NC State Wolfpack football head coach Dave Doeren held his weekly press conference Monday, recapping Saturday's 38-21 road win over Virginia plus Saturday's scheduled game against Duke.

Here is the full transcript.

"Just going back to the game, recapping the UVA win. It was an awesome win on the road. To play three straight road games and win back-to-back ones, I thought we really played complimentary football in this game.

"The offense got us off to a lead. The defense stopped the run, forced four turnovers. Special teams, I thought we punted the ball really well, we blocked a punt, Thayer had a nice return. Scoring on defense at a time when we needed some momentum, Alim's play.

"We were very efficient in the run game, definitely had some great runs after contact. Combined between Ricky and Bam, we had 91 yards after contact in that game at the running back position. I was proud of those guys as a big point of emphasis.

"The receivers made some tough contact catches against tight coverage and Devin put the ball in some good spots on some critical areas of third down.

"From an offensive standpoint, the positives, we didn't give up a sack against a very good front, a multiple defense that does a lot of things. We rushed for four and a half yards per carry, no fumbles. I thought Emeka made some really nice catches, Cary had a nice touchdown, Thayer and Porter both made big plays for us in the pass game.

"I thought Devin was really good early. In the second half, it was wet, it was a tighter game and we had some throws he could have made and he'll learn from. He did some good things. There's things he'll learn from in this game, obviously a defense that gives you a lot to look at. That's an experience thing. The more that he gets to see those things change on game day, the better he's going to be.

"Very proud of our backs and their ability to get yards after contact, it's not always pretty running the ball against a loaded box. Those guys had a lot of attitude runs and I think that feeds our offensive line and our tight end group to play hard for them.

"The negatives on offense, we were poor on third down throughout the game. Both of our opening drives in the first and third quarters, we were three and out and we had three penalties on offense to open the second half on each of those three possessions, we started on first and 10 with a penalty. So we beat ourselves, it put us behind the chains, and it's hard to play football that way in the ACC.

"On defense, positives, we stopped the run. I thought their tailback was a really good player coming into the game. I thought our defensive line really battled, the linebackers fit the ball well, we tackled well. We forced four turnovers, we played really well on third down. I thought Tony did a nice job mixing coverage and pressure and not making the defense predictable. I thought the goal-line stand, second time here this season, to have a goal-line stand was awesome to see.

"The kids played 100 snaps on defense, so they played a lot of football in that game. We were able to play a lot of players. Everybody we brought on the trip that was healthy was able to get in the game almost and the best part was we scored. There's nothing like a big-man touchdown. It was fun for the team and for Alim to get that opportunity, I was happy for him.

"The negatives on defense, we're young in the secondary. Especially when Tanner went out so there's just pictures that happen, formations. There's information the offense gives you by formation that we got to be better communicating. It didn't cost us, there weren't any busts or anything like that, but you can anticipate things and that's an experience factor that we're missing right now.

"The defensive offsides penalties were critical errors in the game and an area that we need to improve and that we'll work hard on this week.

"The score before the half, on defense, we had a post coverage called. There should have been a guy right in the middle of the field and a true freshman doesn't do his job right there and he'll learn from that.

"I thought at times, we were out there a lot in the second half and you could see us getting sloppy in our technique, particularly in coverage. We just got to play tighter coverage when we're in man-to-man and when we do that, we're very effective.

"I thought our special teams, for the most part, were really good. I think Chris Dunn definitely deserves a mulligan. Missed a long field goal that was a high snap and then had a miss later in the game, which is uncharacteristic. I know he'll bounce back from that. I thought Trent Gill was fantastic in this game, our punter, holder and kickoff. All of his kickoffs were where we wanted to be, great distance and hang. He had two pooches inside the 10, one inside the five.

Thayer had two good returns and Levi's blocked punt was a great play. He did a really good job communicating with Coach Goebel on the sidelines previous to that play about how they were protecting and that he could beat his guy. I was really happy for him using technique. Should have been a scoop-and-score opportunity that we didn't get but we got the ball there. I love blocking punts, I thought that was awesome.

"The fake punt was probably the most disappointing part of the special teams, we actually repped that play in practice. We aligned properly and defended it, and just didn't in the game, so an area we got to get better.

"I love the way our guys are buying into their preparation and practicing with an edge. They're seeing that their investment does give them results and two weeks in a row something we can build on that way.

