NC State football coach Dave Doeren held his weekly press conference in anticipation of Saturday's 12 p.m. contest at West Virginia.
Opening statement:
“With Kishawn Miller and Cecil Powell, they did a great job there with our kickoff coverage. Payton Wilson did some really good things. Areas we wanted to get better at, I felt like we did. Now, we get a chance to go on the road and play in a great stadium. I’m excited to play West Virginia. We obviously lost that opportunity last year with the storm. I’m excited to play them. A very storied program that we know a lot about. We studied them a year ago and then not get to play them. I feel like we know their roster pretty well.
“Obviously, a new staff but another thing we know having played Troy a few years ago. I have a lot of respect for Neal and his coaching staff with what he was able to do at Troy. Looking forward to taking this young football team on the road and the chance to see how we can handle crowd noise with this offense, which will be a big factor for us.
“Playing good defense, playing good special teams, controlling the line of scrimmage, all those types of things in that type of environment. I’ve heard a lot of things from [NCSU co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach] Tony [Gibson] about the crowd and how it will be. Those are fun things to coach in. It will be an opportunity for our guys to grow and I look forward to that.”
What has the quarterback transition to Matthew McKay been like, and is throwing downfield part of that?
“We went through it with Jacoby in his first year. He struggled throwing the ball down the field accurately. Ryan will tell you his biggest improvements were down the field accurately during the course of his career. That is just part of it.
“Practice is different than a game sometimes. How juiced up they are and they’ll let the ball go a little too far and you saw that on one of the plays to Thayer [Thomas]. He also has thrown some good deep balls. He hit a wide-open guy and sometimes a wide-open guy is harder to hit than a covered guy. He hit [tight end] Cary [Angeline] down the sideline. He’s done a really good job on some of his passes that are coming off our play-action game. That is the one area that I’ve been impressed with him.
“The consistency of letting our guys have a chance to make the play, like he did with Devin Carter, I thought that was a really good throw on that skinny post. He gave Devin the chance to use that big body. Early in the game, we threw a fade ball to Emeka and the ball is out of bounds and we don’t give him a chance to make a play. Those type of things, it will come. The good thing is that it hasn’t been bad in practice. We just have to get it to carry over on to the game.”
Is senior cornerback Nick McCloud going to be ready?
“He’s just not ready yet, but he’ll be back. He’s just not ready.”
What do you expect about the atmosphere at WVU?
“From what I’ve heard, it’s a great game day. Their fans get into it. They support their University. They have a lot of fun and are very vocal. It’s similar to what you hear about Carter-Finley. It’s going to be a great environment. I’m excited for that.”
What will be the plan in using the running backs?
“It’s evolving as we go. They all give us things and all are good players. Some of them have more strengths in some areas than others, and certain plays they are better at than others. You have to use those strengths. I don’t think it will be a hot hand thing. There are certain things Jordan Houston does better than Ricky [Person]. There are certain things that Ricky does better than Bam [Knight]. That is our job, to find ways to get them the football and keep them fresh and healthy and let them play, if they are able to. Those guys can play. They are playmakers and we have to continue to feed them the football.”
Do you see where WVU and NC State are going through some similar things?
“I do. They’ve been a successful football team the last three years. They’ve been really, really good. They lost a lot of talent to the NFL and they lost their coaching staff. They are a young roster, inexperienced roster. It’s a team used to winning and we are similar to that. They are still trying to feel their way out.
“I know having been a first-year coach twice now [at Northern Illinois and NC State], it takes some time as a coaching staff and as a locker room to figure out what it is. It doesn’t mean they are a bad football team. You watch them and they have good players and are fast. Their DB’s will hit you and are aggressive. The score of that game [vs. Missouri]? No.
“You have to look at the history of their program and how those guys played last year and this year. We expect a good football team to show up against us.”
Any chance for West Virginia to come back and play in Raleigh?
“It’s a one-off right now.”
What elements do you like from the defense to have not given up a touchdown?
