Dave Doeren, NC State Wolfpack football ready to take road trip

Whether NC State is home or away for a game Saturday, the Fridays are pretty standard, head coach Dave Doeren noted. There are some differences, such as this week when they are flying to Starkville, Miss., rather than hopping on a bus to stay at a team hotel in Raleigh or perhaps go for a short road trip to one of the in-state ACC rivals.

But the foundation of the schedule stays the same: start with arriving at the hotel by dinnertime and work backwards from there for meetings and walkthroughs.

Since NC State is playing Mississippi State for a night game, 7 p.m. eastern time on ESPN2, the day may seem a little bit longer on Saturday, however.

“We have a lot of time to kill,” Doeren admitted. “We have a lot of meals, a lot of walkthroughs, pregame meetings, highlight video we show the guys. A night game there will be some dead time in the middle.

"Guys will watch some college football a little bit.”

That will likely build up the anticipation of a nationally televised showdown in primetime against a SEC opponent.

“They know that we are playing a good team, and they’re excited about where we’re going,” Doeren said. “A lot has been said about gameday there, the noise, the fanfare, everything.

"That’s why the guys play. They want to be in games like that. We’re excited to play a good football team from a very good conference.”

Mississippi State comes into the contest having rallied from 20 points down in the fourth quarter to defeat Louisiana Tech, 35-34. Doeren has clearly paid more attention to the version of Mississippi State that scored three unanswered touchdowns in the final 13 minutes rather than the one that fell behind by three TDs.

“In the opener they struggled with tempo, struggled with some things, but I think we are going to see a much better team than we saw in that first game,” Doeren said. “I think the crowd is going to be really into it being a night game. I think the way we play probably will get their team a little bit more fired up about playing than who they started the season with.

“I expect to see a very energetic, improved team than they were. If you watch the fourth quarter, they were a heck of a football team.”

There are a couple of former assistants of Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach on the NC State sideline in special assistant to the head coach Ruffin McNeill and cornerbacks coach Brian Mitchell. Both worked with Leach at Texas Tech.

It’s frequently asked if that’s an advantage. Doeren sought to downplay that once and for all.

“It doesn’t help as much as you guys talk about it, to be honest,” Doeren said. “He’s going to call the plays, you got to stop the plays. Everybody knows what they do. It’s can you stop it?

“It’s not like he’s created this offense that no one has ever seen before. The Air Raid has been around for 20 years. There are things you can ask, but at the end of the day it’s breaking down what they do, teaching it to your guys and if you are good enough to stop it.”

Another cliché that Doeren doesn’t prescribe to is the notion you make your biggest improvement from week one to week two. For starters, the quality of competition could vary enough that it disguises any jumps made from the opener.

Doeren's goal is to have each player at every position in every phase of the game be at least one percent better than the last week.

“If 22 players do one thing better than they did a week ago, that’d be 22 percent,” Doeren added. “That’d be a lot of improvement on the field. That’s kind of how we look at it.”