There was a lot of excitement around the Murphy Center at NC State this past weekend. Head coach Dave Doeren was not exempt from celebrating the win over Clemson.

Doeren had his reasons for enjoying himself.

He noted that there “was an accumulation of a lot of misery” for him in his eight previous years of playing Clemson. He thought that he was going to get the ultimate redemption when he called a timeout with two seconds left in regulation and All-ACC junior kicker Christopher Dunn lining up for a 39-yard field goal.

Unexpectedly, Dunn missed the kick.

Flash back to 2016, one of three difficult losses Doeren has had against Clemson. Former kicker Kyle Bambard lined up for a 33-yarder in the exact same situation but missed. Clemson, who went on to win the national championship that year, beat NC State in overtime.

“I mean how much adversity can a team have?” Doeren asked.

Yet the Pack did not flinch, and the result was the fans rushing the field following NC State’s win in double overtime. Doeren does not care if the school gets fined for the postgame celebration.

“If you don’t allow people to celebrate in special moments, I don’t know what we’re doing,” Doeren said.

But the party has to end, and to that point, Doeren is not interested in taking a gigantic step forward only to take one back one game later.

NC State hosts Louisiana Tech, a team that is 2-2 on paper but realistically deserves to be 4-0, Doeren said. The game is set for a 6 p.m. kickoff at Carter-Finley Stadium.

“They lost on the last play of the game to SMU on a pretty freak throw, ricochet play on a Hail Mary, and then they had a 20-point lead in the fourth quarter at Mississippi State and lost,” Doeren noted.

This week though is more a test of maturity. The head coach noted Monday that the goal this season was not to beat Clemson.

“Our goal was to win every game we play this year,” Doeren clarified. “To be in contention to win this league … all we’ve done is move closer to the goal, that’s it.

“Are we going to savor the victory? Yeah, like I told the team, at the [year-end] banquet we’ll talk all about it. We had 48 hours to have fun, and now we’re on to Louisiana Tech, and that’s all there is to it.”

The Bulldogs are coached by former East Carolina head coach Skip Holtz, the son of former NC State and Hall of Fame coach Lou Holtz.

The younger Holtz was hired by Louisiana Tech after the 2012 season, one of 31 coaches hired that offseason. So was Doeren by NC State. They are two of just five from those transitions to remain at the school that hired them then.

Ironically, the first game Doeren coached at NC State was against Holtz in his first at Louisiana Tech. The Wolfpack rolled to a 40-14 win that afternoon in Raleigh, but Doeren noted the game feels like it was “a million years ago.”

“I remember our quarterback that we signed and transferred in here, Brandon Mitchell, got hurt in that game and that was not good, but it was a win and I don’t remember much else about it,” he said.

NC State’s program has come a long way since that 2013 season in which the Wolfpack went winless in the ACC and 3-9 overall. Doeren’s hope is that it is now as close as ever to being a championship contender in the ACC.

To prove that, it’ll need to avoid a setback against Louisiana Tech.

"It's a test of our maturity, bottom line,” Doeren said. “People are going to talk about trap games and letdowns and all those kind of things, and I've already addressed that with the team. We're not going to do that.

"This game is about being better than we were last week. And that's our goal, is to be a great football team, and great football teams don't step backwards. It's going to be a challenge. I think for us, we have to show our maturity now and our leadership.”

• Confirmation came Sunday evening that redshirt freshman nose tackle C.J. Clark will be out for the remainder of the season. Doeren said that Clark hurt himself in a freakish play during practice simply planting his foot and cutting.

Redshirt junior Florida State transfer Cory Durden will replace Clark in the starting lineup. Durden had a pair of sacks against Florida State.

Doeren praised Durden for being the ultimate teammate since arriving at NC State.

"He learned how to play our end position and our nose position,” Doeren said. “He said it multiple times, he didn't care if he started. He just wants to help us win. He wants to be a part of something great.

“He felt like he had an impact in that game, and we talked during the week about the game plan. He knew the [Clemson] center from a bunch of those camps he'd been to. He was excited about the matchup. He has known him a long time and went out there and played his best, and that's all I wanted our guys to do.”

• One question facing NC State this weekend is, who will be the quarterback? Louisiana Tech’s starter for the first three games, Austin Kendall, did not play in the Bulldogs’ win over North Texas. His availability for Saturday is unknown.

“We know Austin well,” Doeren added. “He's a Charlotte native and went to Oklahoma, and we played against him up at West Virginia, so he’s kind of a journeyman.

“Good football player, kid that we offered and liked a lot in high school.”

• Doeren was asked if he was concerned about fans rushing the field during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We’re 100 percent vaccinated here … first of all, every player, every staff member. So we're in the best protected place we can be," he explained. "We're outside, we're not having close contact for very long with anybody. You look at what happened on the field, we're getting in and out of there pretty fast.

"I think you should focus more on the fact that NC State won a big game and everybody had a good time and nobody got hurt. Let's just call it a great night, instead of trying to make it into something that wasn't."

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