Doeren: "It's A Very Special Group"

NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media to discuss the upcoming game against North Carolina.

Opening Statement...
This is the last home game for a great group of seniors. It's a very special group of young men, 20 guys we'll honor on Senior Day.  My first recruiting class... to see them grow:  Tony Adams, Davion Allred, Jonathan Alston, Shawn Boone, Bradleh Chubb, Cole Cook, Peter Daniel, Jerod Fernandez, BJ Hill, Justin Jones, Ken kaiser, Nic Lacey, Gavin Locklear, Airius Moore, Dakwa Nichols, Jumichael Ramos, Jaylen Samuels, Brian Smith, Mike Stevens, and Kentavius Street. 

It's a special group of young men, it's been fun and rewarding to be a part of the journey with them. As much as it is rivalry week... senior week is huge for these young men to come out of Carter-Finley Stadium one final time and to see their loved ones on the 50-yard line, all of that is very special to me and these players. We look forward to doing everything we can to play our best football in this football game against UNC.

Nathan Elliott has thrown six touchdowns and zero interceptions in the last two games.  I know they are banged up but they are getting some guys back, Proehl returning last week has helped them.   Ratliff-Williams has been their playmaker at receiver.  They won 11 of their last 14 road games... you look at records in these games and they don't matter.  It's always going to be an emotional game where both teams are playing for a lot. 

Emeka Emezie was obviously emotional after the Wake Forest game... what did you talk with him about after the game?
I went in after my press conference at the stadium, and he was like you'd think he would be. Myself... there were a lot of players around him too, we told him it wasn't intentional.  It wasn't something he wanted to do, and he kept saying how sorry he was.  I told him as much as that means to me, just make up for it.  That's all I can ask for as a head coach.

I thought he played a heck of a football game. I think he and Chris Ingram are going to be very good players at NC State.  They were both involved a lot in that game and both had plays they were successful on and plays they weren't.  

Emeka will be a better football player for that play.  It's unfortunate we have to live it, but that's football.

In the last two years there's been five games that came down to a single play that could have changed the outcome. That's one of them.

He's a very talented guy that has got a lot better.

You spoke about the seniors... going into this game, how much have you seen some of the guys develop into who they are in the system?
I told the players that I'm as proud of them for their athletic growth, but I'm equally proud of the personal growth... the emotional, leadership... watching them become men. That part of them you don't see but we see a ton of growth. A guy like Jerod Fernandez has totally changed completely for the better.

I'm going to miss not seeing any of these guys... just guys that are here so much. Shawn Boone and Cole Cook may as well have a room here because they are here so much. It will be a different building without them.

Everything they've done for NC State and NC State has done for them, that's what you do this for. I say that all the time... you see growth... on and off the field and you send them off into the world in hopes of them being very successful. 

There's a lot of those kind of people in this class.

When you see Shawn Boone talking with Emeka... he's been through that. Is there any solace there knowing how to handle such situations.
The nice thing I think, our team cares a lot about each other so you know when something is going on they'll help each other out.

Being a person that's been through it like Shawn, obviously he can say you'll be better through this.

He leads the team in interceptions... you have to go through it sometimes... sometimes those plays don't equal a win or loss but sometimes they do.

How do you balance this being the next game and it being UNC?
Honestly I don't sit there and drum up the series and all that. I don't really have to do that. I told the team yesterday it's Senior Day, and I had those seniors stand up. I asked do you need a better reason to play football this week? Everyone in the room knew where I was coming from.  The fact that it's UNC adds to that.

No matter who we play, we want to win, but we really want to win our last home game for a group of guys that's a special group of guys. It just happens to be against our rival. I don't have to add to that for them to play hard. They are going to play hard.

Looking at these seniors, how much have they instilled into the younger players what they've done over the years?
I think that's the legacy we talk about in passing the torch. Those guys do a great job with that, there's several of them talking with players at lunch... those guys do a really good job of creating a standard of this is what we do here.

You have a unique situation this year with a couple of guys who may go pro early.  How do you handle that?  You never know with the bowl situation, some may not want to play. Have you talked to them?
I haven't yet, I hope I don't have to but we'll see. 

As far as underclassmen, I'll meet with all those guys next week. I told them all before the season not to think about that until the season is over. Once the season ends, we're allowed to send in five names to the NFL office to get evaluated.  We'll do that next Monday and wait for the response. 

I'll sit down with the guys who want to see those evals with the parents and show them what the NFL says... we believe you should go back to school or you have a chance to be a first or second-round pick.  At that point, we'll get the previous years' drafts out and show them what that means, how much money they can gain or lose based on the recommendation of the NFL office... how many credits you have left to graduate... if we can insure them, we'll tell them how much we can insure them for, what amount.

