Dylan McMahon: "We Just Have To Be Disciplined"
Coming off an impressive performance against South Florida in week one, NC State offensive guard Dylan McMahon knows he and his teammates will have their work cut out for them in Starkville against Mississippi State this week.
McMahon spoke to the media after practice, here’s some highlights of what he had to say:
How much fun is it blocking for Ricky Person and Bam Knight when they’re running the way they were?
It’s fun, and it makes your job easy. You’ve almost just got to get in the way of the guy. They’re always going to make you right. They’re going to cut off your block and they’re going to make you right. It makes our job a lot easier and it makes it more fun.
How excited are you guys to play in an environment [like Starkville], and how are you preparing for the crowd noise?
We’re really excited. With COVID last year, there were no fans. We’re just blessed to go somewhere, even if it was a hostile territory, to have fans there, booing you or whatever they’re going to be doing. Preparing wise, we were in the indoor today, blasting the speakers today with crowd noise and coaches were walking around with their cowbells and banging it in our ears all day long.
Do you guys get tired of the SEC talk?
It’s annoying. We want to go in there and shut them up. We don’t want to just go in there and beat them. We want to go in there and prove a point to them. It’s annoying hearing everything about the SEC. We want to go in there and shut them up.
What do you guys have to do right to make that happen on Saturday?
We just have to be disciplined. Go into a hostile territory, play disciplined, be penalty free. Just be gap sound and listen to what the coaches are telling us to do, and we should be alright.
Do you like games like this?
There’s no better feeling than going into a hostile territory, hearing the roar of the crowd, and then a few plays in, it’s just dead silent because you’re beating them. There’s no better feeling than shushing the crowd.
What can a win do for you guys?
It would be good to win the game, but it’s just another bump in the road. This week, we’re 1-0, so we don’t even think about what we did last week. So this game’s just another bump in the road. When we get in there, we’ll [try to] win the game and we’ll move on to the next one.
When you look at Mississippi State’s defensive front, a bunch of big, strong guys, what do you see on film, and how much do you look forward to battling in the trenches?
It’s going to be awesome. When you watch film, they’re a bunch of big, fast, strong SEC guys. They’ll go in there, do a lot of movement, jumble up the front. It’s going to be a lot of fun just going in there and getting ready to play a bigger front and a faster front.