playing on Friday. 

Now there’s guys that have opportunities due to the injuries. We’re excited for [Bailey Hockman]. I thought he really did a great job coming in the game and playing at the end of last week’s game. [Ben Finley] will continue to develop and get reps. I’m glad we were able to get him some game reps. But it’s Bailey’s opportunity. He’s been through a lot. I know he’s excited to lead the football team and he’ll do a great job for us. 

Just studying us, on offense, the biggest thing we see is we’ve got to not turn the football over. The last two games, we’ve had seven turnovers. Over the last three years, when we win the turnover margin, we’re undefeated as a football program. So that area of our program has to improve as it was earlier in the season. It’s nice to have Justin Witt back. [Ricky Person]’s back. And so those two players return for us. 

On defense, obviously in the two games we’ve played poorly in, there were a lot of missed tackles. Some of that’s personnel, some of that was just working technique. I felt like we didn’t get off blocks well in our front, our linebacker positions, and our safety position at times in the game last week. We needed to get healthy. 

There’s eight players on defense that at one time were in our two-deep that are out for different reasons. You look at Chris Ingram, who hasn’t played, and you look at [Teshuan Smith] who now has another shoulder injury. [Louis Acceus], who’s done for his career. [Tanner Ingle], who’s been in and out with a hamstring injury. Rakeim Ashford who played in two games, Khalid Martin who played in three. Cayman Czesak who hasn’t played that was in our two deep all through camp and Jalen Frazier who got hurt in the spring. There’s been a lot of moving parts for those guys. 

So we’ve had to move some people around and cross train individuals. This week was really good for them to solidify what we have, and what’s the best way to rotate and play guys. 

Looking at us on defense, besides the tackling, there’s just some plays we need to finish where we’re in position to finish plays. We call them dead plays or making your layups. It’s just simple things that you do in practice that need to show up on a consistent basis. 

The beauty of it is, we’ve got a great group of guys here. They’re awesome to coach, they’re very positive. We’re focused on what’s next and one game at a time. It is a different team, personnel-wise, than we started with. You look at the injuries, even to the offensive line, but at the same time, it’s a team that has great fight and great chemistry. It’ll battle, strain, work and do everything they can to be their best. I’m excited to help them get through and compete for these next five opportunities. 

Obviously tomorrow is a big day in our country, and our athletic department is giving all of our athletes an opportunity to vote tomorrow if they haven’t already, and exercise their right to vote. We support them in that. I just pray that everybody’s safe. Obviously we’re still battling the COVID pandemic. There’s a lot of things going on when you look at the news, that I think all of of us need to be very cognizant of, keeping each other safe and not making this worse than it is with the COVID pandemic. 

With that, I’m really excited to play Miami. I think they’re a really good football team. D’Eriq King’s a tremendous quarterback. They’re skilled all over the field. Their defensive front is very disruptive with over 50 tackles for loss in their games. It’s typical Miami speed that you see on the field. I think King has changed their team. He extends a lot of plays with his legs. He’s always going to have good people to throw to. Their tight ends are outstanding. I think their coaches do a really good job schematically, and offensively, they’re super up-tempo, so you’ve got to be ready for that. Defensively, they’ve got electric returners, and obviously coach [Manny Diaz] has done a nice job there. I look forward to that challenge and opportunity.

Given the spark that Ben Finley gave you against Carolina, do you anticipate using him and finding a role for him in addition to Bailey, or are you a one-quarterback kind of guy?

I think there’s always opportunities to have plays for guys. We’re not necessarily there, we haven’t solidified that. And obviously I wouldn’t want to say that and give Miami any ammo on what we’re going to be doing. But we need Ben to continue to get better. You saw when he had his package of plays, he moved the team. But when things got into a different mode, you could see it was a lot for him. So we just have to be smart with Ben and, at the same time, Bailey operates our offense really well. I thought he threw the ball terrific in the game. I think if you’re going to do something like that, you’ve just got to be smart about the flow of the game, and not let one kid get out of rhythm, because rhythm is a big part of playing that position.