"Now moving on to a crosstown game here with Duke, a game that's been played since 1924. Only my second time in eight years getting to play against Duke and first time playing them in Carter-Finley. I know they'll be very well-coached. I know they've had a tough go of it with turnovers but they are a really talented group on the defensive line.

"Really good football coaching staff and I know their kids are smart and they're tough and they will play really hard against us. Just looking at them overall, like I mentioned, they've turned the ball over 19 times and you can't win doing that. I know that'll be an area that they work really hard on.

"Their quarterback is a Clemson transfer, as you guys know. Their running backs really stand out to me, they're tough kids, they run hard, they're downhill, they don't get tackled on first contact very often. Their receivers have good size, a 6-5 receiver and Bobo, and the tight end is their leading receiver.

"Nothing we haven't seen as far as what they do. They're a spread, no huddle, pistol offense and all the elements that you see from the spread.

"For us, it's going to be about getting better, continuing to work hard on stopping to run, on being sound, playing hard, playing 11-man defense.

"You look at them on defense, I mentioned this already but just turn the tape on, 51 and 96 jump off the film on their defensive line. They're very impressive. They're very well-coached upfront. They're disruptive. You take those two ends and, together, they've got 10 TFLs and nine sacks between the two of them. They're powerful guys, their Mike linebacker makes a lot of plays.

"They're not an overly complicated group, they play really hard, they line up where they're supposed to, they have good eye discipline in coverage. They've got 18 sacks and 32 TFLs in their games so they can cause some problems. They've been put in a lot of tough situations, defensively, because of their turnovers and so obviously that's made their statistics a little skewed. But they do jump off the tape, D-Line wise.

"For us, it's just a chance here to finally come home and try to get in a little bit of a routine playing home game and look forward to that.

"We will have Tyler Baker-Williams back this week so it's nice to add someone to the secondary. It's been a group that's been losing players and so we're excited that he's back with us."

You mentioned the idea of guys getting return on their investments of seeing success. I was curious how much confidence they gained from two wins. I mean it sounds obvious but considering what they went through last year, to actually win games and build confidence, how big of a difference can that make for this group?

"In each of our three wins, we've won them in different ways. In the Wake Forest game, our offense really carried the load in that game. They played a really good football game for us and we're able to score a bunch of points.

"Then you look at the Pitt game and it was through the air. Defense stopped the run, offense through the air. Then you look at this game and I felt like the defense really set the stage with the takeaways in this football game and then our special teams plays.

"I think our guys have learned there's different ways to win games, but the one thing that's common in all three of our wins is that we prepared well. The one thing that was very present in our one loss is that we practiced poorly on that Tuesday. We made that known, the guys have owned it and I love the team accountability that we have where the guys are holding each other to a standard that they expect and not afraid to call each other out when they're not getting what they want, effort-wise, and I think that's raised our level of play.

You mentioned with Duke, you haven't played them that much 20 miles up the road. Is that a school with them being in-state, in-conference, that you would like to play yearly or at least more often then you're playing them?

"Just in general, you'd like for every recruiting class to have a chance to play every team in the league. The way our rotation is set up currently, we play UNC every year and then we'll play one of the other teams every seven years. So I just don't think that's fair, not just because they're down the street, but you come to play in the ACC, you should play every team.

"It'd be great if you could play home and away against every team. Particularly when you're talking about a team in the Triangle. I mean it's pretty crazy to think that you could come to NC State and never play Duke your entire career and that's happened for multiple players.

"So I'm excited that we get to play them and look forward to being a part of a game that goes so far back. I don't know if they'll ever change our scheduling model but I would definitely be somebody pounding on the table for them to do that."

If you guys did play them every year or more often, what would be the pros of playing a local team in the conference more often or every single year?

"It's a natural rivalry, you have a team that's within 30 minutes. We go in every grocery store and you see NC State, you see Duke, you see UNC, their stuff everywhere and yet we don't play them.

"To me it's just a natural rivalry game, it makes sense geographically to play a team that's that close to you and in your own league. So, it's kind of a common-sense deal in my opinion."

I asked Alim McNeill about the goal line stands on Saturday. He said that one of the biggest things in that for you guys has been Joshua Harris clogging up the middle. What does it mean to have a player like that … and not allow anything up the middle? And what kind of growth have you seen from Joshua throughout this season?

