Transcript: NC State coach Dave Doeren's press conference
Dave Doeren held his weekly Monday press conference. Here is a transcript.
Opening Statement
“We are getting ready for five games here in one month and great opportunity for us to get better. Really, that's the focus with our team is just taking one day at a time, one opportunity at a time and working with these guys on improving their skill sets and playing together. One percent better each day. That’s the biggest thing we're working on is finding a way as a staff to help our guys. Finding a way as players to get better and taking each week as the opportunity. We got a great opportunity against a really good football team this week. Excited to play against Wake Forest, an in-state game, rivalry game. Very good football team. [WFU coach] Dave [Clawson] and his staff have done a nice job and they've got a lot of experience, a lot of good players.
“When you look at them on offense, very fast tempo. Their receiving corps across the board is elite and playing at a high level. The way [Sage] Surratt and [Scotty] Washington play on the parameter, using their size to their advantage, being strong. What Kendall Hinton's been able to do, transitioning from quarterback to their slot is making plays for him. Obviously, both quarterbacks have played and not sure who we'll see. They're both really good players.
“Their tight end does a nice job in the package they give them. The offensive line has only given up eight sacks. I think their left tackle is one of the best in the conference. Really good challenge for us.
“Defensively, on the other side of the football, their sound. Their defensive end, [Carlos] Basham, has done a great job. Very disruptive player, long, big kid that's taken over the kind of that playmaking role for them on their front. It will be a good matchup for us, with our tackles and him. They do a good job stunting and blitzing. They just change it up with different things.
“Obviously, they've had some injuries at Will linebacker, but there's a lot of guys in there that are making plays. They're experienced at corner. Those guys have been there a long time. I think their strong safety, No. 3 Nasir Greer is a very, very good open-field tackler. I enjoy watching him play. He's a very good football player.
“They don't do a ton on first and second down. They know what they're doing and they do it well. They do a lot on third down. That's going to be an important down and distance for us in this game.
“Looking forward to just getting back at it. We had a good chance over the bye week to get some guys some rest and they needed it. Had a really good practice yesterday. I thought the guys came back from the break we gave them with a lot of energy. Today they're off as well and get back into it tomorrow. I feel good about who we have as far as being able to play and we're not going to gain a bunch of players back unfortunately from the injury list. At least the guys we had in the last game are able to play together again over this past week and this week, to get a little continuity there.”
Q&A with reporters
Are you comfortable with the process to get to Devin Leary as a starter?
“For us on our side, it went the way it went. They made it happen that way. I’ve said it from the start, I like all three of these guys. I think they’ve all had an opportunity. How it played out this way, only the guys in the building and practice would know what happens on a daily basis.
“But Devin's ready. I don't think we forced him into the position before he was ready, which was I think for any quarterback a bad thing. He's taken advantage of not only when he was the three, the things he wasn't doing well, he studied. To his credit, he improved those things. When he got his opportunities, he was poised
“The last game, he threw three touchdowns and they're all on fourth down, which shows a lot of clutch. He's earned this opportunity. I'm excited for him. I'll continue to work hard and support Matt [McKay] and Bailey [Hockman] because they need to get better, and they will if they continue to do what each of them had to do now, in a supportive role and improve on the things that they need to improve on.”
How did you work with Leary during the bye week?
“He took all the reps with the ones and got a lot of work. It was good work for him. Good opportunity for him to run it and keep looking at the conversations you have with offensive coordinators and your quarterbacks. It's what do you see well? What do you think of this play? You go out and rep it, ‘Coach, I see that really well or I don’t see it.’ You're just trying to make it fit him, so he can play fast. We got him a lot of work and he’s done a nice job. He's excited about the opportunity.”
There's a lot of new names on the depth chart today, especially on offense, especially the line. Is that a product of injuries or guys playing well in practice?
“It's been the same, it just wasn’t updated. It’s been the same for most of the year, since we lost [Justin] Witt obviously. That changed us at tackle, which was a couple weeks back. Icky [Ekwonu] and Bryson [Speas] have started at tackle, and [Emanuel] McGirt has played a lot at tackle. Those are our three tackles as we roll.”
“The way that we way inside, Speas can go inside and McGirt can go out. We have to list 10 guys, so we're trying to redshirt Tim McKay if we can.
“As we've seen in certain games, I mean, I’ve lost two corners in one game. You can go from being a redshirt guy to a player pretty fast. All those guys are getting those reps in case of, but you know, what we'd like to do is keep it where, whether it is Speas or Dylan McMahon playing inside. Joe Sculthorpe can play either guard or center. We have some flexibility inside with that.”
Speaking of his DBs, Malik Dunlap, as well as De'Von Graves having to go against that wide receiving corps that you just mentioned. How big of a challenge is that?
