Credit Miami freshman quarterback Tyler Van Dyke for being confident despite an 0-2 start in the ACC for his Hurricanes. He made that clear during his media availability this week with a few of his comments.

“We came out and let it rip the second half, score 17 points right away,” Van Dyke said. “Now if we can get that going the first quarter, second quarter, I don’t know if teams can hang with us.

"We know we’re a better team than North Carolina. We feel we could have put 60, 70 on them. We put 42 up and feel we had a terrible day. Once we get everything rolling in the first and second quarter, I don’t think anyone can stop us.”

There was also: “NC State has a great defense, top in the country. That doesn’t matter. Still the same guys we played last year. We put up 44 points on them last year. We feel really confident. If we just come out like the second half of both those games [Virginia and UNC], I don’t think they can really stop us.”

It was the latter quote that made its way to NC State’s locker room. Sophomore defensive end Savion Jackson noted, “It definitely spread quick.”

Redshirt senior Daniel Joseph tried, convincingly, to feign ignorance about the comments before late confessing he had heard it, too.

“That’s interesting,” was Joseph original replay. “Last year’s last year. Every year is a new year.”

Yet on Wednesday, NC State’s defensive players were not returning fire despite Jackson, Joseph and freshman corner Aydan White all being asked to respond.

“No point to say anything back,” Jackson noted. “It’s just the game is won between the lines and whistle.”

“It didn’t add [any] flare to me because the end of the day, once again, our mindset here at NC State is, ‘You know what, it’s not about them, it’s about us,’” Joseph pointed out. “It’s been like that since day one and it’ll continue that way.

“We’ll let the opposition say what they want. At the end of the day, when the ball is put down, the ball is put down. The proof is in the pudding. That’s what I am prepared for.”

White noted that during a meeting with head coach Dave Doeren, the emphasis was about keeping the focus internal.

“It’s all us,” White said. “We haven’t been really listening out the media, we’ve just been focused on what we can do to be productive on the defensive side.”

That said, White also acknowledged that Van Dyke effectively issued a challenge to the defense.

“I try to stay away from the media and not try to feed into the hype,” White added.

Jackson noted that Van Dyke’s comments did add motivation and “fuel to the fire,” but ultimately the defense is more worried about what it has to do Saturday.

“To me, personally, it’s funny when you see something like that on social media,” Jackson said. “It’s funny to me, but like I said, our defense wants to be tested.”

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