Here is a full transcript from NC State football coach Dave Doeren's weekly press conference.
Opening statement:
“Just recapping last week to start. It’s fun to see our guys back on the field and 17 guys played their first snap for us in the game, which was a lot, a lot. Ten were true freshmen, three redshirt freshmen, the two transfers and then three guys that have been here for a while. So quite a few guys taking the field, and I thought the product was pretty good.
“There are things you want to do better, but I thought our guys played hard. There was a lot of great effort, a lot of great contact, a lot of physical blocks, physical tackles, pursuit, energy, passion, all the things you look for.
“There are things that really stood out to me. We were plus two in turnover margin. We won the line of scrimmage which was a challenge to our guys in a game like that, an in-state game. Particularly when there’s so much said between hiring their new coach and how much they wanted to make it different.
“For us to have 6.1 yards a carry, 191 yards rushing to their 41 yards rushing, 1.4 yards per carry speaks to the demeanor of our football team and that’s something that is really important to us culture-wise, to be a real physical group of guys that can win on the line of scrimmage.
“Nine explosive plays, three were for touchdowns when they had three and no touchdowns, which was one of keys to victory on defense. We had 11 plays in their backfield, three sacks, 8 TFLs to their three and again did not have any sacks in a game with that many offensive linemen rotating in is a credit I think to those guys up front.
“On first down, we averaged eight yards per play on first down. If we can keep doing that obviously good things are ahead.
“Negatives, I thought on third downs offensively we were not crisp, whether it was a dropped pass or a route depth being short, misread at quarterback, ... and that affected our ability to stay on the field in the first three quarters. Could have scored a lot more points, had a lot more time of possession. Something we got to get better at and will.
“The two pre-snap penalties, we jumped offside on defense on third and short, which is something we preach a lot. And then on offense a false start by [Emanuel] McGirt. Two of the six penalties are things we can control.
“And then our lane integrity on kick coverage. A lot of young guys on that unit that’ll learn from that. I though Trent kicked the ball well on that unit for us and we got to do a better job putting people inside the 20.
“But I was impressed by our rotation. Like I said the ability to start building depth through game reps is something we need to be able to do because a lot of our two deep is young players. Getting them in the heat of the battle and letting them make plays and also learn from mistakes is really important.
“Came out of the game relatively healthy. One I will tell you, C.J. Riley is out for the season. Did tear his ACL in his other knee. Very positive, there wasn’t a lot of other things going on in there. He’ll have surgery, he’ll be back. He’s been through this before on his other knee, very upbeat. But prayers for him from our fan base would be awesome. Everything else was positive as far as guys you saw in the game.
“Moving on to our next opponent, Western Carolina, another in-state game. A team that has six starters on offense and five starters on defense back. Very athletic quarterback who was their leading rusher a year ago, played a lot of football for them. True freshman tailback that we know from Scotland County High School, Syheam McQueen, that we think is a good player.
“Tight end had eight touchdowns last [year] and then three receivers that they rotate through. It’s a spread option, zone read option spread out, RPO offense so it’ll be a really good fundamental game for our defense. A lot of formations.
“Defensively they are very multiple so a lot different than last week’s defense. These guys run a lot of different looks. They are in three-down, they’re in four-down. They are a multiple coverage team. I think the nose tackle is a really good player. Plays hard, big kid, 6-4, 295. He plays hard on their field goal block unit as well. They’re two leading tacklers return with their nickel and their middle linebacker.
“Always feel like getting into that second game gives a lot of guys visuals of the things that have to be better. Whether you get better or not is obviously up to the preparations and the product. So that’s our goal is to be better in week two than we are in week one. Each player has a different role when it comes to that, and our coaching staff has to do a good job of focusing on us.
“I think it is really important in this game that we really look at ourselves, what we just put on tape, what can we do better in our second version of this thing and get out there and be ready for what’s coming the week after that.
Any questions?”
For such a young team how incredible was it to No. 1 have no turnovers Saturday and No. 2 with a new center and new long snapper have no hiccups in that area?
“It’s so emphasized. A., we got lucky. We did fumble twice and got both of them back.
To have perfect snaps the whole game between our center and quarterback, and I thought Joe Shimko, who was our special teams player of the week for us, his first college start was outstanding. Punt snap, short snaps, he had a solo tackle on our punt coverage. He did some good things.”
What do you think of receivers Devin Carter and Jasiah Provillon on the outside spot and also that something Tabari Hines can do?
“Devin Carter is a guy who needs to step up and seize this opportunity for us. He’s a big body, he’s strong. He’s been in that room with those guys and understands by watching last year’s trio now what’s expected, so he needs to seize that moment because he has really good ability and size.
“The rest of the crew whether it’s Max Fisher or Jasiah, Tabari, Thayer [Thomas], they’re all going to have to know different things. We just got to do a good job. Obviously Emeka [Emezie] is our guy, but do a good job using what everybody has to make up for what we loss. And that’s their opportunity.
“I’m excited for Devin because I think this is what we recruited him to be is the next big receiver here and he has all those tools.”
