NC State Wolfpack football lost 23-21 to Kentucky Saturday in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla.

Pack head coach Dave Doeren answered questions about the loss and the season as a whole after finishing the 2020 campaign with an 8-4 overall and 7-3 conference record.

Here is the full transcript from Doeren Saturday:

“It was a great football game. I’m proud of the way we fought back in the second half and had multiple chances to get it back and get a lead. Obviously, it’s one of those games when you lose by two points there’s a lot of plays you think about, and we were without a lot of players today.

"I thought our defense really battled not having Alim [McNeill] and Payton [Wilson] and Drake [Thomas] and Tanner [Ingle], the kids who had to play in their place played hard.

"Offensively, we just turned the ball over three times, missed two field goals. We had our chances to make that a different game and we didn’t. You have to give Kentucky credit for that. It was a really hard-fought game and a physical game, as I expected it to be.

"Proud of the way the kids fought, proud of our season. This doesn’t make me feel like we didn’t have a good season – we did. It was a great experience. I’m appreciative of the opportunity to be down here, and I’m really excited that so many of these players are back. It’s going to be a great offseason with them.”

On why he thought the game got so chippy:

“I don’t know. Maybe you should ask them [players]. I’m not sure. There was a lot of stuff underneath, on the ground, in the piles and different things like that. It’s hard to say.”

On the reunion with other Youngstown alumni:

“Mark Stoops and I have been friends for a long time and have had great defensive talks with him through the years when I was coaching at Kansas and he was at Arizona. We recruited against each other in Dallas, Texas, all the time and got to know each other well. Then he became the defensive coordinator at Arizona and I was the defensive coordinator at Wisconsin and we would clinic together.

"We’ve known each other for a long time. We were both hired the same year at our respective schools. We’ve both done a lot of good things, and there’s not many coaches who have been at their respective schools for eight seasons. So I think it says a lot about what he’s done, what I’ve done, what our staffs and our players have done.

"Tim Beck and him obviously grew up together, so there’s a lot of respect.”

On how encouraging the young defense’s performance was today:

“It’s very encouraging. They were put in some tough situations after turnovers, so to have short fields and have a fourth-down stop like we did, did a lot of good things on defense today – did enough to win.

"Anytime you play a game without Payton Wilson, Drake Thomas, Tanner Ingle or Alim McNeill – and those are four really good run defenders against a really good rushing offense – we were concerned coming into the game about it.

"Not that we stopped the run, we didn’t, but we did enough and kept them off the scoreboard enough to give ourselves a chance.”

On if Payton Wilson and Drake Thomas were injured:

“Yeah, they were injured. Drake’s been injured and has been kind of playing through some things. Just from a recovery standpoint for both of them, we felt like to have them ready for next year and the way we want them to be able to play, we needed to do the things to them that were needed right after the last game.”

On what this team and season meant to him:

“I love these guys. The players, the coaches, the staff, we went through a lot. We went through a lot last season when there was a lot of people talking negatively about us. We stuck together, we came back with a growing attitude.

"We grew a lot together, we learned a lot from each other. A lot of guys stepped up this year and stepped into roles where they weren’t starters and injuries took place and guys would step in and just play.

"Isaac Duffy’s a great example of that. I know Bailey’s [Hockman] disappointed in himself, but he had a good season for us. There were guys who stepped up throughout the season.

"I love this football team, I’m excited about the guys that are coming back, and there’s a lot of positives that we can take from the season.”

On if he feels this was personally one of his toughest seasons as a coach with everything involved:

“Mentally, it was. The number of things that we dealt with that you have never been through as a coach trying to make decisions on, all the unknowns, and the thing was none of the leadership had any ideas – [inaudible] was trying to figure out his side of it, president of the United States doesn’t know what to do – everybody’s trying to figure out how to handle this.

"You just made the best call you could and you learned on the run. We had a lot of really transparent conversations. We made mistakes along the way, learned from them, but it was challenging. There were so many times you weren’t talking about football, and obviously, that’s not what I was hired to do. The whole thing was upside down. I feel like we did a really good job managing it and learned a lot through it.”

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