Drake Thomas: "We're Playing At A High Level"
NC State star linebacker Drake Thomas is one of the leaders of the Wolfpack's defense, and he recently discussed the start of the season with the media.
NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview. A collection of quotes from Thomas are below.
“I was honored; it’s very humbling that my teammates look at me in that sort of light. It takes a lot of responsibility, and I'm just happy that people view me in that way and give me a voice to say... I guess have a say-so on the team.”
“It was a veteran group, and like I said, just very honored and very humbling to be viewed like that, voted by my teammates, especially on a veteran team, guys picked me to be their captain. Just like I said, it really means a lot.”
“Yeah, it feels great to get everybody back. It was just a lot of fun playing with those guys. I've been playing with them for a while now and they're back. First day, it was like, they didn't miss a beat. So it was just so much fun getting back out there, and just the speed that we're playing at. We're playing at a high level. We know what's coming, we know the system, and we know our responsibilities and jobs within our system, so we can play it really fast and don't really have to worry about it. It's more like instincts at this point.”
“There's so many people within the two-deep that have started games and played valuable snaps in big-time ACC games. So there's a lot of guys that I'm very confident that can step up and fill a role if need be.”
“They run an offense. They have the same offensive coordinator [when] we played them in 2019. So a lot of similar stuff from back then, zone scheme, stuff like that. They have a mobile, good quarterback; veteran quarterback. So that’s always helpful for an offense when you have a veteran quarterback. So just kind of keying in on that and game-planning every single day, knowing what's coming.”
“I'm really excited. I know what their fans bring to the table. I've been to a few games growing up, I know people that go to ECU, whatever it is growing up around this area. So I know what they bring to the table when it comes to gameday. I know they like to have a lot of fun and they like to be loud and they like to bring intensity. So I'm really excited to go there.”