NC State head coach Dave Doeren met with the media for his weekly press conference Monday to discuss the win over Boston College and this Saturday's 7:30 kickoff at Miami on ESPN2.

Here's a full transcript.

"Starting out with our game against Boston College, proud of our team, our staff to be able to perform the way we did on the road. That was a good BC team, very physical team, a team that doesn’t beat itself. They’re well-coached.

"It was a loud, passionate, definitely raucous crowd and learned a few new cuss words, so appreciate that. It was nice. It was windy, rainy and none of that stuff mattered.

"The guys just stayed locked in, they were focused. They stuck together. It was a tough first half. We hung in there. We got a chance to get into locker room and then make some really good adjustments, defensively, that helped.

"I thought we really played good complementary football and that's something I've been preaching with these guys, and they've bought into it for two years now, different sides of the ball. Offense, defense, kicking game, our sideline energy, it's just all clicking and helping each other. Different parts of the team sparked us at different times of the game, and really the second half, the third quarter, we had an explosion there in a positive way that started with three and out on defense. And then, Devan Boykin picking up the dropped punt for a touchdown.

"Throughout the game Trent Gill helping us in field position, flipping the field with punts, downing them inside the five yard line. Kickoffs all in the end zone. I thought he was really, really good in a windy stadium. That led to a lot of things for us, offensive and defensively being able to play and that type of field position you want to play in.

"With the halftime adjustments, I was really impressed. Every game we make adjustments and every game we try to get your players to completely grasp what you're talking about. And a lot of times that happens and sometimes it doesn't. For those of you that don't understand halftime, it's fast.

"Guys come in there and they're trying to get something to drink, they're using a bathroom and maybe get an IV or in the training room. Coaches you're running from the press box down to the locker room and what happened and going through everything. Then you got two or three minutes sometimes to correct and adjust. Then you stretch them and you're back in the game.

"We did some things that the half in three or four minutes time that I thought really was impressive. I told the team this, not that we made good adjustments, we try to do that every week but detail for detail they took them out on the field and did it, and I was really impressed with that, mature group.

"Positives on offense, we really emphasized, being able to make contact catches in this game because of the tight man-to-man coverage BC has shown and it started right away with Devin Carter's catch. He sparked us. It was awesome to see him make that play, and he'd made it in practice. Dylan Parham's catch in the end zone put him in an awkward position, and he's okay. We're glad he's fine. For the touchdown there, and then obviously Thayer Thomas' catch in traffic. All three of those contact catches were touchdowns for us.

"They were a good, physical defensive front. I thought their linebackers were really physical blitzers and limit them the only three plays in our backfield, the whole, day one sack, two TFLs was good execution and good strain and our protection. Did not turn the ball over in a wet stadium with wind, and in that drive we had before the half, six minutes on the clock, eating all that clock up and then finishing it with we made a field goal, as time expired and.

"And then obviously, for Emeka [Emezie] to break the record like he did was a special moment for the team.

"The negatives, we dropped three balls that could've made things easier. We had five penalties that we need to get off the tape and, Devin [Leary] tried to make a play there at the end of the half, and we wanted him to throw it, throw a completion or throw it out of bounds. So he had a teachable moment there. I was thankful that we were able to still get points out of that because we had no more time outs.

"On defense, first half we didn't play as well as we wanted to but we stopped them enough to get the points off the board, but were spectacular in the second half. We had an interception, had a safety to finish the game. Had two fourth down stops. The second half gave up no points, and negative yards rushing, which is hard to do against anybody, particularly Boston College.

"I thought we played really hard, played physical, tackled much better than second half in the first, had some big hits. Isaiah Moore was all over the place. I thought Devan Boykin really played well, played strong safety and free safety, trying to get a little bit more of a rotation in there to spell our guys and he really did a good job.

"The negatives, we had penalties that extended third down drives three times, or drives on third down three times and obviously the first half run game we spoke about.

"In special teams area, I'm really impressed with Keyon Lesane. That guy is covering punts right now. I think he's helped our team a lot, unselfish way. And Trent Gill's just really playing at a high level right now.

"And now on to Miami, and studying them since we got back. Obviously the record at 2-4 is not impressive but they're playing a lot better than I expected to see them on tape, and they've played some great teams: Alabama and Michigan State are two of the top teams in the country. App State's always a very good football team, and then Virginia and UNC are teams with explosive offenses.

