NC State held its first practice of fall camp wearing full pads Wednesday.

In the eyes of the players and coaches, just being able to hit in live reps was a much-needed dose of normalcy in a year sparse of it.

"It was a lot of fun, the guys had great energy," Wolfpack head coach Dave Doeren said. "We had a few live segments during our individuals just to get guys accustomed to the thudding and what we need to get done in block protection, finishing blocks and tackling. That was a fun practice."

The first day of seeing live reps wasn't the only thing that put the coach in a good mood. In his eyes, the team has embraced the opportunities of fall camp and has grown in the process.

"That’s one thing that's fun about this group, they’re really enjoying practice and bringing a lot of enthusiasm," Doeren said. "A lot of mistakes we got to fix, a lot of fundamental things, but we went through a lot of different things today.

"There's some consistency that you're starting to see. Less mental mistakes and overall pretty pleased with the day."

Installing a new offensive under first-year offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Tim Beck has almost certainly been difficult during an offseason spent mostly in Zoom meetings and isolation. Despite the challenges of incorporating a new scheme on a short timeline because of a pandemic, Doeren has been pleased with how the offense has picked things up through the first two weeks of fall camp.

"It's been fun watching Tim [Beck] and the offensive staff work with the players," Doeren said. "They're very comfortable with it, he's put a lot on them. He's really challenged them mentally, so there's going to be some mistakes but it's been fun for me to watch.

"Right now our guys want that, they want to be challenged, they want to be pushed. Being home for so long and they're so competitive, they want to be in an environment where they're having to think and be motivated that way."

Only after the first real test, the season opener at Virginia Tech on Sept. 12, will Doeren know how well the offense has responded to that challenge. He's encouraged, however, at the retention so far.

"I like how Tim teaches," Doeren said. "He does a really good job compartmentalizing things so they're not just memorizing. There's a system that goes with it and he teaches it well. The words have good word association with them so that guys can understand the why behind the names."

Doeren wasn't just excited about his team's development in the new offensive system, he's also bullish on the personnel in the room with several upperclassmen returning from injuries last season and several underclassmen bringing back the premature experience they were afforded in 2019.

"The interesting part of our team, we had so many players out last year so a lot of young guys were forced on the field before they were probably ready," Doeren said. "Now you bring back all these players that were out and there's a mixture going on in a rotation that provides us some depth and experience."

One offensive position group, in particular, has stood out.

"The depth at running back right now is fun to watch," Doeren said. "They're playing hard, [running backs] coach [Kurt] Roper is doing a really good job. There's a lot of pride in that room to not let the level of play change.

"That would be the group that I think, particularly today, I saw some things there that I liked."

He wasn't just talking about the usual suspects either. The group is headlined by sophomore Zonovan "Bam" Knight, redshirt junior Ricky Person Jr. and sophomore Jordan Houston, but the coach gave the name of another young back to watch in the very talented backfield.

"Delbert Mimms had a really good day [Wednesday]. He's a name that we haven't really talked about," Doeren said. "You know the ones that have been out there getting a lot of the publicity, but it's just fun to watch the rotation of guys come in."

As for the passing game, the Wolfpack coach seemed confident in a bounce-back year for a pair of his two biggest names in a receiving corps giving itself a hard look in the mirror this summer.

"He's been his own worst enemy that way, just getting in his own head about his expectations," Doeren said of senior wide receiver Emeka Emezie. "Right now, he's just taking it one day at a time. He's having fun. He's very aggressive in practice, he's been very consistent.

"It's just part of the process of growing up and dealing with all the things that you have. I'm proud of the growth that he's made and really just the way he's approaching the day right now. He's very focused but he is having a good time out there and smiling more than I've seen him smile in three years."

Another fan favorite on offense, redshirt junior wide receiver Thayer Thomas, has also taken advantage of the rare downtime he experienced early on during the offseason.

"I think he was mentally fatigued, going from a fall to a spring to a fall the way he did," Doeren said of Thomas, who also played baseball for NC State in 2019. "He’s so competitive and he works so hard, I think it wiped him out from a mental standpoint as much as it did physical.

"He's fresh right now, he’s got good stamina, he made a nice play at the end of practice today on a third-down catch. He definitely has reaped the benefits of some recovery on his body and his mind."

