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NC State Football

Dave Doeren: "It's Been A Special Year"

November 30, 2020
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NC State is looking to finish the regular season strong with a win over Georgia Tech this week. A victory would give the Wolfpack seven conference wins on the season, which would set a program record. 

Dave Doeren spoke to the media about the upcoming matchup at his weekly press conference; here’s a full breakdown of everything he had to say: 


Opening Statement

Starting with our game up at Syracuse, I was very proud of the way our guys hung in there and battled back, and the adjustments that were made by the staff. As I’ve said many times this year, we’ve found different ways to win games. That was our fifth game that we’ve come from behind and won. I think that says a lot about the grit and resolve and connection these guys have with each other, and the way the staff can work together and just overcome difficult moments in games. It’s a special group.

In the game we had to overcome a lot that we did to ourselves in the first half. We spotted them, the way I look at it, 16 points. We fumbled going into score, which should have been seven for us. We had the safety in the end zone, which makes it nine. And we gave up a kickoff return, which makes it 16. We haven’t had a return cross our 35-yard line this year, so to give one up for a touchdown was inexcusable and very disappointing. We had to come back from a lot and did. At halftime the guys regrouped and came out motivated. The second half we were a much different football team, 22-7. And we had a fourth-quarter shutout. 

I’m very proud of how Bailey [Hockman] responded. Obviously some plays went the wrong way for him in the first half, and he overcame that mentally and came out and played really well in the second half. He threw the ball well, made good decisions, took care of the football well in the second half. 

I thought our O-:ine struggled in pass protection in the first half and then responded and gave him time to throw and did a nice job adjusting to the different games and twists that they were doing, blitzes. I thought our receivers were elite in that game. They made plays. They made key plays. They made contact-catch plays, and Bailey obviously gave them a chance to do that. I’m really proud of that part of it. 

Our defense hung in there and did a lot of really good things. [Tanner Ingle] being on the field made an impact for us. It was great to have him for his first full game of the year. Our third-down performance on defense has been outstanding. We held a team to 0.1 yards per carry on 40 attempts. We only gave up three plays over 15 yards the entire game, one for a touchdown which we would like to have back, obviously. But, against a team like that, that’s pretty good. 

I do love how hard our guys are playing on special teams. Take the kickoff return out of it and it was a really good day, but you can’t, so that taints that performance. I thought Trent [Gill] punted the ball well. Chris Dunn was 100 percent. The protection was good. 

Our penalty performance was much better, only having five in the game. We won the time of possession. We had 12 explosive plays on offense, which was our season high. I thought our running backs were really physical and had a lot of yards after contact. 

We’ve got to eliminate the turnovers, and obviously giving up six sacks is something that’s not normal for our O-Line. That’s something I know they will take to heart, and they obviously did in the second half. 

I thought that Daniel Joseph, [Payton Wilson] and Tanner all played at a really high level for us. Guys found a way to finish the game and played smart, didn’t let them behind them. They had to attach themselves, we call plaster, with the quarterback scramble all over the place. 

So, now we move on to our final home game, our senior day at the Carter against Georgia Tech. Twelve seniors. It’s kind of unique in that you don’t know in some cases whether they may come back or not. Seniors now have an additional year. In some cases we do know they’re not, and some we don’t. We’ll have to wait and see on some of the guys. 

Eight of these 12 young men have already graduated and the rest are on schedule. Guys like Louis Acceus, who can’t play anymore but has been coaching all year for us. He’s going to be a really good coach. 

Cary Angeline obviously has made a huge impact in our team. I’m really proud of his development and the way he is catching the ball and blocking. He’s become a really complete player. Dylan Autenrieth is a two-time captain, a guy that is really kind of a glue guy on our football team. He’s a very caring individual, very hard working. Emeka Emezie who has created quite a name here at NC State for himself, what he’s overcome and how he’s playing. 

Chris Ingram, who we’ve lost to injury obviously, is a young man that could come back. Daniel Joseph who has made an impact here as a transfer and has really done a nice job learning how to fit in. Sometimes that’s hard as a transfer, and I’m really excited with what he has brought to our front. Val Martin, who has played a lot of positions on the D-line for us and plays hard. 

Tyrone Riley, who we are hoping we have back for the bowl game. He’s done a lot and big through a lot. And Thomas Ruocchio who came in as a walk-on tight end and earned a scholarship. He’s started on our special teams and played in some of our sub packages on offense. Joe Sculthorpe, who has played a ton of football on the O-line and is a guy who is a really good leader for us. He’s one of our really great weight room guys, as well. 

