Dave Doeren on first week of fall camp
Following NC State’s first few fall camp practices, NC State head coach Dave Doeren spoke with the media via Zoom Tuesday. He spoke about the team’s progress, several players’ impact, COVID-19 and much more.
Here’s a full breakdown of everything Doeren had to say:
Opening statement
We had our fifth practice yesterday, third straight practice in halfback shells as we call it. Today is a recovery day. It’s gone well. The first two days, we were blessed with some really kind weather. The last three, we’ve been getting used to the intensity of the heat and the humidity. Those have been good things for our guys. I think we’re way ahead, just from an install standpoint, from where we were a year ago at this time, which has been nice to see. Not having spring ball and all the things that went into last year. So I think the ability for the staff to put a little more heat on these guys in practice with a little more mental challenge, having more in, has been good to see.
The guys that have played a lot of football have risen to the occasion. We’re seeing, as you would expect, some of the new players are a little more inconsistent. We’ve been very pleased with the attitude, the effort, I’ve talked a lot about the chemistry of this team, that’s very obvious, watching them coach each other on the field and pick each other up. Back and forth, offense, defense is always very competitive in training camp.
The fun part about this team is when they get off the field, how they’re helping each other. You see Derrek Pitts and the receiving corps, Devin Carter and him talking. You’ll se Grant Gibson talking with the nose guards, you’ll see Daniel Joseph and [Corey Durden] and [Savion Jackson] talking with our offensive tackles. Not just talking, but talking football, what they’re doing, how they’re doing it and ways they can get better. So I’ve really enjoyed that part of camp. We’ve got a lot of work to do, a lot of things we need to clean up.
This is an important four-day stretch coming up. The first day of full pads is tomorrow. We’ll be working our short yardage packages tomorrow and then a bunch of red-zone work the day after that, and then get into our end-of-half, end-of-game, two-minute, offense and defense in that Friday. And then Saturday will be our first live, full-tilt scrimmage. So this is an important four-day window coming up, because we start school next Monday, a week from yesterday, so this is really our last week without academics involved to get the rest of our stuff in.
Trent Pennix said that as he’s prepared to play the H-back/tight end role, he’s been watching Jaylen Samuels’ film, and he’s spoken with JaySam. How cool is that for you to see a player who played here before helping someone for a similar role?
That’s very kind of Jaylen Samuels to reach back and do that with a player. Our guys are phenomenal about stuff like that. I know the D-Linemen and the offensive linemen talk a lot. I’ve been a part of witnessing that. [Nyheim Hines] has been back a lot and talked to guys. I think that the alumni in general, even guys that didn’t play in my tenure, that come back, they’re really good with our guys. Dewayne Washington was at practice. We haven’t had [Torry Holt] at practice, but he’s been around our program a lot. Those guys just do a great job giving back. I think not only do they love this place, but they like building their legacy through teaching younger players below them and helping them become the better version of themselves. It’s fun to watch as a coach.
What is it about Trent that makes him ideally suited for that role?
He’s a big kid. He’s 230 pounds. He’s got really good speed. He does have great ball skills. He played a lot of receiver in high school. So he’s just got a unique blend of size, agility and ball skills. We’ve just got to keep him on the field. He’s had a lot of minor injuries throughout this career that have never allowed to be a sustained part of our packages on offense, whether it’s a hamstring, a wrist, a shoulder, whatever, nothing major, but as a coach, it’s about having the same guy with you every day so you can continually give him the same stuff, build off of it, and we’re hoping that he can get to be one of those guys that we can count on week to week.
When you look at this offensive line, you have several guys that come back from last year, and two guys that are going into their third year as starters in Ikem Ekwonu and Grant Gibson. But along this offensive line, how have those battles looked so far, and how confident are you in that unit going into the season?
It’s been fun watching the competition. I think Chandler Zavala and Derrick Eason are two guys that both bring a lot to the table at the guard position for us. We’re excited about Bryson Speas and Tim McKay, who’s back from injury from last year, what they’re showing. Bryson has played tackle and guard on the right and left side, so he gives us a lot of versatility. He’s worked hard to get his mass up to 315 pounds now. It’s been seeing those guys. This is going to be a big week for those competitions, because we start tackling and seeing plays finished. So it’ll be fun to watch that part of this progress.
Where do things stand with Emeka Emezie?