Led by an upperclassman trio in Emezie, Thomas and redshirt graduate C.J. Riley, the coach expressed confidence in the culture that's been built in the wide receiver room during his tenure in Raleigh.

"What's special about our receiver group, not just now but going backward — Steph Lewis, Kelvin Harmon, Jakobi Meyers — these guys set a standard on how they work in that room," Doeren said. "They've taken guys under their wings. I know Kelvin took Emeka under his wing and Jakobi and Thayer. Now they're passing that down to Devin Carter and these guys are holding each other to it.

"They make each other do certain things in that room that's different in the way they work and it pays off. There is a certain way that [wide receivers] coach George McDonald expects those guys to train and practice. The nice thing is the players are really elevating that for him now."

Doeren, who's entering his seventh season in Raleigh this fall, said this was a fall camp like no other following the first practice in early August. The regular season will almost certainly be no different, with the expectation that players could be unavailable any given week.

"We’ve talked to the team a lot about it, we’re doing it where we know we’re going to have those issues," Doeren said.

NC State has taken a proactive approach to that reality through two weeks of camp. While the flexibility of position is not uncommon to work on in a normal camp, it's undoubtedly received a greater emphasis this year.

"It’s more right now for sure," Doeren said. "We definitely don’t want to get into a game week and all of a sudden you have 10 guys out for whatever reason. We have to line those guys up in different spots and we’re giving them that now so they’re not freaked out by it later."

"It's going to happen, some of it's not going to be because of positive tests," added Doeren of players being unavailable during a season in the middle of a pandemic. "I mean, you could just be in a contact tracing situation due to someone in your classroom even. In the case that nobody has any issues, then we're building depth so that we can use a rotation and keep fresh guys in the game."

Specifically, the coach cited the offensive and defensive lines as well as special teams as areas that have focused, in particular, on building up depth.

"On the offensive line, Ickey's [Ikem Ekwonu] playing all over the place, Joe Sculthorpe's playing all over the place, Dylan McMahon, Gibby [Gibson Speas]. We're giving those guys the ability to get reps now, in case those things happen so it's not on game week.

"Ickey went from left tackle to left guard and Joe Sculthorpe went from left guard to center to right guard."

"We're moving guys around and giving them an opportunity to do that on defense as well," the coach added. "Val Martin's played end and nose guard, C.J. Clark's played end and nose guard, Davin Vann's played end and nose guard.

"At linebacker, we've moved a few guys around as well."

On positive cases increasing on college campuses with the return of students:

"I kind of expected when the students come back that you were going to have an upswing in the numbers on the campuses. I think it's more about just managing them. We're testing here every week and we've been good.

"We've had more scares probably than anything, a guy will have a headache and we've got to hold him out until he gets retested and then he's fine. There are so many things right now that are symptoms of COVID so every time a guy has one, you pull them out and quarantine everybody that's in that tracking area.

"As we saw over at UNC, they sent their students home but the athletes are staying. The article I read, they felt like that might make their football team even safer. We'll just have to see how it plays out every day, you just got to kind of bend your knees and be flexible."

On the prospect of quick turnaround saliva testing coming to NC State:

"I’ve read about it, but I have not heard that it’s coming our way yet. That’s above my pay grade.

"Whatever they tell us we’re going to use, we’re going to use. I know Rob Murphy and our trainers downstairs in sports med are going to use what’s recommended to them that’s going to give us the most accurate results for our team.

"Right now, we’re getting ours turned around in about 24 hours, so that part of it’s pretty good."

On the prediction of high-scoring games due to less practice tackling this offseason"

"I could see where tackling could be sloppy early on, because of the inability to do that. I also think the fundamentals of the game, you know, the blocking, the ball security. I worry about how many turnovers there could be from an offensive standpoint.

"Quarterbacks haven't been hit, offensive linemen now having to pick up a full speed blitz and things like that. I'm hoping that the product on both sides of the football doesn't suffer because of that.

"The biggest thing we've seen, it's not that they're weaker, it's not that they're slower, it's that their stamina is not as good because we didn't have them in the offseason program like we normally would have. When you get fatigued, you have more mistakes, you have worse technique and that's when bad things can happen."

——

• 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