Dave Doeren's press conference transcript

Here is a transcript from Dave Doeren's press conference Monday. Audio and video of the PC can be seen here.

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“Going back to last week, obviously disappointed, not discouraged, and a bunch of very upset and mad guys, coaches alike at what we did and did not do. I think that is the biggest thing when you look, any time you have a loss, it is taking the opportunity to grow and learn from it. That it is for us with this football team. It’s a huge, huge leaning opportunity.

“Offensively, it was too different halves. The first half, I thought we moved the ball well. We got 21 points and had a 93-yard touchdown drive. Compared to the second half, we got six points and couldn’t get into a rhythm. We ran the ball pretty efficiency, but gave up too many negative plays. We had 10 plays in our backfield and seven TFL’s, which gets you off schedule offensively. A lot of details, whether it is route depth or location, a split, being off an inch in certain places, not being quick enough for the tuck or accurate enough with the ball. There are so many little things that could have changed how we played on offense.

“Our red zone offense has been really good. Other things we have to do better. I like the way some of the guys competed and there is a lot of stuff that we have to fix. There is an opportunity to do that. I’m excited to do that with our guys. They were very good yesterday in our meetings with them.

“Defensively, I thought we played slow. I didn’t think we tackled as well as we have, whether we were losing a gap or misfitting a run or setting the edge appropriately. We didn’t contest enough balls, which is something we’ve been doing well, playing tighter coverage. I thought we gave up some stuff that we haven’t been. We weren’t disruptive or playing with good enough technique. A lot of basic things. They played fast and their tempo was good. We didn’t adjust to that very well throughout the game.

“On special teams, the blocked punt obviously was a critical mental error. It’s really something that should never happen with our protection scheme that we have. With all that being said, there was 11 minutes remaining in the game and down by four. We got a stop on defense and had an unfortunate penalty that created that drive to extend. I felt like that was a critical point in the game. As bad as we were playing, we had a chance to win and do the right things. We have to play the ball better when the ball is in the air or flags will be thrown when you don’t.

“The best part about it, our kids understand it and and our players and coaches, it’s an opportunity. Every obstacle in your life is a choice how you are going to handle that adversity. For us, it’s an opportunity to improve, and that is what we are going to do.

“We are going to come home this week and play a night game, a sold-out game, a black out game. Our guys will have their black uniforms on and are excited about that. We are excited about the opportunity this week we have in the community and really nation wide with the ‘Set The Expectations.’ Brenda Tracey, who is very well known and came here in the spring, and met with our football team and met with all the student athletes. James Smith-Williams and another member of our men’s soccer team joined up and did something with our baseball program in the spring. They have now set up to do the same thing with our football team. They will wear a shirt that advocates her cause. I’m very excited and proud of our guys for wanting to be part of a solution to such a big thing nationally, something we can do to help Brenda and her cause and help our world. I’m proud of our student-athletes for being a part of that and I look forward to that opportunity for them to use their platform to help something way bigger than them. I appreciate her allowing us to do this with her, and all that it stands for.

“Moving forward, Ball State is a football team that is really good on offense. They are impressive. Obviously, I know a lot about the MAC Conference and the skill level. There is good receivers and good running backs, and athletic players in that league. Their quarterback is playing at a high level. When you look at him, he is 70 percent completion rate and he’s over 1,000 yards in three games and 11 touchdowns and only three interceptions. He knows his progressions and gets the ball to his backs when people are covered and does a nice job.

“They are a balanced offense like us. They are almost 50-50 in run-pass and a lot of play-action down the field. Their tailback is a tough kid who runs downhill. They have four returning starters up front and they play fast. They are over 80 plays a game offensively. The tempo is going to be something we have to be prepared to play against. They are scoring over 30 points a game, 37 points.

“Good football game for us to have at home. It’s a good opponent. Defensively, they are sound. They have a lot of players back that have played for them. They are athletic and all four starters in their secondary are back. They have a free safety that is 6-4 and 220 and makes a lot of plays. He’s their leading tackler in the box, and does a lot of things for them in the boundary.

“The Will linebacker, No. 6, Thomas, is very athletic. Their Jack in their 3-4 personnel, which is their boundary end, does a really nice job on the edge. They are a team that plays hard.

“The coach has been there now a few years and has played a lot of young guys who are now in their third year. A good test for our football team and a chance for us to get back to running the football, and throwing it and catching it, and doing the things we need to do defensively. We have to get back to being aggressive and playing fast. I think we got out of who we wanted to be in that football game. It was a great opportunity to learn and I look forward to that with these guys this week.”

