Isaiah Moore: "Our Goal Is To Be The Best Defense In The Country"

NC State’s defense is off to a very strong start to the 2021 season but will have its work cut out for it this week. The Wolfpack will look to match Clemson’s defense to help the team take down the Tigers for the first time since 2011. 

Senior linebacker Isaiah Moore figures to play a key role in that effort. Moore spoke to the media ahead of Saturday’s game about the matchup with Clemson, Pack United week, and more. Here’s a full breakdown of everything he had to say: 

This is Pack United week, and obviously that’s something you’ve been very involved with. How much does that mean to you to have that on this stage? 

It definitely means a lot. Pack United’s become an NC State Athletics brand for diversity and equality. So being able to showcase it on a big stage like this is great. It’s going to bring more attention to a topic we need to talk about. 

How do you guys balance Clemson as the next opponent but also a big game? 

Like Coach Doeren preaches to us, it’s just got to be about us. We’ve got to keep our focus on us and going out there and playing the best ball that we can play. We feel like if we do that, if we play the best that we can play and know how to play, then we feel like anybody on our schedule can’t beat us.

Looking at some of the tape from Clemson, obviously their offense has struggled.  What have you seen from them that you might be able to take advantage of? 

We’ve played Clemson, they have a lot of weapons on offense. They’ve struggled a little bit, but they’re more than capable of exploding for however many and whenever. So the biggest thing we’ve got to do is just make sure we just have our eyes in the right place.  They use a lot of motions, so just make sure our eyes are in the right spot, keying on things like that, get the quarterback moving around a little bit and see what we can do.

Everyone talks about Clemson’s defense and how good it is, yet you guys are just as good as them rankings wise. Do you guys take a lot of pride in that? 

Our goal is to be the best defense in the country, not just this conference. So we approach it that way every day in practice. We’ve approached it that way since January when we started the season. So we just have that same approach, we want to be the best in the country. We want to play the best that we can, and where we fall at the end is where we’ve earned it. 

What do you think of their defense? 

They’re very talented. They’re a very experienced group, similar to us. They play fast and they play hard. Much respect to their defense and much respect to what they do on that side of the ball.

Can you guys take pride in it if you play better than them on Saturday? Would that show the nation just how good you guys are? 

It would be great if our defense could play better, but it would also be great to win. We’ll take pride in a win if we can get it. 

With the amount of pressure and excitement that comes in a game like this, is there anything you or the team is doing to try to keep things a little light? 

The biggest thing is just preaching to everybody all week that we just need to focus on us, just focus on getting better every day. Just focus every day in practice, every meeting, in everything we do. So just trying to keep it on us and when we get to Saturday, we’ll be happy with the result. 

What would it mean to you to beat Clemson?

It would mean a lot. I’m not going to sugar coat it. Clemson has been the standard for the ACC and really for the country for the last few years, so to beat a team like that would be great. Hopefully we can do it.

Clemson running back Will Shipley has been named the starter for this game. Have you seen enough film of him to get a gauge on what type of runner he is? 

They played him a lot in different spots, they had him at slot receiver a little bit, had him out wide a little bit, and then they handed him the ball the last couple weeks. He’s definitely a talented back. I think he was a five-star recruit coming out of high school. So you can definitely see it. His talent is definitely there. So much respect to him. We’ve just got to hit him, wrap him up and get him to the ground.

Drake Thomas has had a really good start to the season. What has he been doing well? 

He’s playing with a lot of confidence in himself and the guys around him that he can just play fast. He’s playing really fast, he’s talking a lot out there. It’s good to him to see him really step into what we all knew that he could do. He showed it all through fall camp, everything he’s doing now, we all expect it.