“Whoever's playing against their wideouts have a challenge. They have an opportunity to play against some really confident, good football players and a quarterback that's accurate and getting them the ball.
“I know they're excited about it. They're studying a ton of film on those guys, but whether we had our starters or whoever, you're playing against, and my opinion, that three that they put out there is as good as anybody's three
“So it's an elite group, and those guys will play hard. I know that. The good thing about De’Von and Malik, they're long. They're strong guys. And so there's plays where there's body-to-body catches and push offs and all that and they're going to be able to hold their ground. You're going have to make some really good plays.
“Our game with them last year, they made two circus catches, really to swing the momentum of that game. And they were well-covered guys, so you're going have to cover and not allow them to catch it with one hand.”
Hard to base things on just one game. But do you think you came out of Boston College with finding a big play wide receiver in Devin Carter?
“If you're looking at the positives of that game, Devin had 160 yards, I think it was, and for the last three weeks his confidence has grown and grown and grown. He's playing fast. He's having fun. He's become a dependable target and a guy that can run after the catch as you saw on the one long run. That's good for him to be able to do that for us.
“And it's definitely a boost to that position group.”
Are there enough guys still around from the last two years to kind of talk about the disappointment of those game, or is it more of now they're the ranked team and maybe you could kind of play their role this year?
“They are the ranked team. Record-wise, them and Clemson have the best records in the league. Our players know what's going on out there. Some of our guys were part of those games, but not many. So I don't know how much I can lean on that and have anything come out of it.
“To me, it's more about regardless of who we play, it's going to be how we play. And I think that's the thing with our football team right now. Not that I don't care who we play. I do, obviously, but I care a lot more about how we play as a football team right now.
“And if we just get better, make the plays that we can make and do the things that we can do, then we'll be in every game have a chance to win. Hopefully at quarterback, Devin continues to get better and better and make those plays that he showed us in the fourth quarter last week, and that'll help our offense.”
Have you ever been in a situation where you've had a kid who's playing against the school that he used to go to? And because of that, do you have to kind of do anything to kind of keep him from getting a little bit too ramped up?
“I actually talked to Tabari [Hines] about it, and his answer was great. He said, ‘I can't think about it that way. I got to be the best me for this football game.’ He can't get hung up in what it was there. It's hard not to have personal feelings about playing at school you were at, but he was very quick to say that it's not about that. It's about playing for these guys here.
“So we'll see where that goes. But that's the comments he made.”
You sort of talked about coming out of an open date, and there's a chance to recalibrate and relook at things and do you feel like for your guys that was a good reset point? Not just physically, but kind of trying to figure out, ‘Okay, this is what hasn't gone well, to this point and what we can do going forward?’ Do you think they were able to take advantage of that?
“Yeah, I think regardless where they put an open date, when you're dealing with what we are from an injury standpoint, that's a good time to have it. I don't care where it would have fell on the season, whether we won or lost that game. Then there was a lot of things that happened, and it was a point in time nine freshmen were on the field in that game at once.
“For us to be able to get all those guys back, and who's going to be healthy, who isn't? All right, let's go to work with these guys and get them better. It was a great time for us to have that opportunity. And I think just getting ready for five games in four weeks, which we are about to do, we needed that break to get ready for the stretch run.”
“You're always talking about finishing and you pound that into the players’ heads all the time. Fourth quarter at practice, all of that kind of stuff. You got five football games in November. Has that been a big theme addressing the team?
“Yeah, we talked about it yesterday, is let's just get better every day. I think when you're dealing with young guys, there's always that fear of failure mechanism they deal with, and just told him to let it all go. Only thing they need to worry about being perfect, knowing that if they do that, they'll find their best themselves, the best version of them.
“And that's all we need. If we can just get the best version of us and make sure that each week we're improving on what we put on tape, I feel confident about that football team. It’s when in a situation where things don't go well and there's that panic that can happen at times with young guys are guys just got to let it go and play ball and cut it loose.
“And so that's the mindset we have. We're going to make this five weeks as fun as we can for these kids and get out there and play aggressive. We had a rookie bowl scrimmage last night so the young players could have some fun with the GAs and QCs calling the plays. That was a lot of fun.
“We've had some things that we do after practices and bowl games, during the bye week, where we get call outs. We bring freshman up against freshman and Ickey [Ekwonu] was playing wide receiver on a play and … Jeffrey Gunter covered him. We're having some fun with these guys at practice.
“They're working hard, but giving them five minutes at the end to really enjoy football. And I think that's the thing that gets lost sometimes in the pressure cooker of college football for these kids. You know, there's all this stuff going on in the perimeters and for them to get back to why they play. I think it's really important.”
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