Matt Wagner, who is a walk-on, the kids on the team absolutely love him, and he’ll be missed. And then Justin Witt, who’s also played a lot of football.

So, it’s a special group. It’s a day that, as a coach, I take very personal for them. I remember senior day as a player. It’s one that it’s the last time playing in your stadium. Obviously they’ll get to play again in a bowl game, but in their home stadium it’s their last time out together. It’s the last time through that tunnel. It’s a series of lasts, so we want to honor them and do our best for them as they leave our program. 

Georgia Tech is a very athletic football team. I think they recruited well. They’re young. The kids that played for them last year that are back are better. They’re developing well. They’re believing in what they do. Their record doesn’t really show the progress, I don’t think, of their team. When you turned them on Saturday night against Duke and they rushed for 325 yards and created five takeaways on defense. There’s really good skill. I think they’re creative on both sides of the football as a staff. 

It’s going to be a good football game. It’s going to be a physical football game. You can tell that they are committed to running. They’ve got a stable of backs that are really good players. I think they had a couple of injuries at tailback. I don’t know what that’s going to do. But, the guys they’ve brought in continue to produce, and their quarterback is a very athletic guy. [Jeff Sims] is impressive for a freshman. They’ve got three starters back on the O-line. We played against all these wideouts last year and didn’t play well.

Defensively, they do a lot. There’s a ton of different stuff going on. I think their defensive end [Jordan Domineck] is very impressive. He comes off the edge; 7.5 TFLs, four sacks, he’s forced three fumbles. He’s a very good football player. Their linebackers are active players. They have big safeties. They’ve got a 6-foot-4, 225-pound safety that they use in the box a lot. He’s very rangey. 

Coach [Geoff Collins] has done a nice job. For us, it’s our last game until we figure out where we are going. Our guys are excited. They’re a little bit tired. We’ve got to get them back. It’s been a lot of emotional games here for us, a lot of tight games, a lot of one-possession games. We haven’t had any relaxing moments, really. Just calling on them to get their sleep now that we’re done with school. We’re kind of letting them sleep in a little bit more and cutting back a little bit in practice so they can rest and we can get them fresh and playing really fast in their last opportunity here in the regular season.

Can you speak to the improvements and work put in by Thayer Thomas and Emeka Emezie? 

I think they take a lot of pride in carrying the torch that Steph Louis and Kelvin Harmon and Jakobi Meyers and all those guys created and the atmosphere. Quite frankly, I think they’ll tell you that they dropped the torch last year. I think they took a lot of pride in bringing that back and playing a certain way. And Devin Carter, to me, is one of those guys too, that brings the energy to that room. 

So now, Emeka spoke yesterday, and we were talking about different things that were going on and the importance of educating the young players on the things that they need to understand about how to carry this forward and continue it. I think he’s learned through this that it’s not just you, but it’s about what comes after you and making sure those guys pick it up.

What will the conversation be like with seniors about coming back or not coming back with an extra year of eligibility? 

I think you’ve just got to be honest with them. In any of these situations where a guy has that decision to make, I always start with ‘do you think you can get better by coming back, or do you think you’re as good as you’re going to be in college?’ 

There’s examples of that. Ryan Finley and Bradley Chubb both came back because there were things they felt like they could get better at and improve themselves from the NFL standpoint. And they did. Nyheim [Hines] was a guy that said ‘coach, I can run a 4.3 today and I’ll run a 4.3 next year. I’m not going to get taller. I’m not going to get heavier, and I just had 1,000 yards.’ So, in his case it made sense.

I think that’s how I’ve got to look at these seniors. Where are they at in the education part? Can they graduate? Can they earn a second degree? Are they a developmental type player that needs another year in the weight room to improve their stock and give themselves the best opportunity to make it in the NFL. It’s not about me. It’s not about trying to make next year’s team better. It’s about trying to make sure they’re very at peace with their decision. The last thing I want to do is talk a guy into something that he’s not all in on. If they’re coming back, they’re coming back because it’s what they want in their heart. 

How will that impact scholarships for next year? 

The way it’s been explained to me is that if there’s someone who was exhausting their eligibility that’s graduated, and they choose to come back, it doesn’t count. It’s just a plus one. 

Have the seniors given you any indication of their decisions? 