“I think we are playing fast. I think that is the first thing you see like a guy will be out of his gap and guy will get blocked, you see guys will cover up for it quicker. There is more overlap in the scheme. Like I said last week, there are a few more answers in coverage when things aren’t the way you like them to be, where it doesn’t sacrifice your ability to stop the run.
“There are a lot of things pressure-wise that you can do. We’ve only scratched the ice berg out of that. It has allowed us to get a lot more people involved schematically as of what we are doing in the back end. So far, so good, but we haven’t played the big heavy-set offensive sets yet. That is the test that is coming our way, not only this game, but what is down the road with conference play.”
First down defense has been pretty good the first few games. Coming into the odd-man front, did you have any questions about your ability to stop the run? How do you see the run defense right now?
“Anything you haven’t done a lot in this profession the first time you do it you’re going to have some. Just don’t know the answers to everything. Math is a big part of defensive football. If you one more than they do you are going to stop the run. … This box counts no different than the box count. It’s just different people out there.
“We felt like we had the numbers and the big thing with Hux, and it’s one of the things I respect so much about him, he is going to make sure every single run they have we can fit up and be sound against it, executing that and different things. They spent a lot of time this summer going through all that stuff and making sure it was clean so that we’d be ready if we had this scenario that we ended up in, in fall camp.
“Proud of them staff-wise of having a plan A and plan B and being ready to execute with both. So far it’s been a good addition.”
What’s the biggest challenge for a young quarterback going on the road in a hostile environment?
“I think it’s easy as a quarterback when things don’t go well you can come to your sideline and the fans are behind you. It’s not going to be like that. … I told them the other day they’ll probably learn some new words that they haven’t heard before. Just smile when you start hearing that and people yelling at. That’s what makes it fun to me.
“There’s nothing more rewarding in my opinion of going into someone else’s stadium with all of that against you and playing really, really good football. I think that’s a tribute to your focus and your preparation if you can pull that off.
“There’s a lot more factors. The biggest thing obviously is communication when you have crowd noise as an offense, making sure you don’t have a bunch of pre-snap penalties.”
Have you had guys that had played both ways before, and when did you get the feeling that Cecil Powell is a guy that could play both ways?
“At Kansas we had Charles Gordon played both ways. John Randle played both ways. Aqib Talib played both ways. We didn’t have to do that at Wisconsin, we didn’t have that personnel issue.
“Losing C.J. Riley as I mentioned we felt like having another guy that can add a few things to the offense without having to totally flip him because he is going to be a really good defensive back, when you have Nick hurt on defense so we’re trying to get Cecil ready to play corner as well.
“We saw him on the first punt run by their team and get down there five yards ahead of everybody else. He can fly. He was a great high school returner, a great high school receiver, he was in four events in the state track meet in Florida. He can run. It gives us another guy that can stretch the field and losing C.J. we felt like he could help us there.”
On freshmen playing early: “These guys are going to grow as their confidence grows. They have really good ability. They are smart guys, they learn fast. They are not a group, talking about the freshman class in general, they are not a group that I would call rep guys. They pick up football very fast. They learn. Most of them come from really good programs where they are coached and you are not starting from scratch in a lot of cases like you are from some cases.
“So each time they are out there they are getting more and more confident, they are getting more and more comfortable. Hopefully we can continue to do that, and if there is injuries and now you have to plug them in to be a full-time player, they got their feet wet.”
Has Jordan Houston almost broken a long touchdown?
“He’s been shoestring tackled a couple of times. That’s something for him to get better at. He plays at a different speed. He’s really, really fast. It’s like watching Nyheim [Hines] at times when you see him, his acceleration. I’m sure his 40 is not what Nyheim’s was but his acceleration is really, really impressive. He gets to top speed in a hurry.”
Is there added significance for Tony Gibson playing this game?
“I think you ought to ask him that. I don’t want to speak for Tony on that. That’s a conversation I’m sure Annabelle could set up for you. All of us that have worked at other places and get to go back there. It has different meanings, and I wouldn’t want to speak for him.”
——
• Talk about it inside The Wolves' Den
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, The Wolfpacker
• Follow us on Twitter: @TheWolfpacker
• Like us on Facebook