He’s close. Obviously we want to be smart with him and we’ve got to get him to the opening game. Emeka’s worst enemy is his own work ethic. Sometimes he just goes too hard, and you can reinjure yourself in that scenario. So we just have to really be patient with him. He’s working, he’s out at practice, he’s watching. But I would say he’s probably a week or two from being released into what everyone’s doing. We’ve just got to kind of go day by day with him and understand it’s a marathon, not a sprint when we’re talking about getting him back for the season, because he was out for quite awhile.
Can you talk about Henry Trevathan, the relationship you have with him, and how he helped you in recruiting when you first got this job?
He’s one of the few people here that’s been with me the whole time, and I can’t say enough about him, not just in the job that he does with high school coaches and with young men in our program, because he oversees our walk-on program and does a great job with that, helping our parents and all of our signees with the admissions steps and things that go into it, but he’s got an incredible history in our state. His Dad, as you all know, has a great tradition in our state as well. His name is synonymous with a lot of people smiling that know him. There’s people that played for his Dad, people that played for Henry, people that coached with his Dad, people that coached with Henry.
So it’s really been a great experience having him on our staff, and his ties go very deep. Him and Bobby Purcell were very close friends and so they know a lot of the same people. It’s nice when you work with someone that nobody can say a bad word about. Henry’s one of those people. I just think he’s first class and does a really good job advising the coaches in the state. That’s why I hired him. I came in here, as you guys know, from the midwest, and I needed to make relationships and build bridges with people. I needed someone that they trusted to help me and guide me. ‘Hey, these are the coaches that you need to get in with and you need to talk to, and you need to help, learn about and spend time with. So it’s been invaluable. He continues to just crush it. Every place, high school coaches thank me for having Henry on my staff, because he keeps them in the loop on what we’re doing.
When you have a four-win season like you guys had in 2019, there’s no shortage of motivation and lessons to be learned. Is there more to learn from success than there is from setbacks?
I think you learn from both. I think the one thing that we try to do in our program is to use the past as teachable moments. You want to repeat success; you want to eliminate failure. So you’ve got to constantly study things and not to pour salt in a wound, but to learn from it. To point out to people that need to improve, and how can we help them improve. Sometimes it’s me that needs to improve. So we have to have ownership in all of those things. I think there’s a little bit more motivation behind losing, just because it hurts so much. I think that digs on these guys and they don’t want to feel that. But I do think in winning, or studying winners, there’s a lot of things you can take out of that as well.
You mentioned that class starts next Monday. Obviously it’s a different set of circumstances last offseason, but there’s still a threat out there. Have you talked to your guys about not getting too relaxed or too comfortable so guys don’t miss games [due to COVID] because there are fewer restrictions this year?
We’ve talked a lot about it. Last year, we were very good here from a COVID numbers standpoint until the student body showed up. Not to blame them, it’s just what happens when you put 30,000 young people on a college campus. You’re going to have a lot of germs brought in and people are going to get sick. So we’ve spent a lot of time discussing that. Even if COVID wasn’t here, we’d be discussing that, because we don’t want guys missing for other things, colds and a variety of other things you can get. I’m very hopeful that we learned our lesson from watching that horrible movie last year when that went down. I told them, ‘I don’t want to watch it again.’ So there’s been a lot of education here, there’s been a lot of discussion. There’s been a lot of conversation.
We’re in a very good place when you talk about vaccination rates and all those things with our program. So it’s really a small group that’s in the unprotected area of our team. It’s been daily, unfortunately, still talking about that with these guys, because I don’t want to watch that. I don’t want to watch a kid that’s completely healthy that’s worked so hard get contact traced out because he was in class with somebody that was coughing on him or has a roommate that’s not vaccinated or whatever it might be. So we spent a lot of time on that. It’s all we can do, give them the best advice we can, and ask them, like they did a year ago here, when we kind of bubble-ized this place, I guess you’d say, to learn from the past and do the best we can to not repeat the things that put us in tough spots. We had to delay our season. We had to move our opener a year ago. We obviously don’t want to do that again.
Are you still having daily talks with the medical staff?
Whenever there’s updates, we get them. We meet with the medical staff every day about our team. That could be a part of it or not be a part of it based on information they’re getting. It’s pretty streamline from the medical advisory group to our athletic training group and our docs. That goes right to me and our staff as soon as they get that info. I share it with the team in our team meetings when it applies to them directly. So we’re trying to stay right in the loop as close as we can be. As you guys know, what we know today could be different tomorrow on this kind of stuff.
What are your thoughts on Payton Wilson and what he did last season? Did he exceed expectations, and what are you expecting from this year?