You mentioned Emanuel McGirt, Outside of that one pre-snap penalty how do you think he played and how gratifying to see a guy who has been through as much as he’s had to be able to come in and make a contribution?
“I’m proud of Emanuel on many levels and excited that he got a chance to be a starter here and go out and play. There’s a lot of things he did well. He played hard. He played left and right tackle. We asked a lot of him to be able to flip flop like that, and he played hard.
“That play he had on Tabari’s reverse out in space was a great block, and there’s a lot of film now for him to get better and I think that’s the thing he’s excited. He’s probably mad at himself on some things. That’s what you want — the guy is critical. It’s great having him out there and he’s worked very hard to get to that place.”
Do you see the potential of the running game this season being able to take a step up and be able to run the ball better than last year when you had a 1,000-yard rusher?
“We need to run the ball better. Whether we had a 1,000-yard rusher or not we need to rush for more per carry. We need to have more explosive runs. If it’s four guys rushing for 2,000 yards that’d be great.
“Continuing the 1,000-yard rusher thing I know is always a thing for our o-line. For me it’s more about efficiency in the running game, explosive plays in the run game and yards per carry in the run game. As you saw all four of our backs have good ability. Have a chance to be really dynamic there if they stay healthy.
You mentioned after the game Payton Wilson was emotional before the game. How did he do when you looked back at the film?
“He did a good job. He was aggressive. [Dave Huxtable] blitzed him a lot, which I think was good to let him play like that and not really have to diagnose a whole lot. It was fun to see him make those tackles for loss in the backfield and was productive. Had a lot of spirit about him.
“I think him and all those guys now will play with more confidence. C.J. Hart got in there and played well for his first time at linebacker. Drake Thomas got in there, played well for his first time in a game. They’ll play even better the next time because of that experience they had.”
Along those lines, do you think the linebackers will rotate and play the whole year?
“It depends. It’s how they prepare, and they all earned that in training camp because they played really well in practice. As long as they continue to practice that way and stay healthy then Dave will reward them with playing time, but they can’t have a bad week of practice and expect to get an equal rotation. That is not going to happen.”
Jarius Morehead was saying he was surprised that Hux was willing to change some schemes and add some new ideas. For you as a defensive guy and as someone who has been here as long as you have, was it difficult to come to that decision (3-3-5) or was it more, ‘Hey this is what we have to do to give us the best chance to win.’?”
“When the season ended, Dave and I sat down with what we did in the ECU game and talked and said, ‘Hey, looking at what we have coming back with this linebacking group we need to be able to think about doing the two things.’
“The whole plan was to have what we used to do with what you saw this weekend. We used to have a defensive front where you wouldn’t want to take one of those guys off the field. Going into this season, we didn’t know Josh Harris would get hurt in training camp but we knew C.J. Clark would be out. We didn’t know when Deonte Holden would return. There was some question marks.
“We wanted to see how it played out and have both available and then we get into camp and we lose three or four defensive tackles like within a week of camp for extended period of time. That forced us into being more one dimensional from a three-man front. That grew throughout camp, and then the linebackers can get up on the line and create four-man fronts and five-man fronts.
“As we get healthier and healthier we’ll have the ability to get back into some four-down, but I think the biggest thing with Hux, he wants his best 11 on the field. When you have injuries to the front and the linebackers are healthy it’s pretty obvious what you need to do.
"I’ve always thought Dave was right in line with that. You do what you can with what you have where you are. You try to recruit your butt off to make sure you don’t have those but we don’t control injuries unfortunately. Some of that stuff is out of our control.”
In a 3-3-5 defense how important is that Buck linebacker position as far as being disruptive and being able to make more tackles?
“It’s unique because they play linebacker and the next play they are playing d-line. They have to have a little hybrid to them, but it can be a longer guy who really runs. I think we have two guys that really fits the build. When Levi Jones is eligible he’ll be really good in that position as well.
“That’s what you want, is a guy that’s over 6-3 that can play linebacker and can run but there’s also — Brock [Miller] was an edge player in high school, Payton was a great rusher in high school — you want that guy that has that length and core strength that can play against a front guy.
“Our Mike and Will get in the front as well but not probably as much as our Buck does.”
With 17 new guys playing for the first time and 10 freshmen, are you surprised at how well or did you see enough in camp to be relatively confident that what you saw on the field Saturday was going to happen?
“I’m not going to tell you I knew it was going to happen. I was excited to see them play because they had all shown the ability to make those, I don’t know the right word — enough of them had made electric plays in practice we were hoping that was going to happen on gameday.
“My fear was: is gameday going to be too big for some of them? You just don’t know that. That’s why I said at the beginning I was really proud of how they handled the elements. I thought those guys did a really good job. I didn’t see anybody nervous. They probably were but it wasn’t obvious. They went out there and just did what they did in practice. I thought that was outstanding.”
Closing remarks:
“We’ll keep an eye on the weather and pray for all the people in Florida right now. Hopefully that thing takes a turn in the opposite direction. Several of our players are dealing with that back home and all the kids that we are recruiting down there, family members and everything else, we went through this last year. Prayers goes out to all the families in Florida right now and hope that everything ends up everybody is safe.
“You guys have a great afternoon, take care.
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