Dave Doeren: "One Of Our Goals Was To Be Undefeated At Home"
No. 20 NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media via Zoom following the Wolfpack's 41-17 road win over Syracuse Saturday evening.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Doeren’s press conference.
Opening Statement
I’d like to start off thanking the game ops folks for how special it was, military appreciation game, and all the stuff that went in tonight. It’s a great shoutout to our military, active and retired, seeing them all there. It was special. I also want to give Coach [Laurie] Henes and our women’s cross country team a shoutout for winning a national championship. Pretty awesome for them to be able to do that. As far as the game goes, it’s pretty cool to be in a game where you score in all three phases of the game. Offense obviously we’re gonna score, but a defensive touchdown for Drake [Thomas], back-to-back games with a special teams touchdown from [Zonovan Knight]. To see both the Thomas brothers [Drake and Thayer Thomas] score touchdowns is pretty cool. So a lot of really good stuff. Defending them is a challenge with all the different run things they do. My hat’s off to Sean Tucker and Garrett Shrader, I think they’re both really good runners, tough kids. As far as our guys go, first quarter we wanted to start fast and we didn’t, so that was disappointing. Defense we did, and then we settled in and just started getting on a roll. I thought it was good to see our run game get better and improve. Even though the total yards weren’t what we wanted, there were some really positive runs. There were some time consuming drives which ended with points on the board. So all those things together, and offensively took care of the football with no turnovers, so a lot of things we wanted to do tonight we were able to do. A lot of guys playing with some pain out there and playing a physical game, so proud of our guys for that. Now a chance to move forward and have a championship week. Senior day, we play our rival, all those things. We don’t control what happens with Wake Forest, but on our end we have a chance to put ourselves in a position where if they lose and we win, we’re in. So a lot to play for coming up, and I’m looking forward to that opportunity.
On the team’s 14 tackles for loss and ability to get into the backfield...
It looked like the guys did a good job setting the line of scrimmage, shedding blocks and playing downhill, particularly in the first half. I thought we were really, really good. We tackled well for the most part. They had a couple schemes that they ran that we didn’t practice and got outside on the edge on us a couple times and one turned into a big play for them, but overall we were trying to get them behind the chains and seeing if they could throw the ball down the field to win, which we didn’t think they could, and that proved to be right. I thought it was a really good game plan and it was a lot of adjusting going on. There were probably about 25 unbalanced formations Syracuse was in in that game, so a lot more of that than we expected.
On if teams might stop kicking to Knight...
Yeah, it could happen. I think some people trust their kicker to kick touchbacks. I guess you could start skying it, and if you do that then there’s potential we could get returns. We’ve got Jordan Houston set up over there and we’re not just gonna fair catch the ball and let you do that. It’s something that they could do but week to week it just depends on the strength of the leg of the kicker. We knew going in to this game he was about one out of three for touchbacks, so we thought we would get 66% of the time a chance at a return. I was happy to see the guys execute, and obviously it was a great run by Bam.
On if the team saw before the game that Clemson was beating Wake Forest...
I think our guys were watching that game. We were in pregame meal and everybody was looking at their phones. That was right when their game was going on. Obviously we didn’t see the second half because we were in warmups at the time, but I think our guys assumed that and I think they knew. We tried to keep more of our attention on the game we were playing than the game that was being played somewhere else. But I think our guys had a pretty good idea what was gonna be the outcome of that game after they saw the first half. We put ourselves in a position, unfortunately, where we don’t control the finish, but we control what happens if we can get a win here next week on senior day against our rival, so that’s what we’ll focus on. Obviously we’ll be Boston College fans this week, pulling for them too.
On bouncing back after a tough loss last week...
They were disappointed, upset, mad, all the above, losing last week’s game. They knew there were plays we left on the field. They’re also a smart bunch of guys that know that Wake has to play back to back road games against good teams, so we weren’t out of it. It was just a matter of getting back to what we could control and that was winning out at home. One of our goals is to be undefeated in [Carter-Finley Stadium], and right now we’re one game away from doing that, and that means a lot to our team. I know this coming week’s going to mean a ton to them with senior day. There’s a bunch of really good guys that deserve to go out their last time at home winners, and that’s gonna be very meaningful to this team this week.
On all three phases scoring in the second quarter...
It was huge. That’s what complementary football is. It’s setting up either side of the ball, and it’s gaining momentum for either side of the ball with the special teams play. We’ve talked so much about it, and the guys have embraced it. It was one of the things in our leadership council meeting; Bryson Speas talked about it. It’s not just playing complementary football, but it’s doing it at the right time, having consequential plays and drives off of each other, and feeding each other. That quarter was as good as it could be.