We’re not there yet. We’re just talking about it right now. We just want to finish the season and let them get away from it a little bit. Probably decompress before they make any decisions. There’s been conversations, but I’ve told them to focus on the season right now and that we’d get to it when the thing’s over. 

What’s Malik Dunlap’s status? 

Right now Malik is not in the two-deep for us. He’s trying to make some decisions about what he wants to do next. We’re allowing him  the opportunity to do that. We’re planning like he will not be here.

You mentioned bowl season and waiting that out. Now that you know you are in a bowl, how unique is this one, because obviously the ACC bowl games start Dec. 26 and you might now know until a couple days beforehand where you’re going to be? 

It’s very difficult to find out on the 20 that you’re playing on the 26. It could be a challenging situation, but everything this year has been challenging. So you’ve just got to do the best you can. It doesn’t sound like the bowls are going to be five-day experiences anyway, so you’re going to be doing a lot of your prep here. But whoever from our league plays in the game on the 26 is going to have a short turnaround, and so will their opponent. That’s just how that’s going to be. I think the games that are the following week in Florida and Charlotte give you a little bit more of a normal opportunity to prepare how you would in a typical bowl game. 

I see a lot of talk among Wolfpack fans and outside that circle that maybe this is your finest coaching job at NC State. Do you feel that way yourself, or is there anything different about this year other than the obvious circumstance we’re all in?

It’s been a special year. I think our players and our assistant coaches have all done a great job. I think it’s interesting that people feel that way. I think at the end of the year, I’ll sit back like I do every year and really evaluate what I did and how much I feel like it was because of the things I did vs. maybe what a player did or what our staff did or didn’t do. But I’m not one to take credit for things like that. I’m just thankful and I feel blessed that we’re in the situation we are. It’s been a fun year. 

It’s a special group, and obviously if we can get this next one and put us at eight, that would make it even better. But going into the year, had you told me that we were going to deal with not only the COVID but the number of injuries that we have, and that we would win this many games, I would probably laugh at you. So that says a lot about this football team and about what the staff’s done and the type of offseason and team chemistry that we have. 

You guys have played your way into a really good bowl, but how important is it for this opponent to play a marquee opponent in your bowl game? 

From a player standpoint, I think they always want to play a marquee opponent. To me, it’s about the opportunity to go get better. I have no control over who we play. All I want to do is try to get to do a really good game, have a good time with my guys, help develop them. Get these young kids kind of a spring ball head start, continue to work on our packages that we want to add or tweak, and give us a chance to experiment a little bit with the players. That’s a great opportunity to rep some guys that have just been repping on the scout team basically all year, and give them a head start. But we’ve got to win this next game, and then we’ll figure out what game we’re going to and who we’re playing. 

The players are actually talking about the bowl game, and you guys aren’t shying away from talking about it.

After we won our sixth, I congratulated the team on being bowl eligible again. They went nuts. It was obviously a goal that the team had. I said now the goal is to win out and put yourself in the conversations for the best possible bowl game we can get into. So that’s a goal the guys have. We’ve been able to win a lot of games, and obviously we have one more here to finish strong and put it in the committee’s hands on where we deserve to go.

You’re going for a seventh ACC win, there’s a few different ways of looking at that. Some would say the total number of games has increased to 10, but then there’s also the historical perspective and what your record was last year. What are your thoughts on that achievement? 

I think people analyze things in so many ways. If we do something great, there’s going to be those people out there that want to diminish it. That’s just how people are. They want to be negative. The bottom line is, we didn’t choose how they set this thing up this year. We didn’t pick who we play. We didn’t get to pick any of it. We lost a lot of good players. We’ve been through a lot as a program. To go from one ACC win to wherever we end up, six or seven times as many, whether that’s a record or not a record, that’s pretty damn good.

I think that’s what we’ve got to look at is how we improved in a 12-month window where it was pretty nuts with all the things we had to deal with. Everybody involved gets credit for that. People that want to downplay what we did, just look across the country. There’s a lot of teams that went the other direction, that were really good teams a year ago that can’t win right now. I think there should be some credit given to everyone in this program and to Boo Corrigan administratively, and what he’s done. To our strength coach and their staff, there’s so many people involved in this. But ultimately the players bought in and they’ve done a tremendous job getting us to this point where we’re having these conversations. 

How did Cary Angeline emerge on your radar when he came onto the transfer portal, and when it comes to the portal, is there a system that  you guys use? 