What did you see on film about redshirt sophomore quarterback Matthew McKay?

“I think there are always things you have to re-evaluate. We have three games worth of information. There are certain things he is doing well. There are some situational things like on third and one, we had RPO’s called and that is on us. We shouldn’t have him even thinking throwing the ball there. That isn’t on Matt, that’s on us. There are a couple of third downs where he threw a good ball and the ball was dropped. Obviously, you are going to say the receiver should catch it. There is a lot that goes into him playing better and he needs to play better.

“He was mad at himself at some of the things that he could do better. What is he doing well? He is not turning the football over. He is getting guys lined up, outside of the first play of the game where he had a delay, he is managing the clock well. He is doing some good things.

“It’s his third college game and his first road game in a loud environment. Did he play great? No, he didn’t. Can he play better? Yes, he can.

“As far as changing things, yeah, we have to grow. I think we’ll evolve on offense. We have a lot of new parts and injuries with C.J. Riley being out. As the season goes on, we’ll become more and more of who we will be as you see us. We have to do a good job of evaluating that. That is what we did yesterday. What has he done well and what hasn’t he? What do we have to get rid of? Lets focus on the things that he is really doing well.

“Where are succeeding in the run game and what can we do off of the run game? What can we do with the run game to help with the pass game? I think that is part of being young on offense. You think you know what you want to do, but when you play, you find out what you can do. That is our job to change some things based on the information we now have.

“The other two quarterbacks are practicing well. We have to continue to get them better. Like I tell them, everybody in the program that is in the two-deep or three-deep has to get ready to play. If they get an opportunity to do it at some point. Never going to say that Matt underperformed to the point where I have to pull him out, right. There a lot of things, where you look at our running backs or corners or offensive line or tight ends, across the board as a football team, we have to play a lot better.”

Will this be the type of game where Bailey Hockman will be able to get some snaps and into the game a little bit?

“You’d love to say that. We’ll just have to see how it goes this week.”

Was the RPO something you saw where Missouri had success against them and you tried to try that stuff?

“We’ve had RPO in all year and they’ve been good. Sometimes we play with tempo, and when you play with tempo it means you’re going to run that play. For example, if you had an inside zone, an outside zone that has throws that you can throw, if they’re there he’s going to throw them.

“Maybe you don’t want him to throw them, so don’t call the play that has the option. So just say, ‘Hey, we’re just going to run the run.’ And when you do that, you can’t play with tempo now. Now you got to slow it down.

“I think it’s just a learning curve. When you have a more experienced quarterback would have just said, I don’t care that there is a throw on, I’m running this thing.’ He’s a third time starter. That’s not on Matt, that’s on us.

“Those are the things that you see and are like, ‘Alright, how can we make that easier for him?’ Well we did. We got to the next third and one, we just handed it off or we had a play-action call where took the game management piece out of it. As quarterbacks grow you can add those things back to their plate.”

You have competition at a lot of different positions. How important is that in a week like this when you are trying to bounce back?

“I think it’s great. I think it makes people have to practice well because they know that the guy behind them is trying to take their job. The other thing it does it allows you to rotate in games when you are having a lot of reps. We are playing an offense that’s averaging 80 snaps a game this week, and then you look at some of the teams down the schedule where they’re getting almost 100 snaps a game on offense.

“That depth is only good if it’s competitive. You want those guys to be able to compete in practice and award them with playing time if they earned it. That’s something this year we’ve been able to do a lot more than others.”

You have three players on your roster from Clayton High School. That school has been wrapped up in a grade-fixing scandal involving athletes. Any concern about their eligibility moving forward?

“No. Every student-athlete at NC State goes through the exact same process that every student that’s admitted here goes through. So it’s not an athletic evaluation. It’s on-campus, and they go through every class that’s on their transcript, and then because they are athletes they have to then go to through clearinghouse.

“There’s a two-fold process that doesn’t even go into our office. There’s been nothing brought to our attention about those guys. Found out in August about that thing and hadn’t heard a thing about it until today. I feel good about what’s happened on our campus.”

James Smith-Williams and Joseph Boletepeli are both listed No. 1 on the depth chart. You anticipate them being able to play?

“That’s our hope.”

Is Tabari Hines someone you might be able to play outside?