There's a lot of things that goes into it. It won't be right or way that we'll have all the information. I think last year it was the week of the bowl when all of that came back. It takes... 20-30 days to get the reply.

Was the Shawn Boone/Chris Ingram lineup changes a one-game deal or something you want going forward?
I haven't talked to the defensive guys yet. I know it's something they wanted to carry forward, but whether they think that's still the best way to match up if they want to go back to Shawn at nickel and Tim or Dexter at safety we'll see.

North Carolina hasn't had the year they wanted to have from previous successes but the last two games they won.  Their third-string quarterback looks like he should have been the starter all along. What do you know about him?
As a starter he's won two games, thrown six touchdowns with zero interceptions, and he does run the football.

They are running their offense as they always have. It's similar to maybe a couple of years ago when Marquise was running the offense... the run-game quarterback is a part of what they want to do.
He's a lefty so that has something to do with the movements of their offense in terms of bootlegs and sprint-outs.   You don't see a ton of change in their offensive system from Surrat to him. He's just been more successful. They turned the ball over a ton earlier in the season and they had all those injuries.

I think their tailbacks are good players and with Proehl and Ratliff-Williams they have good weapons.
Defensively they have good talent on the field. They are long and can run... their DBs play a lot of press. They have big safeties who roam around the field and are put in space to make space tackles.

The previous ten games Nathan wasn't their quarterback so I can't really comment on that.

I don't really think it matters what their record is in this game. I know it didn't for us last year when we played them.

Have you thought about how much turnover you'll have after this year?
Yes, we talk personnel everyday.  That's why getting guys like Emeka and Chris Ingram on the field is important... getting Tyrone in there, James Smith-Williams.

We're playing with some guys. They just aren't recognized right now because the seniors are really good. Those seniors three years ago were no-names too.

Next year you'll be talking about our o-line probably... four of those five, if they all come back, are back.

Dylan Autenrieth and Dylan Parham are two tight ends getting a lot of reps that we like. We're redshirting some good players.

We're going to have different names on defense.  The d-line... we redshirted a JUCO defensive tackle Larrell Murchison, who we think will be a good player.  We redshirted Grant Gibson who we think will be a good player. We have a junior college effort going on, on the d-line to get another guy. I can't say until he signs, but we also have some good young high school players coming in.

When you lose 20 seniors it changes your roster.  When they stood up in front of the team, it's like, “Wow, that's a lot of guys.”

Did you see some improvements against Wake Forest?
Yes, we had the ball for 41 minutes and 500 yards... we just didn't score enough points. We ended three drives with turnovers and lose a field goal and punt a couple of times, they were able to score their first three possessions on offense.  After that I thought we played well on defense.

We did do some things better, they had one explosive run in the game, but it wasn't a long run.

In the pass game we had more explosive plays against their defense, we just didn't have that one game-breaking explosive play and we were 4-of-5 in the redzone.

UNC has struggled turning the ball over early in the season. This team, in the games they lost the turnover battle they ended up losing those games.  How critical is turnover margin in this game, going against a UNC team that's turned it around in that way?
We're 7-0 when we win the turnover margin and 0-4 [when we don't] this year.  I think that pretty much says it all for us too [on the turnover margin].

They are -5 on the season and the last two games it hasn't been in the negative, so it's always a big deal.

Whoever has the ball has the biggest chance to win so when you give someone momentum and field position it's not good for your football team.  We were able to cancel one out last week... but the one we lost going in to score is a killer because it changes the scoreboard.

It probably hasn't been the easiest season for Dexter Wright. How has he handled it?
He's been positive.  He hasn't played as well as we hoped he would or he hoped he would and that's something we have to get out of him.  

He's stayed positive.

Do you have an update on Nyheim?
I will tomorrow probably. He was here yesterday but we haven't practiced yet. Tomorrow is our first day of practice.

Was the Ingram move more about stopping the long, explosive runs?
It was multiple things.
Chris has shown us great progress in practice. I think his coverage ability is good. I know it didn't show, but I don't put that all on him.  There were some things the safeties could have done to help him on some of those plays we didn't do.  

Shawn Boone is our best tackler in the secondary, and we've given up explosive runs in the secondary three straight games, so we figured enough is enough. The safety is supposed to get that stuff down, and that we can do what we do with Shawn in there.  We were in the run game, and he had a big interception on the Mike Stevens PBU.

I think Chris Ingram will get better. He's no different as a college player. His second game as a starter is coming up and he'll get better. We're excited about Chris and his future here.

What does that say about how good Shawn Boone is to make that change?
Shawn is really smart and he's a really, really good tackler ever since he's been here... he's a very heady player who uses good angles. He understands what will happen before it does a lot of times. 

He knows all three spots... he's very versatile.