Grant Gibson: "We Have The Best Fans"

NC State center Grant Gibson met with the media to discuss his quarterback Devin Leary, recent run-game struggles, and much more.

NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview.

Grant, I know you're good friends and very close with Isaiah Moore. When you guys lose someone that's as vocal as that and as much of a leader as he is, I know Coach Doeren talked about kind of wanting to pick him up and be there to support him. Just how much does that give you guys that extra little bit to want to go out there and win for him?
I'm not going to lie to you, when I found out that he was hurt. I was hurt too. Me and him have roomed together for the past four years. That's my best friend. That's my brother on the team. To be out there without him, it's not going to feel right at first.

I know that he wants us to just go out there and play hard for him. I told him this, "Everything happens for a reason." This is going to make him stronger and he's going to come out on top of this a better man and a stronger player as well.

Obviously it means we're hurt for him. I felt bad that it happened to him because he was having a great year, but I know that this is going to help him in the long run. I know that as a team that we want to go out there and play hard for him. We understand that as a group that we got to step up and play harder because he was the voice of our team. To lose the voice of your team like that, it sucks, but we know that we have to go out there and play hard for him.

Who's a young guy who people may not know about who may be in that rotation to move forward?
I think that you called out the guys, Derrick Eason and Tim McKay. I think that Eason in the last two games has done really well. Just him stepping in, but he's getting prepped like he's going to start too.

Tim as well. Tim's been getting a lot of time this year too. I think that just seeing those two guys go out there on the field and play hard and do well... I'm glad that they're getting their shot now.

The last couple games, you guys have struggled a little bit running the football. When you watched the games back, what are some of the problems you're seeing on tape?
That's obviously something that we want to fix, as an offensive line group, that's something that we pride ourselves on is being able to run the ball. I think that last week that we didn't do a very good job of that.

We have to go out there and execute the blocks and sometimes we didn't. I think that's something that we're trying to fix this week on the field so that we can go out there and run the ball better this weekend.

Obviously Devin Leary's off to a really good start this year, a really good season for you guys. You work closely with him. What have you seen from him progressing from 2019 to now at that position?
I can just see he's the man now... faith that he's going to take care of the offense. When you know that he's back there behind you, every time we step on the field and he's with us, we know that we're going to be fine as an offense.

To see him take control of the whole group and have the respect of everybody out there on the field but also you can just see it in his eyes too. He knows that we believe in him to take care of us and to do the job right.

Something that I've seen from him is just how hard he worked, but also just how much he's grown too and how much control he has over the group, I think has been really cool.

It's tough to run the ball when defenses are crowding the box. Has that been a source of frustration for you guys? Because obviously you guys want to run the ball, but man, it's tough when they put eight people up there.
It's obviously tough, but we have to do what's called. If there are eight guys in the box, and we got to find a way to make it work. We believe that we can run the ball against anybody, but we have to go out there and do it and execute.

I don't think last week that we did a good job of executing. That's something that we want to fix this week so that we can go out there and have a better day of running the ball.

In this day and age of college football, teams are seeming to pass more and more. Just how important is the run game?
We understand that the run game opens up the pass game, because then they'll start to put more guys in there. That's why it's important for us to make sure that the run game works. Because if you don't have a run game, then everybody knows that you're going to pass the ball. We understand that you have to have the run game on point.

It's been a few weeks since you guys have been back to the Carter. How much easier does it make it to have these home games, not to worry about travel, and just kind of have that extra time during the week to sort of collect yourself?
We all like home games.  We have the best fans in the whole world, in the ACC, and all over the place. Our fans are the best. I think so for us to be gone, because we've been gone from them for about 3-4 weeks now.

We're all just as happy that we get to be home and play here. It's homecoming this week too so we know that there's going to be a large crowd here. The students are going to be back too. For us to get the change to come back home is huge for us and we're just glad that we get the chance to that this week.

After watching the Miami film and then moving to of course Louisville, what's the main thing you have to take that off film if we want to be successful this Saturday?
Something that we have to do as a team, and I know that we all say this, but we actually mean it, we just have to execute. We look at those games that, like this past week, the game that we lost and it's frustrating because we know that we left plays out there on the field that could’ve won us the game.

I think that's something that we want to do this week is just come into the film room and know that we did everything that we could to this game. We just want to go out there and execute to the best that we can.

We understand that every play is not going to be the best. Well you want it to be the best, but every play, those guys are good too so it may not always be the best play that you want.If you go out there and try your best and try to execute, that's all you can ask for. That's something that we want to do this week is just go out there and just play harder and play our best. But also execute too and take care of the small things.

How long did it take for you guys to have to kind of let that go and understand that you still control your own destiny here? You guys still have the main goals in front of you. How has that process been?
After the game, I don't know if he told you guys this, but guys in there crying because this game means a lot to us. That's what some people don't know. All the hard work that we put in, it sucks to go out there and lose a game like that when you know that you could've won.

We had guys crying, but we also understand that we had to get back to work. We got home at 4:15, and we were back in the Murphy by 12 because we had film. While everybody was saying these bad things about us, we were just getting back back to work.  We understand that we lost a game, but it's only a loss if you don't learn from it, and we learned from that loss.

We watched the film, I mean the film was tough to watch, but we also understand that if you want to learn and get better, then that's what you had to do is learn from those tough games. After we watched the film, we were just like, "Listen, we can't let this one game take over the next few weeks. We have a game in six days," and that's what we did. We're getting back to work right now and we're trying to prep for this week.

You guys didn't play Louisville last year. When you watch tape of them, do you focus more on what you see from them now or do you also just look at what you saw from him in 2019 as well?
Well, that means we kind of just have to key on the stuff that they've done this year. It's good to watch the film from two years ago, but they don't have the same players from back then.

It's a few guys that played in that game, but they've had new players come in, they have a few transfers come in to, so it's just important to key in on the film this year to see who they actually are going to play with.

Schematically, who do they resemble to you that you guys have maybe already faced this year?
Honestly their offense is kind of like ours, just because our old coach, coach Ledford, went there and they kind of kept our offense up there so it's kind of like ours.

Their defense, they're very fast, very fast. That's something that we saw on film. They have top speed all over the place. Their defensive linemen are quick and so we have a lot of respect for those guys just because of the way that they play and how fast and hard they play.