“He’s been outside at times. He was outside at the game Saturday. That’s one of the things we’re looking at all the time — how we can utilize the different guys. Keyon Lesane is a guy that was banged up a little bit earlier that now we feel like is getting healthier, too. Just adds another piece.

“Devin Carter and Emeka [Emezie] probably played too much. We’ve usually had a little bit more of a rotation in the game. That’s something Coach [George] McDonald’s talked about, trying to utilize Thayer [Thomas], utilize Emeka, utilize Keyon, utilize Max [Fisher] and try to take some of that load off all those guys.”

Kishawn Miller is listed at the top of the depth chart now. What has he done to help himself get to that point?

“I would tell you he’s one of the hardest workers in our program, not just at corner. Kishawn works really hard, he’s consistent. He competes, he’s knowledgeable of our schemes — understands what to do and how to do it. I think that’s the biggest thing. You get a consistent, hard-working performance every snap. He’s got great confidence in himself. He communicates well with his teammate.

“That’s kind of why you see where he’s at. He’s been through a lot. I’m proud of what he’s done as far as his work ethic and things he’s got to improve on obviously, but he went into the game and competed, I thought.”

You had the same number of penalties in this game as the first two. How difficult is it to manage and control that?

“Some of the penalties you can manage. I think obviously clock management, that’s coaching and that’s players doing their job. The focus is the pre-snap stuff, offense and defense. Those are things that we’ve been pretty good.

“Some of the things between the whistle, that’s technique. Offensive holding happens every play. Sometimes it gets called, sometimes it doesn’t. Pass interference, sometimes it looks like PI and it doesn’t get called, sometimes it does. For us we just got to coach the technique to the best that we can to try to prevent it from being called.

“I think the things that were most disappointing to me, like Jarius [Morehead]’s hit out of bounds. He can’t do that. There’s no way he can do that as a senior who has played as much football. Calvin Hart jumping on a guy on the ground, he can’t do that. Those were choices that were made in a game that … they can limit that.

“We spend a lot of time talking about heat of the moment, moment of truth, right and wrong, and focus. I think those are things that for the most part we’ve done well, we did not do well in this game. Nine penalties is way too many.”

The margin for error is slimmer in a game like that. How much does that magnify the penalties?

“I feel like our football team, and everybody probably says this, but don’t beat yourself No. 1. If we’re going to win a game, let’s not make it where we lost a game. Every penalty that we can take off the board is yardage one way or the other, so we have to earn that as a program. We talk about it a lot. We emphasize that a lot. That’s one of the things we control in some cases.

“I don’t think you are in control of holding penalties, I don’t, because it happens all the time, but a lot of time these things are in control of the players, particularly with the late hit types of things. You can’t do it. Frustration sometimes sets on a guy and he does the wrong things. That’s just maturity and we just got to remember that.”

Fans and media-types are prone to overreaction. How do you try to see the big picture and keep yourself focused and not caught up in what’s said? “Boo [Corrigan]’s helped me with this, to his credit. He has been very, very helpful to me. I think it all starts with him and then me and then me to my staff and my staff to my players and our strength staff.

“Seven days ago everyone was loving everybody, and now today everybody is [not]. That’s just game, that’s just sports. As the leader of this program I can’t act like that. We just got to get better. We got hit in the mouth, so we got to get better and hit somebody else in the mouth. That’s football. That’s what happens when you don’t play well. We didn’t.

“Obviously we prepare them as coaches. Felt like we did but it didn’t show. We got to own that, and the players got to own that, and we got to get back to work.

“You’re one day away from somebody loving you or hating you in this business, that’s just how it is. You sign up for that when you decide to be a college coach.”

How important was it for the young players to get a taste of what they saw on Saturday? “I can’t give them a gameday, especially a road game like that. That was a great environment. Didn’t handle it well, so they’ll get better from it. We got another environment like that coming up in two weeks. We go down to Tallahassee. It’s great to have that opportunity, to learn from it, hopefully it’ll be something that helps us a lot moving forward.”

How much did the bump up in the level of competition a factor if at all? “It’s a factor. They’re the fastest team we’ve seen in a long time, since the bowl game. They have good team speed there, they really do. They play fast. You can’t stimulate those things every day. There’s no doubt, but that’s not why we lost the football game. It’s not. We just didn’t execute.

“That’s what we got to focus on. We do a lot of good on good. I’ve told you guys that already, where we seeing speed in practice every day in our one-on-one, in our first down, second down, in our third down and our red zone. We do that Tuesdays and Wednesdays against each other.”

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