Does Tim Beck alter his play-calling strategy based on which quarterback is in there?

I think when you get to the end of the week, Tim always asks them what their favorite plays are, what plays are they least comfortable with. He keeps that in mind on his call sheet. There’s certain things that Bailey may like and Ben doesn’t. Even if you’re not rotating them, you need to know that, because you’re an injury away from the other guy running the show. So I think the call sheet does change, not really physically as much as mentally. Both of them can roll out right and left, so that doesn’t limit you. It’s more about where they’re at in the mental part of the game or what they see in the pass game, handling protections, blitzes and all those things.

You touched on the schedule and the way things went last week. Was it a blessing to be off last week with this being a crazy week?

Yeah, it would have been challenging to play a short week game and have Tuesday off, not have that bye week leading into it. So we were able to take the time off that the guys needed to get their bodies better, but also, our first day we were on the field last week was all about us. We spent a lot of time individually working on fundamental technique, and then we got into some 11-on-11 correction periods to work on things that have hurt us throughout the year or things we want to clean up, situational too, third down, red zone, we were able to get back into those things. 

And then the next day we were able to clean up a little bit more and then move into our Miami introduction. When we came back last night, it was all about our game plan. So last night and tonight will be our typical two work days of the week with tomorrow off. And then when we come back Wednesday, it’s game-week Thursday in our mind. 

Do you know if players are going to the polls together tomorrow?

A lot of our guys have voted already in talking to them. I know several of them will vote tomorrow. But we have so many players that are on absentee ballots because of where they’re from, that they can’t go to their homes to do that. I think you’ll have a mix of guys voting tomorrow and guys that are not. But there are several players that are doing community tomorrow to help out. We’ve turned it into a day of not just voting, but some of the guys wanted to get out in the community and help out.

What did you say to the team about how important it is for young people to vote and use their voices?

You know, I didn’t have to say much. Pack United led that charge on campus, and our SAC student-athletes were very involved in that. I know Isaiah Moore and Grant Gibson, behind the scenes, were talking to their teammates about the importance of it. 

From my standpoint, it’s kind of hard to complain about things publicly if you’re not a part of the process of electing the official making those choices. I think it’s just a chance to have buy-in on what you stand for and to learn about the issues that all the different parties represent and put your name on it. I think that’s the biggest thing for these young people to understand, that they do have a big piece of this and there’s so much that affects all of us. For them to be involved in that process, it’s important for them. 

You said Justin Witt would be back but he’s not listed on the depth chart? 

That’s an error on my part. Sorry about that. He will play in this game. Last week he was able to return to practice Wednesday and had been out a long time. He only played about 12 snaps in that game. It was more about getting him back into football conditioning. But because Tyrone [Riley] was out, Derrick Eason was out, Tim McKay was out, so our three backup tackles we normally have. And then we’ve had to move [Ikem Ekwonu] back to tackle because of that. 

When Tyrone went down, it was great to have Justin available. I was proud of him and excited for him to be back and be able to help us. I know it’s been a long road. He’s dealt with a lot of different things, injury wise. He is in the two-deep there. 

What do you know about Manny Diaz’s history at NC State, and what have you seen from Miami’s defense? 

I’ve known Manny a long time. We recruited the same areas in Florida when I was at Wisconsin. I got to know him as a coach, and I’ve always respected him. I’ve gotten to know his wife. I think they’re really good people. I know they love Raleigh. He has a lot of really good things to say about his time here. 

As far as a defensive coach, he’s always been very aggressive. I did coach against him in a bowl game when he was at Mississippi State. It’s a lot of blitzes. The defensive line is very aggressive. A mix of man coverage and what we call cover 6 man 3. It’s what you would think you would get from a well-coached Miami defense. They’re aggressive. They run to the football. They pressure a lot, and they’ve got good defensive linemen. 