He exceeded what a lot of people probably thought would happen in his first year as a full-time starter. We expected him to have a great season. Obviously you can’t predict how many tackles a guy’s going to make, but he did a phenomenal job as a guy on our defense making plays. I think he improved throughout the year. He learned a lot from mistakes that you’re going to make as a first-year starter. I’m excited to see his growth. I know that’s one of the reasons he came back. There were things he wanted to get better at before he became a professional. It’s been fun to see all the work he put in since his operations to get better and get back with us and compete.
You’ve mentioned Corey Durden as a guy you’ve been waiting to see more of. What have you seen from him in this first week?
Corey’s going to help us a lot. Right now we’re just trying to get him used to how we do things. He’s trying to get back in football shape. He didn’t go through spring ball at Florida State, so he was rusty. He’s working hard. He loves learning. He’s coachable. I like that about him. He’ll make mistakes. We can critique him and be constructive with him. He wants to get better. He can play inside and outside in our scheme, so he brings a lot of versatility there, similar to Davin Vann that way, a guy who can move in and out of our packages. We’re very excited he’s here, and the next 23 days we have until we play a game are going to be important for him. I think he could have a major role on our front.
What stood out about Bam Knight when you were evaluating him in high school?
He was a guy who could get to top speed quickly. Their offense, that wing T, double slot, he would get a lot of these end arounds and put his foot in the ground, get north and south and just outrun people. He had home-run speed. And then starting to get around him in his recruitment, he committed early to Duke and decided he wanted to reconsider that. He started to come sit on our campus with us. We spent a lot of time together. He came over here seven or eight times before he committed to us. He wanted to really see it and wanted to see who we are as people. He’s not an outspoken person, but he’s a very observant person. So I think he came over here and spent seven or eight different times either with me, with coach Kitchings or with our strength coaches. Obviously academics, and once he felt like all the right things were answered, he knew this was the right fit. He’s been a joy to coach.
He talked about wanting to improve his pass blocking. What do you think are some of the things he needs to do to do that?
I think the NFL and the college level are similar now in that backs are not very often in the game the whole game at the pro level or the college level. There’s a rotation now. I think backs need to show they can be an very-down back, that you can be a guy that stays in there on third down and does all those things that they have to do, that they can get out of the backfield and catch the football. So for him, he’s done a great job as a runner. He’s done a good job as a pass catcher. I know he wants to be better there. Pass protection is the last area for him to be a complete player all the time. It’s not for a lack of wanting contact. He’s very physical. I think it’s just technique things that make you a better pass protection guy, no different than what [Iekm Ekwonu]’s working on right now. He’s trying to get better in pass protection. Those guys want to protect their craft. So he’s spending a lot of time on it with coach [Kurt Roper].
We’ve seen Devin Leary play the last couple years. We’ve seen Ben Finley in a small sample size against Carolina, and then Aaron McLaughlin was here in the spring. What kind of steps have Ben and Aaron taken?
There’s obviously a greater understanding of the system for both. Ben’s changed his body in a good way. He’s put on some good muscle to protect himself. I think him and Aaron are both very athletic guys that don’t just throw the ball. They can run around and make some plays on their feet, as you saw in the spring game with Ben. I think the maturity part of it for Ben is the area of growth that he’s making, and still has a lot of room to grow there as a leader, which is what that position is. He’s really hard on himself and just learning how to let the reigns loose right there, relax a little bit and get to the next play. I really enjoy being around those three guys. They’re serious about it. They encourage their teammates. They have good attitudes, and they’re all different, but they’re all the same in their competitive spirit. They’re guys that really come out there to work hard.
There was a video of Philip Rivers Zooming into a team meeting this summer. What was his message?
We try to get former players to come visit our team. With COVID, we’ve had to do a few of them on Zoom. So it was great that Philip agreed to do that. It’s really just expressing their love for the school, the program, talking about stories that they had from when they played here. I think for our players to realize how much those guys loved their time here, I think when you’re here, you’re in it. You’re in the heat of it. You don’t realize how special it is right in the middle of it. Ten years later you look back on it like ‘That was the best time of my life.’ We all tell them that, but sometimes, as you guys that are parents know, when someone else tells them that, it makes sense. So it’s great having a guy like Philip that played 17 years in the NFL talking about how much he loved his time here, his teammates here and how we played with Thunder Dan, played with Freddie Aughtry-Lindsay. The guys were able to ask him questions about what made him such a competitor, or what made him who he is, what kind of things in preparation does he do, if he had any advice for them about his time here. It’s great for guys like him and others that have helped us to help these guys in their journey.