"They're scoring a lot of points, they're very fast on the perimeter. On offense, they're still scoring 30 points a game without [D'Eriq] King. They've got a group of receivers a lot of people love to have. They do a good job with their tempo. Obviously we played them last year and played about as bad as we could play on defense. I know that side of the ball remembers that game, has a bad taste in their mouth.

"Their defense, with Manny [Diaz] calling it, they're very aggressive. They have good-looking body types. They are long, their safeties are gigantic. A 6-5 safety number zero and [Bubba] Bolden. Corners are long and active and linebackers run well to the football and there's a rotation up front.

"We know it's going to be a tough game. Another road game. Excited about playing in a NFL stadium. I know our guys are excited about that, and there's a handful of guys from the state of Florida, so for them it's nice to be able to play a game in their state where they grew up. It's another opportunity to get better for our football team and try to build on what we've done in the last four weeks.

"Questions."

Can you give us kind of an update on how Chandler Zavala's doing, if he's coming back?

"I don't know if he's out long term or not, yet. It's just day to day. He wasn't ready to play this past week. We're hopeful, but I can't give you a deal on him, yet."

I think you guys have gotten points in all but one of your wins on that last drive in the first half. How important can that be to shift some momentum heading into halftime?.

"That's big. You go in a locker room with momentum from the score. Sometimes you get the ball back to start third quarter and you got a chance to, we call it two-fer, to two scores in a row before they touch the football.

"So for all those reasons it's big, and I think it goes back to Devin Leary. He's a very clutch player. He's very calm. In those scenarios he understands where to put the football."

In previous years it seemed like in the red zone you guys maybe leaned on the run game a little more. I think right now you're ninth in the country in red zone touchdown passes. Is that something that you guys noticed, maybe, to work on or is that just maybe a byproduct of what you're seeing with Devin?

"I'd have to really study that to give you an educated answer. I think offensively we have had more explosive plays, which is some of that is it's coming from the pass game, which which you saw with Thayer and Devin of some of these long, extended touchdown catches.

When you get into the tight red zone, it's hard to throw a football, when you get really tight. Just not a lot of space and that's where the run game has to help you. I think, without studying, I will tell you there's probably more explosive plays in there on the pass game and it's helped us."

Your players talked after the game about taking motivation from being overlooked and obviously that's always something that's a narrative that pops up. You guys are going to be favored in either all or all but one of your remaining games. Is there something that you have to do to flip the mentality or adjust the mentality to go from sort of saying hey, 'Nobody's taking us seriously," to say, 'Hey, we are people are taking this seriously and now. We're the favorite.'

"If we end in that scenario, then yes. Right now we're not favored, so I don't have to go there yet, but if we do, then yeah and the message will be pretty clear. It's what got us here is doing things this way and it doesn't matter where they put us underdog or not, we got to keep playing the same way.

"We understand from the past year that if you do have a game where you don't win, you're pretty quickly thrown out. We just got to take it one week at a time and know that the end of the year our body of work will have the respect that it deserves and hopefully we can keep doing what we've been doing just playing one week at a time."

Kind of as a follow up to that. After the tough road loss early in the season, I don't know if that was like a wake up call for some of the guys, but some of the takeaways from that that you guys are able to apply against BC and be so dominant last week and then then how does that carry forward now with another big road game?

"I think when you lose a game, obviously it's always going to count as a loss in the record books, but if you can use it, and really learn from it, it's not a loss for the season. And we did that.

"We were, in my opinion, we were a bunch of guys that played really good in the opener, got a bunch of players on on preseason lists, a bunch of guys that had a lot of hype, and they played great in the first game and they thought it was going to be, 'Here we go again.' We didn't. They return opening kickoff for a touchdown.

"We didn't respond well. And I think offensively, in particular, it showed its head in a negative way. Instead of sticking together the guys said, 'Hey throw me the ball.' 'Hey, hand me the ball,' instead of just, 'Coach, what's the call?' We learned a tough lesson that day. It was a good lesson to learn. I think we needed that lesson and something we had talked a lot about. Sometimes you can't teach them something without adversity.

"This is what I was saying, not that I want to be an I told you so guy. These were the conversations we had in training camp. Like, 'How can we screw this up, that we control?' Obviously, we don't control the injuries that happen. When things get selfish or things get fragmented because guys are in an emotional state instead of a focused state, you can have bad things as a football team.