We recruited Cary in high school. Coach Faulkner, we had offered him, he had talked to him. So when his name came up in the portal, anytime there’s a player in it, our recruiting staff notifies the position coach that this guy’s in there, do you know anything about him? Eddie came to me right away and was like, ‘Do you remember Cary?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I do.’ So we were on him immediately, just because we had a prior relationship with him. We knew he was from the east coast, obviously a long ways from home. And we felt like getting somebody like him in our offense would be a good fit for what we wanted to have. And then it just came down to recruiting him. He had Boston College, he had Syracuse, so there was some east coast competition for him. 

When it comes to evaluating kids in the portal, you kind of look at your roster and where there’s holes. So if you’ve had guys get injured that can’t play anymore, so maybe you have a couple seniors and then a bunch of freshmen. So in the middle road right there, we need to add some age to that position group. So now you’re looking in the portal for guys that fit that at that position group. I don’t like bringing in an older player to sit behind a freshman. I don’t think that’s a smart thing for that kid to come here to do. So we’re trying to find one that we think can be a starter or definitely in contention to be a starter, and one that’s going to fit our culture. We do our homework. We call everybody we can call on the kid’s background and make sure he’s going to be a worker, he’s going to be good in the locker room, he’s going to be a good teammate, he’s going to be good in school, so all those different things.

How important is Alim McNeill? 

He demands attention in there, whether they’re going to double him the entire play or zone, combo up, if they’re going to single block him, it’s a tough task. For most of the season, he’s been able to disrupt blocking schemes and create run throughs for linebackers, or make plays on his own, which he’s done. He’s gotten better and better as the season’s gone on and he’s learned a lot about himself. I’m really proud of the way that he’s come on at the end of the year. I think he’s playing his best football right now, which is a tribute to him, because he went through a tough game and I thought he responded well. We’re seeing him grow as a leader on the team as well. He’s a good teammate, fun guy to be around. So it’s been fun working with him.

What did you see in him to think he could move from linebacker to defensive tackle?

He’s a massive guy. You knew body wise he was going to grow into a defensive lineman. He was 250 pounds, and each year he had gotten bigger. He didn’t start that big. He was thick in his legs, and usually the upper body’s going to follow that trend. But he’s just really strong, a weight room guy. And so you could kind of project where he was going that way. At the time, we were a four-down team and thought he was a lot like Justin Jones. That’s how Justin was built in high school. He ended up being bigger than Justin, but we thought they were similar. 

What’s different for him when go from the four down to three down at that position?

The techniques change. Depending on what we’re doing, there’s times where they’re very similar. There were times in the old defense we would play a head-up two technique and he would do that. That’s no different than playing a head up zero on the center. For him, it’s just disrupting. We’re knocking people back. We’re playing front side or back side on blocks, depending on what we’re doing. There’s times where we’re just slanting and angling him with our pressures or movements so that he can beat the center with speed. So if you’re playing a four down and you’re a team that’s always on the edge of linemen, it’s different. You’re playing on the outside shoulder of a guy the whole game. 

Whereas when you’re playing in our defense, you’re head up and you could be moving to an outside shoulder on a guy. For him, it’s a positon where he gets a lot of one-on-one blocks and he gets a lot of opportunities to beat centers by himself. A lot of the kids really like that. 

How important will tackling in space be against Georgia Tech? 

Like I said, they’ve got good skill. They’ve got five different tailbacks that rotate in and out. [Zamari Walton] is a super special player. I think he got hurt, I don’t know how bad. [Jordan Mason] played well against us last year for them. [Jamious Griffin], we recruited, know him well. [Dontae Smith] came in the game against Duke and housed two runs. Their skill at slot, [Ahmarean Brown] and [Nate McCollum] are really fast. So they’ve got the ability to make plays on you and be explosive offensively. 

So when you’re talking about playing well on defense, it starts with your leverage, and then it goes to your tackling and then you’re talking about making plays on the ball. So it’s going to be a critical aspect for us. We just need to play fast. I think we’ve done that the last two games on defense. We’ve really flown around. Having Tanner back obviously helps. He tackled really well in the game Saturday. Payton, I think that was his best tackling game. He didn’t miss a tackle, whereas two weeks ago he had had five missed tackles. It’s good to see him improve that way. 

Are they similar to Liberty? 

I think so. It’s not the exact same system, but formations are similar. Obviously having the quarterback that can run. Some of their run game is similar. But I think it’s a good comparison. 

 
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