“Well, first I'm really happy that Alim has given Josh the love because that's what it's all about, sharing that, and we're proud of Josh. Josh went through an injury last year, and has worked really hard to get himself into a position where he can play. And he's found a role in our defense, and he's really taken advantage of it.

“He's not out there for a ton of snaps, but he's making his snaps count. And he's working really hard every day on the scout team. He goes up against Grant Gibson every snap. That makes him a better football player, and he'll continue to get better.

When we get into that goal line package, you've got him and Alim and C.J. [Clark] inside, and that's 1,000 pounds almost. And that's stout, and that helps keep the middle firm and allows us to make plays off the edge.”

You've been high on Porter Rooks ever since he arrived in the spring, and on Saturday he had three really tough catches, and naturally his best catch probably was the one that got disallowed. Could you assess his development and how much further he could still go to help its offense?

“He's been a sure-handed player since he got here, and now he's making the tough catch. And he's making that consistently. It’s really nice to have a rotation like we do between him and Thayer where you have sure handed guys that can run good routes and make tough catches for the quarterback.

“I told Porter, it was the first game I've seen him play where he had a different way about him. He was a very aggressive player, I thought, in that game, and not that he's not a consistent player but his personality came out a little bit Saturday.

“It was fun to see that, and I told him that I saw him grow up in that game. He was, he had a lot of energy about him. He usually shows up, doesn't say a ton and then plays really hard, and he had some emotion to him Saturday and it was very obvious so it's got a lot of good, good things coming his way if he just keeps working the way he is.”

Can you give us an update on Khalid Martin how he's doing and will we see him again this year?

“Khalid is making progress. He is gaining all the things back that you would hope he would feeling-wise and doing physical therapy.

“He probably will not play this year. He is not done for his career, to our knowledge, but it's going take a while. He’s so out of shape now too because he's not able to go through all the things that players go through, and we're going to take our time with it, but he is recovering and doing well. I appreciate you asking.

After what he was, through, it's good seeing him the way he is, right?

“Absolutely. And he's great around the guys. He's very enthusiastic with them, very good at just encouraging his teammates and I think, you know just seeing them in that light for them is good.

“It's good for our staff. You never want to see a player get carted off. I mean it's horrible when you go through something like that, particularly in a situation the way it was. So we're very happy and blessed that he's able to do all the things that we were hoping he be able to do.

“It's just going to be a time period thing that, with us only having 11 games, probably not in that window.”

What’s the difference of recruiting this week, you know when you're having an in state opponent compared to other weeks throughout the season? Are there any differences at all or advantages that you can take out of playing an in state flow for recruiting?

“I think you know all the in-state games carry recruiting ties to them. I mean there's going to be players that we go head-to-head with them on, and obviously beating them on the field is always something that helps you.

“Recruiting as you know is basically not happening right now in person. So, we are losing out, in my opinion, on a recruiting opportunity because this would have been a huge crowd for a home game, which is always a great recruiting tool for us with our guys. Playing in front of four thousand is a little bit different than playing in front of a packed house here at the Carter when it comes to the recruiting aspect of things.

“Postseason conversations with kids, you're choosing between us and Duke or us or us and Wake or us and UNC, the head-to-head games always matter to what they are looking at program wise.”

How good is it to have the momentum that you guys have going into this game against an in state opponent?

“Our guys have a lot of confidence, but they've also been humbled this year, and I think that's the biggest thing that we talked about is two weeks ago people were throwing you on the woodpile, and now they're bragging about you.

“You just got to remember, you're one day away from being a hero or zero around here. We've got to focus on the present and getting better and focus on the details that gave us two wins in a row, not get caught up on all that. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter who we play it's how we play, that's kind of the focus of this football team.

“The fact that it's a team that's nearby creates conversation but the outcome is going to be based on our preparation and our practice and our execution on game day.”

After the Virginia Tech game you hear that negativity that players hear, do the coaching staff address that with your guys to say, ‘Hey don't listen to that stuff?’ And how proud of you are of the guys are you that they didn't listen to that?

“We definitely have to address it.

“I think there's a lot of people out there that get off on being negative on social media. And being a turncoat on their own team at times. That's just fuel to the fire for our guys, and that's how we take it. We're going to play our butt off for our family and for each other and for the people that constantly support us.

“And the people that don't, it's the way it goes. You're not going to spend our time on them. We got to really look hard at ourselves and the people that love us. We don't play the game for comments on Twitter.

