No. 16 NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media via Zoom following the Wolfpack's 45-42 road loss to No. 12 Wake Forest Saturday evening.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Doeren’s press conference.
Opening Statement
Obviously, it was a very hard-fought game tonight between two teams. You’ve got to give Wake Forest credit and congratulations to them on the win. We just weren’t good enough tonight in certain areas. Our kids fought hard and gave us a chance there at the end. They went down, scored, and had the onside kick. I didn’t get a good enough view of it. I think that, if they’d ruled it our ball, we probably would have kept it. It sounded like it wasn’t conclusive enough at the end. The story of the night: we couldn’t get off the field on third-and-long. That hurt us, and our third-down offense hurt us. Those two things accumulated throughout the game. There were some really good efforts in the game, but you can’t give up 45 points and win. Offensively, it just took us too long to get going. In the first half, we didn’t get enough points on the board.
Was Devin Leary’s 59 pass attempts part of the game plan, or was it a situation where you were taking what the defense was giving you?
No. We got behind, so that attributed to it, but they had injuries at corner, and we felt like we could run by them, which we were. Really, it was more of trying to take advantage of what we were getting matchup-wise with Emeka [Emezie] on a backup corner because their guy’s hurt. If we don’t turn the ball over, we’re moving the football and probably getting more points on the board. That hurt us, and if you’re losing the turnover margin on the road, you’re not going to win many games.
You mentioned the third-down defense, especially on that final drive there. Was there anything you can point to that attributed to the lack of efficiency on third-down defense?
Yeah, our corners didn’t make any plays. We either P.I.’d them or had a ball completed on us multiple times.
We didn’t make any plays at corner on that [six-minute, fourth-quarter] drive.
We tried to play coverage, we tried to blitz, and we had 14 penalties. I don’t know how many of them were P.I.s’ or holding in the secondary, but there was a lot of them that were, and I need to watch the film on them to see if they’re all legit. We need to play the ball better and play with poise, and if they throw the deep ball, we’ve got to turn our eyes and our head and look for the football like we’re coached. We didn’t do that.
What went into the decision to not kick the ball out of the end zone at the end of the first half after you scored?
We were kicking into the wind and felt like we could deep squib it and keep them from getting a return. Unfortunately, the ball bounced one time right to the guy. It was just a bad bounce, man. Again, we could have kicked it deep and hoped it would’ve gone into the end zone. Usually, in a situation like that, you’re trying to get them away from being able to run their return the right way and throw off the timing of it. We were hoping it would bounce multiple times down the field, not one time right to him.
It felt like there were injuries every other play, especially with your team. Have you ever experienced anything like that in your career with that many current injuries?
We’re held together by duct tape at some spots right now. We’ve got some kids playing with some bumps and bruises. As you know, our depth chart on defense has been decimated. Savion [Jackson] is out now, too. We’re really down some players right now. The guys that are playing are beat up, and they’re playing with a lot of grit and a lot of toughness, but it’s taken its toll on us. We just don’t have the rotation that we’d like to have, that we had earlier in the year.
After the game, some of the guys hung out on the field to watch the celebration and let that feeling soak in. Did you tell the team that there’s still plenty to fight for in the locker room after the game?
Yeah, I did. Obviously, winning the Atlantic is out of our control now. Some things are going to have to go in our favor with Wake losing some games. All we can control is our next two and try to win both of those. We’ve got two home games to finish out the season and the bowl game. There’s a lot to play for, but right now we’ve got some disappointed and upset coaches and players, and it’s okay to feel that way. They’ll feel that pain and that hurt tonight, and we’ll get back to it tomorrow and get these guys back to where they need to be and get ready for the next one.
There’s been a lot of talk about writing your own story and controlling your own destiny, as you just mentioned. How does that story change from here?
We don’t control the destiny anymore, so at this point, it’s how we respond to adversity and how we finish. We’ve got Syracuse at home, we’ve got UNC at home, and we’ve got a bowl game. We’ve got three opportunities to play great football with people we love, and that’s what it’s going to be about. The narrative’s changed a little bit, but the fact that we’ve got to go compete doesn’t.
You just completed four out of five games on the road. Was that the first time you’ve done that? How tough was it having to deal with that?
It’s been a long five weeks. Getting home anywhere between 12 and four in the morning and being on the road as much as we’ve been has been a grind, so it’ll be good to finish at home. It was definitely a challenging midsection to the season, and I haven’t been through that before, to answer your question.