Do you have concerns about Miami having positive COVID tests and traveling to play you guys?

There’s protocols in place where we are testing three days a week, and particularly testing on Friday before they leave protects us in that. I don’t know, going into our seventh game now, I don’t feel nervous. It’s something you deal with every week. We deal with it here. I think we’re all under the system of trusting our healthcare and knowing that the tests that are in place protect us all, and not just players but staff. We’re all in this thing together. 

Do you feel better about playing Friday night without it interrupting high school football?

Yeah, absolutely. In my second or third year we had to play UNC on a Friday night, and the North Carolina High School Coaches Association was very unhappy about that for the reasons you mentioned. I don’t think any of us prefer that. Obviously with the television contract we’re in demands that for the volume of games that we need and the TV. If you ask a college coach, Saturdays are meant for college football and Fridays are meant for high school football. But as you know, that’s not always something we have control over. 

How did you talk to the team about moving on and not letting a loss beat you more than once? 

We’ve talked about day-by-day improvement for the year. A loss is always going to count on your record, but what can you learn from it to prevent it from happening again the same way? That’s kind of been the focus. We’re not going to go in there and make it the end of the world. We’re going to talk about the things we didn’t do well, we’re going to talk about ways we can be better, and then we’re going to put a plan in place. 

It’s not the players’ faults. It’s all of our faults when we don’t play well. We’re the coaches of those players, and we have to own what happened on the field just like they do. It’s a collective effort to improve. Nobody likes losing, particularly when you lose to a rival. I think the most important thing in defeat is how you respond. I think that’s something this football team takes a lot of pride in. We’ve handled a lot of adversity this year, and this team has stuck together through all of it. I don’t expect it to be any different moving forward. 

How good is it to have four of five games at home?

You have a chance to, one, be in a routine; sleep in your own bed, sleep in your own team hotel, play in your own stadium, own locker room, all those things that go with it. You don’t have to get home, like we did with Virginia Tech, at four in the morning, and not miss as many classes because on Friday you are travelling. All that stuff goes into it, and I think it gives our guys a chance to finish very strong. 

Obviously Miami is going to be a tough opponent here coming in, and we’re excited about that challenge, but I think as hard as it was at the beginning coming out of a six-game schedule with four of those six on the road and to be 4-2 with all the injuries and things we’ve dealt with, to know that four of your five finishing games are at home puts you in a good place mentally to have a great finish. Now we’ve got to go get it done. That’s where we’re going to have to do a great job here of playing to the best of our ability and guys staying focused and not letting one game affect the next. 

Is the team in a better place to handle uncertainty after the first half of the season? 

Yeah, I don’t know. We’ve been through so many things with COVID that we’ve kind of calloused ourselves through this thing for a lot of it. The routine that we have where you come in three days a week and get swabbed and all that kind of stuff, speaking for myself the players may say differently, I’m kind of past it. We wear our masks. We do all the right things that way. We social distance our meetings and our meals. We do all the things that we can to protect each other. That hasn’t been as hard as it was the first month where it was all brand new to us. 

Who has stood out to you on Miami’s defense? 

The first thing I’ll tell you when I watched their film, their defensive line with [Quincy] Roche and [Jaelan] Phillips really jumped off the film. I think their nose tackle is a very disruptive guy, number 1 [Nesta Jade] Silvera, a guy that plays hard all the time. He’s almost blocked two punts. I think both their safeties, [Bubba] Bolden and [Amari] Carter, are big. They are hitters. They are tough guys. They are going to play press. They are going to play press-bail coverage. 

Like I said at the beginning, they are what you think you would see from a Miami secondary. They’re aggressive. They’re good man-to-man. It’s good personnel. There’s a reason they are 5-1 and ranked third in the conference in scoring defense. It’s not just because they’re doing good things schematically. They have good players. When you’ve got 51 tackles for loss in six games, that’s disruptive on the D-line.They’re doing some good things there in the front.