NC State head coach Dave Doeren’s routine Thursday game week availability was short, sweet and to the point two days before the Wolfpack will face Duke in Carter-Finley Stadium this Saturday at 3:30 p.m.
The Pack (3-1, 3-1 ACC) is currently in fourth place in the ACC standings in terms of winning percentage and has an opportunity to win its third straight conference game for the first time since its 9-4 season in 2017 in which it finished No. 23 in the country. The head coach isn’t allowing his team to get ahead of itself, however.
“I think when you focus on that kind of stuff, that extracurricular reward, it takes you away from the details that help you get it,” Doeren said. “The formula for us has been how to win a game, not what you get by winning the game. That's really important for this team to stay grounded, be humble and understand how hard it is to win and what it takes to win a game.”
It will be just the second time Doeren has faced the Blue Devils in his eight years in Raleigh. In Doeren’s first season, the Wolfpack lost to Duke on the road 38-20.
It will also be just the fourth meeting between the local rivals since 2003 since the teams play in separate divisions within the ACC and NC State plays Coastal Division arch-rival UNC on an annual basis.
The two schools are separated by just 22 miles and are very familiar with each other despite meeting on the gridiron on an inconsistent basis. Sophomore running back Zonovan “Bam” Knight, who was previously committed to Duke before flipping and eventually signing with NC State, said this game was “personal” in a now-deleted Tweet earlier this week.
“A lot of times when kids commit, they get caught up in the hype of a moment,” Doeren said. “I think he was at the Duke-UNC basketball game when that happened. As time kind of went on, I think he realized that he made a decision that he needed to reevaluate. I'm not completely sure why he felt that way, but we never stopped recruiting him.
“We didn't feel like when it happened that it was something that would last just because it felt emotional at the time as opposed to something that he'd been thinking through for a long period of time. To his credit, he came back here probably seven or eight times after that, just to make sure that this was what he wanted.
“For us, it was just about providing information and showing him all the positives that we have. We don't negatively recruit and talk bad about other places, so we just wanted to make sure he understood what NC State had to offer him and thankful for us that he did.”
“I know that there are relationships that they have on other sidelines, whether it's former teammates or friends that might play through that school or coaches,” Doeren continued. “I can see how that would be a motivating factor for a guy.”
The young Wolfpack defense has gained confidence in its past two road victories leading up to an enticing matchup on Saturday. Duke has turned the ball over 19 times through five games, the most of any team at the FBS level.
Meanwhile, NC State forced four turnovers in its 38-21 win at Virginia, which included its first three interceptions of the season.
“We've definitely talked about the fundamentals of taking the ball away like we do every week,” Doeren said. “Week in and week out, there's different things that you see on tape. Some people don't carry the ball with a lot of ball security, some quarterbacks hold the ball low in the pocket. For example, last week we knew that the Virginia quarterback delivered the ball low. He had kind of a sidearm release, so we talked about getting our hands up and batting balls.
“In the case of Duke, they've thrown some interceptions, they've fumbled some balls. I know they work hard on that. Our kids right now are very excited about what happens when they get takeaways here and they see the outcome of how it helps our offense. They enjoy the sideline celebration they had, doing those things Saturday so I think there's a lot of energy about it here.”
The Pack has also come up with goal-line stands in each of the past two contests. Both Pittsburgh and Virginia had opportunities to score on the NC State one-yard line, but the Wolfpack’s goal-line package has found ways to come up with big stops.
“The biggest thing is being tough,” Doeren said. “Guys just got to want it down there. They got to be really strong, stout, have good pad level. You're going to see quarterback sneaks, you're going to see whatever their bread and butter short yardage runs are and then the play-action passes. You just have to rep those things but it's very hard to simulate in practice, without going live, what that's really like down there.
“[Defensive linemen] Josh Harris, Alim McNeill, C.J. Clark and Savion Jackson, I mean those are some strong, thick guys that really have fought hard in the trenches in those areas to win the line of scrimmage for us in those two situations.’
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