"That was a day where we were not in the right frame of mind after adversity hit us on offense. I thought we did enough on defense to stay in the game, but it was a great teachable moment.

"I thought our guys took it to heart. They owned it. As coaches we learned a lot with our guys in that. We got better from it. Not that I ever want to lose a game but I'm thankful we lost that game the way we did that early in the season because it has helped us."

Do the guys take a little bit of pride in seeing that they're in the top 25?

"It's nice for them to get credit. I don't sit around and ask them about that. I don't.

My focus is just trying to keep them in a place that we've been and that's hungry. We're climbing a mountain. We haven't gotten to the top of it. What I don't want to do is take our eyes off the path. I want to stay right where we've been on the process of winning.

"We need to have a great Tuesday practice, and that's all we're talking about. How can we get better? I'm asking every player same thing I did in the bye week. What didn't you do well against Boston College. All right, well, then let's get a plan, write it down on paper, what are the drills, what are the things mentally? What's the film study? What do we have do? You want to get three days of practice. How are you going to get better at that?

"That's where we are, right now, as a program. We're not in all that. Do we take pride in trying to prove people wrong? Yeah, we do. But, we're not going to talk about accolades and things like that."

How happy are you with the depth you've had seen from your team this season, particularly as it pertains to the defense?

"We're in a place where the next man up on the roster has performed well, and it continued with Derrick Eason stepping in for Chandler Zavala on the O-line. I thought Derrick played really well against a good Boston College front. Seeing it with Jaylon Scott stepping in for Payton [Wilson]. You're seeing it with Devan Boykin, playing now more at safety with Cyrus [Fagan] out and Jakeen [Harris].

"Those guys playing a lot of football. Cory Durden becoming a nose tackle, as opposed to a guy playing nose and end for us. He's playing all nose for us now with C.J. Clark out. So the depth has helped us.

"Now, I will tell you we don't have a lot behind that. We can't sustain a lot more in those position groups. When you get into your third and fourth, that's where it gets really hard. We need to do a good job with our roster of staying healthy. We need some luck obviously and to practice really smart. You have to go hard, but you can't go so hard that you put them at risk. The depth has helped and I think you know at some positions, it's better than others."

What do you see Miami defense doing differently as opposed to last year with Manny Diaz calling plays?

He's very aggressive. There's a lot of blitzes. There's a lot of coverages. There's a lot of substitution packages. I don't know if that's because they have more personnel. With COVID you were limited more with how many guys you have week to week. Maybe we're seeing more because of that, as well.

"But they've been aggressive since he's been there. I know he didn't call the defense last year, but I have a hard time believing that he just turned his back on it, too. He is a defense guy. I think his thumbprint was probably still on it, but he wasn't making the game day calls, as he is now.

"That’s the biggest thing, They've got good personnel. They’re really, like I said, they're big, and a lot of really good looking kids."

You guys haven’t had to rely on a lot of true freshmen. In your time as a coach is it better for their development as opposed to having to play right away?

"I would say 95 percent of college athletes are going to be better at 21 years old than they are 18. I think that’s just how you are. Even if you're really, really gifted physically, you're not going to have the same mental. You don’t have the experience. You just can't draw on game day experiences like everyone else can.

"Are there guys that can do it can be special as freshmen? Yeah, we've had them here. And we have some good freshmen now. We have the luxury of having some older players in front of them.

"But I think for their growth it’s way better. I do love the redshirt rule we have now where you can play them in four games and get them some game day experience. I think that helps them a lot, too. They’re not so nervous when they become a starter."

Are there some guys who, if they weren't older guys that probably would be contributing?

Yeah, Demie Sumo is playing in his third game now on special teams would be a guy running back. Sean Brown on defense is a guy that's really impressed us as a safety. Those two guys jump out. Julian Gray is actually playing right now. Those are the three freshmen they you probably see out there the most.

"Had Jordan Poole not had a hamstring injury and missed basically all training camp, he probably could have helped us a little bit more.

"I think it's a great year for these guys. Not just football-wise, but to get used to college. We didn't have regular college last year. It was all online. Even our second-year players are learning what it's like to be an in-person college student again. There's a lot of things that go with that, the time management and everything else. I think that the first year not putting them in 12 games, unless they’re just definitely ready or better than what you have is beneficial to them."

