NC State head coach Dave Doeren was asked Thursday was there was any word on if things still happening Saturday, when NC State will play at Virginia Tech, with so many uncertainties surrounding college football and especially around the Hokies, or was it full steam ahead at this point for his team.

“Full steam ahead,” Doeren answered.

The Wolfpack is scheduled to take eight buses, each carrying 10 players and a couple of staff members, for the trip. They will leave Friday around 1 p.m., and the seating arrangements on each bus is designed with social distancing protocols in mind.

“It’s going to be, I guess you say contact tracing-eliminator, the way we’re busing, so that guys won’t have that issue,” Doeren noted. “God-forbid we had someone on there test positive. We test in the morning, probably don’t get our results until we are already up there. You want to make sure you eliminate the impact of that, if that were to happen.”

The scheduled arrival time back in Raleigh on Sunday morning is 5 a.m. It is Doeren’s hope that it is a happy, celebratory bus ride home. That will be a challenge against a talented, albeit potentially depleted, Virginia Tech roster.

Hokies head coach Justin Fuente noted earlier this week that he will not have a full squad this Saturday, and frankly he was just hoping to be able to play. That uncertainty is par for the course in 2020, Doeren noted.

“It’s kind of what you’re used to at this point,” Doeren said. “Would it be great to know who’s going to be out there? Yeah, it would, but that’s not where we’re at.

“So, I am not going to dwell on that. We just got to focus on being able to make good adjustments. I think that’s the key. We talked about things that they might do, but we also know there are going to be things they do that we weren’t ready for.”

What thing that NC State probably has not spent much time preparing for is the legendary Lane Stadium environment. Enter Sandman will probably still play in the introductions, but the sparse crowd will not have the same impact as a typical gameday there.

Ironically, when NC State played in Blacksburg in 2015, a vicious thunderstorm delayed the start and robbed Doeren of a chance to experience the pregame festivities.

“I think obviously not having to deal with crowd noise for an offense is something that helps you,” Doeren said. “I do think the crazy gameday environment is part of what college kids look forward to. I feel bad for the kids on both sides that they don’t have that.”

• Doeren and his staff will be taking temporary pay cuts to help alleviate the loss revenue that could run upwards to $35 million for NC State. Doeren has no qualms about losing 20 percent of his salary. As Doeren noted, “We’re all aware there is a global pandemic, and things are not normal.”

“No one ever likes losing income that you thought you were going to get, but it’s a time where the school needs us to help, and we understand the pandemic and what it created fiscally for NC State,” Doeren stated. “And I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there that don’t even have jobs because of their situation.

“The biggest thing I look at is we have a job, we have a great place to work. We are not going to make what we thought we were going to make, but we still have the same opportunity and the chance to help our university in a time of need.”

• Doeren said whether or not both quarterbacks — redshirt junior Bailey Hockman and redshirt sophomore Devin Leary — will play depends on what happens in the game, but both should be ready.

“Both quarterbacks had a good week of practice,” he added. “We are excited for both of them.”

• One area of emphasis in game-planning has been dealing with Virginia Tech’s dual-threat quarterbacks.

“There’s a lot of what we call plus-one runs where there is an extra blocker involved,” Doeren said. “They have nice design offensively with their misdirection pieces and the jets that create things on the edge, and then also the vertical component with the counter and power inside with their quarterbacks and running backs.

“You got to be really detailed. You got to be sound. It’s like option football when it comes to how you defend them. They do a nice job. Having linebackers that you can rotate, that can run and tackle obviously is a benefit to us right now.

“In the first game it paid off. We are going to use those guys to continue to improve.”

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