Doeren: "It's Great For NC State"

NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media after Thursday's practice to discuss the game against Notre Dame. 

Are you enjoying this?
Oh yeah, enjoying the journey for sure. I'm having a lot of fun with these guys. The players and the coaches, all the time you put in with those guys and to see them have the success you want them to have, that's what makes you want to do it. The opportunity to continue to do it is what drives it.

I'm having a lot of fun. I'm having a great time with these kids right now, the staff... the chemistry in the building is exceptional.

When you were out on the road recruiting, did you see there was a different reception?
I don't get to do that as much so it's hard for me to tell you. I haven't herad a bad thing.

There's definitely more recruits now recruiting us, I guess you would say. You get texts from guys who maybe in the summer told you they weren't interested but are now asking to visit.  That's pretty normal, and that's a good thing to have going on.

We'll see where it all goes. There's a lot of football left.

Bradley has got a lot of NFL draft attention, but now Ryan is too, your quarterback. Does that make you excited but nervous?
No. We have a lot of football left. He plays good enough where they think he's that good, then that's good for me because we're winning games and he's doing what he's doing.

We'll deal with that when the season is over.

Is this quarterback more of a runner on pass plays than maybe Lamar Jackson?
I don't know about that. Lamar Jackson is pretty crazy back there. 

He had an incredible run against Boston College, he did. It was a shovel play and they covered it off, and he took off and ran. He's a good athlete, there is no doubt.

I'm not saying anything bad about Wimbush, but Lamar won the Heisman last year and broke all kinds of records.

What I mean was tuck and run... quicker after a read.
There's not as many pass plays. It's kind of hard to compare it. He's a threat to run and a dynamic runner, but their dropback game really hasn't been put in play that much.

They haven't thrown for that many yards because they haven't attempted that many passes either, and he missed one game. There's not a lot of film on him as a drop-back passer. You see him on nakeds out of the pocket, you see him on rollouts where he's out of the pocket, but true five-stop drop, there's not a ton of that in their offense because they've been able to pound people.

How big of an opportunity is this for you guys to go in there and play your top of football?
It's a great opportunity. It's a unique opportunity to play at Notre Dame, the historical part of the game of football and what that represents, while they are in the top ten and playing for the same stakes we are nationally.

How often do you get to do that? Play at a school like that? They have their own television network, NBC.  

To be able to play at a place like that when both teams are on good winning streaks and it means a lot, it's great for these kids, it's great for these coaches, it's great for NC State.

What differences do you notice from Josh Adams this year?
I'll be honest, we didn't pay attention to their run game last year. 

They didn't have much of a run game. It's not because they weren't big, strong physical guys, they were just a dropback pass team. They had Deshone Kizer and he was one of the best passers in college football, and that was their offense.

Their run game... you fit it up, but it's not what it is now. They have a lot of good schemes, they believe in it, and they play physical.  He's a big back that a lot of times doesn't get touched until seven, eight, nine yards down the field he's getting his first contact on several runs.

It's going to be a war at the line of scrimmage, and he's a very good player.

You said in the past you like reading other coaching transcripts. Did you get a reaction when Brian Kelly said the NC State game summed up their season last year?
Not really. That game was a huge win.  I was really proud of our guys for dealing with the adversity of the game with the downpour. We were more physical in that game, but part of that was our style of play versus theirs, being a passing offense.

That was last year. This is this year. We have a different team, and they have a different team.