You stressed last week the importance of defending Zay Flowers. Just evaluate your performance on him.

"When you play Boston College, at the end of the game if you can say that they didn't have 100 yards rushing and their top receiver had eight yards, you're going to feel pretty good. And that's what happened.

"Can we repeat that performance? I don't know. Obviously it's a different challenge every week in this conference. Everyone's offenses are different. Miami has different challenges. You got [Charleston] Rambo out there, you got [Mike] Harley out there.

"There’s some good wide receivers running around on that field for them, and last year they torched us. Different challenges this week, but I thought we did what the recipe was. Stop the run and don’t let [Flowers beat you, we were able to do that week ago."

Do you discuss getting a 15-yard penalty in coverage but not allowing an explosive play when in man coverage?

“You don't want to give up a touchdown, but you don't want to coach them to PI people all the time, either.

"I think there's a difference between you’re beat, this guy’s going to score on me if I don't grab them. That's a different conversation then you're one step behind him and here comes the ball and you got a chance to play his eyes and hands and go up with technique and not get a penalty, or you're covering them really well and you just grab them because you're not playing with good technique.

"We’re on third down right now, we're hurting ourselves more than anything because as you know we lead the nation in third down defense. If you went back and looked at the first downs against us, a lot of them are penalties. They’re not people catching the football. We just got to clean that up and be better."

There’s an obvious closeness with this team. How much does that help to just have these back to back road trips?

"Well it helps no matter where you're playing to have that chemistry on the roster and coaching staff, and it's real. I think a lot of teams talk about it. It's very genuine. It crosses the offense, defense, special teams. They genuinely cheer for each other. They do in practice all the time. It’s fun to work on a team like this with a staff like this where you have that kind of genuine care about each other.

"And it does help on the road, I'm not trying to diminish that. And you're right, there's only 80 of us against there however many they have on the roster plus their fans, and Miami fans are always rowdy fans as well. It helps when your sidelines pulling really hard for each other."

Daniel Joseph has been very disruptive this year, even though he's not had a bunch of sacks, it feels like. What's working well for him?

"Daniel strains really hard. He is, when you put the tape on him, he plays as hard as you can physically play. He is mastered that, and that is a huge skill set when you get a guy that plays with maximum effort, and Daniel does that.

"He led our team in sacks a year ago. I do feel like with a three-man rush at times he will face more double teams, probably. He's got to take advantage of his one-on-ones and when he gets there get people on the ground for us.

"I like the way that the rotation’s working with Coach [Charley] Wiles on the D-line keeping those guys fresh. I thought him and Savion [Jackson], Davin Vann and Terrell Dawkins, rotating in and out and [Ibrahim] Kante came in the game and gave us a great pass rush and sack at the end of that game as well."

Have you mentioned that a win this week would get you guys bowl eligibility?

“No, no, we haven't talked about that. I think our guys know that. Really just trying to win. And that's it. Once we win this game, if that's what we end up, then we’ll talk about where we’re at next. And then the next week and then next week. But this was one of our season goals, was to stay 1-0 as a team, that's it. And so that's what we're doing.

You mentioned earlier, sometimes when you have a loss early, that affects the way people view the team for the rest of the season. Do you feel like that's the case, at least from a national perspective right now, that there might be some voters or folks who are looking at you and continue to hold what happened against Mississippi State against you guys?

You know, I wish I could answer that. I really don't understand all of it. I know two years ago we were not good football team and I didn't do a good job. We were 4-8.

"Last year with COVID maybe people didn't get to watch what we did. I don't know. We had a heck of a year last year and won a school record conference games and had a really good season, and so I thought, with that, people would think that we have the chance to be in pretty good ball club this year.

"It doesn't seem like people respect us, for whatever reason. I don't know. I would think losing to Mississippi State on the road, everyone knows how hard it is to play there. I know it's not a loss we wanted to have, but is it a loss that kicks you out of the top 25 forever? I don't think you should be. That's pretty good team that also beat Texas A&M.

"Would we have liked to have won that game? Absolutely, but we got a lot of games left. We have six more games. We just got to play as good as we can play in all those games. It's been a crazy year in college football. We’ll see where we end up. I'm really not worried about where we're at right now. I think I'll take care of itself."

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