“We play the game for our families. We play the game because we want to be successful in life. We play the game because we love our brothers. We play the game because we love to compete, and all that other stuff is just distraction and noise.

“And so we definitely address it. As you all know, every young person has a phone in their hand a lot. So it's hard for them to ignore it, and they have to learn how to do that. It’s a skill set, and sometimes they don't learn until they get a loss on the record, and then they learned quickly that there's a lot of fickle people.

Amazingly, two weeks later, you just talked about a little bit, there can now be some pats on the back. How do you address that in practice this week coach?

“We talked about it yesterday. And really it's what I talked about J.B.'s questions. You focus on how did you get the results. By getting beat, and realizing you better practice the right way to get a win and then you did and then you repeated it. You just need to continue to stay process oriented and block the distractions and focus on the things that are giving you the results, not the things that are creating distractions.”

Was it kind of good for Taiyon Palmer and Joshua Pierre-Louis to get those snaps while Tyler Baker-Williams was out, to kind of get that experience?

“I think both has gotten better in his absence, and so we've created at that spot depth that we didn't know about coming into the season, and really excited for both of those players.

“Like I told you two weeks ago, I thought Taiyon played really well against Pitt, and JPL played really well against Virginia. Those two guys have created depth and they'll help us moving forward because Tyler's going to come back. He's been gone 28 days, when you add them all up with these quarantines, and he hasn't been sick.

“That's the hard part of this thing with contact tracing, and so he's not going to be able to play 100 snaps. We're going to have to have a rotation at nickel, but it's great to have him back. He was playing as good as any guy on our roster in training camp so it's a nice, nice thing to get him back in the lineup.”

You guys are definitely going to have obviously more people in the stands this week and I know you've talked about how happy you are to be home. How much are you looking forward to getting a few more supporters in there and can you get a sense from your team that they're looking forward to playing in front of fans?

“I'm definitely thinking that being around a fan base would be nice for our players. I think that they would love to have some real crowd noise as opposed to pumped in.

“But I think with what it is, the fact that they're just getting to play in front of their families. The last game we just had families there. Now there's going to be 4,000-some tickets, and what I'm told that our roster will get tickets, our staff, some of our students will get tickets which is great for them, and some of the donors that have helped us through this tough situation that we've been in.

“It's not going to be a big crowd, but it's going to be a crowd that's very loyal to these guys and it'd be nice for them to have more than what we had at the last game which I think, I can't remember the number, was at 400 maybe, to 4,000 so we'll take that improvement.”

I know when you're playing a team every year, let's say Clemson, you have carryover from scouting from previous years and film work. You haven't played Duke in a long time and then on top of that, David Cutcliffe calling plays. How much have you guys done any real homework on Duke at all before and do you have to go back and look at anything before this season as far as with Cutcliffe calling plays?

“No, we haven't. I mean the fact that we're so far into the year you kind of have an idea of what he's going to be, and one thing when you don't play a team you still watch everybody.

“I think that's the one thing that we don't talk about but, in preparation I've watched Duke on defense for the last seven years I've watched Duke on offense for the last seven years. And even though Cut wasn't calling plays, maybe, I know that his hand was in it.

“I know that he was very much a part of their offense. That’s just who he is.

“You can study what they've done, you can look at the evolution of their offense based on who their quarterbacks are because obviously they've had running quarterbacks. Now they have a drop back quarterback things have changed that way.

“They were an offset to they’re more of a pistol team ... You know they're going to use tempo they're going to be physical. They got a big tight end, and we have a good feel for what they're going to be. It's just going to come down to execute.

Over the past few years you've lost a lot of weight. David Cutcliffe is someone who had health issues at Duke, he's had heart issues. How hard is it to maintain a lower weight and to stay healthy as a head coach and did Cutcliffe in any way sort of inspire you, with how well he's done over the past few years?

No,. I’m happy Dave's doing well that way, though.

“No, I just had a no mas moment basically where my clothes said if you don't lose weight, you can't wear me anymore. I felt like I wasn't my best self, three or four years ago. I wanted more energy I wanted more focus, I wanted to be a better representative for my players. and so it was just something I needed to do.

“Is it hard? Yeah it's hard. I like to eat, you know? I like to eat. That’s hard, so you just got to have a good regimen, you got to work out. You got to learn how to cut your portions back and be consistent. But, I'm human like everybody else. And unfortunately, I like some of the foods that aren't fat free, so it makes it tough at that.”

——

• 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