Coach talk: N.C. State's Dave Doeren

Opening Statement:

We’re excited to get into conference play and Family and Parents Day at the stadium. (We) had a great crowd come out to the last game, and we’re expecting the same thing for this game, and appreciate all the fanfare we had last time. I know the players were excited about it.

Coming out of the bye week, I felt like we had a good opportunity to look at some of little details that are very important as we move forward and work on those fundamentals. In practice, also had good time for the guys, recovery-wise, which for a few of our guys was needed. Any time you get that opportunity, whether it’s physical or mental, I think it’s good--in the classroom as well. Looking at some of the things we’ve done well, especially on our special teams, I think we’re punting the ball really well. A.J.’s (Cole) off to a good start, and has practiced well the past two weeks. There are some little things in coverage that we’ve been able to work on with our guys, which I think will help us as we move forward. Our long-snapper Tyler (Griffiths) has done a nice job this year. He’s really improved himself. We’re hoping that Kyle (Bambard) can improve off of the field goal he made last week, and he’s kicked the ball well these last couple weeks of practice, so we’re excited about that.

Offensively, our third down offense has been good. There are some things third-and-short that we need to get better at, and we’ve had a good chance to work at. Our scoring offense just threw three games. I like that we’re averaging five yards a carry. There are four ball carriers from our backfield that are averaging over five yards a carry, so we’re excited about that. And the red zone touchdown percentage—there are a couple that we felt like we could’ve had. Any time we can get down inside the twenty and have a first down, you need to get touchdowns; and that’s something I know we take a lot of pride in.

Defensively, there are some things that every week when you look at it, watching college football for the first time on a Saturday the whole day like we did, there are a lot of crazy games. All the different things that you’re having to defend now. We are doing a much better job in the explosive area of things. I think obviously getting plays in the backfield has been good, although I think there are still some more we can get--our defensive front, or linebacker, or safety or whoever’s that extra hat. But you’re seeing guys play square, using their hands, shoving blocks, leveraging the ball. I think getting Riley Nicholson back, he’s healthy, allows us to get a rotation at linebacker that I’m excited about, because I think he can help us, and help Jarrod and help areas not have to play an entire game, and deal with the fatigue that happens when you play these tempo offenses. We have a very good rotation on the d-line. We’ve been able to do that at linebacker, we’ve been able to do that at nickel. That’ll help him in the long run. We’re continuing to work hard at third down and red zone defense, and that’s something we’ve been able to do during the bi-week.

Moving forward to Wake, obviously playing a 4-0 team, in-state team, a team that’s really improved themselves. Coach Clawson’s always done a good job at building programs, and no different here. They’re not beating themselves. Beating Indiana they forced five takeaways against a good Indiana offense, and offensively very improved. On their offensive-line they’re running a lot of gap-schemes, counters and powers with passes behind them. We call RPOs. Zone reads, but different plays that we can really look at the edges of your defense and look at how your playing—the quarterback making decisions to hand it off away from the read-player or throw it behind a perimeter run-fit player, and because of that they’re averaging over four yards a carry, which is pretty good. And defensively, they’ve been good the whole time. Dave’s been good there, and you see a continuation. They’re only giving up 16.5 points a game, and rushing defense 88.5 yards a game, so a really good challenge for our offense in the run game in a very good rushing defense, and a defense that takes the ball away. I think their safeties are playing really good football. No. 3 for them has made a difference for sure. And on third down they’re very multiple, and that gives you a lot of different things to look at.

So a good football game coming up here on Saturday, and looking forward to the challenge that goes with it. I know our team is excited to have another home game and to start conference play. We’re not as healthy as we want to be, but we’re healthier than we were a week ago. Nyhiem (Hines), we’re hoping to have in the game—he did practice the last two days, so hopefully we’re able to continue to get him going. Eurndraus Bryant is back full speed, and he was out. And Riley (Nicholson) is back, so we’re glad to have those two back. Dexter Wright is also back, so we’ll have him going again. So we’re looking forward to having a little more depth from a special teams standpoint with those two guys.

On last year’s win at Wake Forest:

There were a bunch of explosive plays. We had a scramble where Maurice Trowell got out of a Jacoby (Brissett) got out of a blitz. We had a big shot to Nyhiem (Hines). Matt Dayes split the zone, and had a big play, and we had another long pass in that quarter. After that we didn’t do anything. Obviously you’d like to have a great start to any football game, but I want to play four quarters—it’s going to be a four quarter football game. They’re doing a much better job possessing the football and keeping the ball away. They’re defense gets a lot of three-and-outs, and offensively their time of position is really good, so you have to maximize your opportunities from a drive standpoint. We’re not last years team, they’re not last years team. I think any time you can play a game and get 28 points in the first quarter I’ll get fired up about it, but you want to be able to continue as adjustments are made from their standpoint or ours to be able to continue to move the football and score points from an offensive standpoint.

On improvements seen on the defense:

Sometimes you see a player doing too much. If he’s the c-gap player ducking his head in the b-gap and the ball bounces out there, or if I’m playing a leverage in coverage and have help out here not necessarily using it because I thought he was going to fun this route and I thought he was going to make a play, you have guys that want to make plays, but they need to stay within the structure of the call to make the play, and that was something we really focused on—just do what you’re supposed to do with great effort and technique, and the plays will come. And I think that was one area where you looked at some of the corner routes that were caught, we were playing routes where we had post coverage and not using it. And just teaching guys to take advantage of help when you have it or just being disciplined in your gap. We’ve worked really hard on pursuing the football and sometimes what happens is guys are September 27, 2016 leaving their gaps earlier to pursue a play before they know that a play isn’t coming back to them. So little things like that. I do think our tackling has been better, it’s not where we want it to be, but it has been better.

On LB Germaine Pratt:

He is going to redshirt. We were hoping this week we were going to be able to tell one way or another, and it’s just not strong enough to put him out there and risk having to do it again. And for his long-term success as a player and his health, and that’s the best thing. Riley, I said earlier, that we planned on playing him a lot this year, and he got hurt early in the game, so hoping to get a rotation like I said where there’s just fresher legs where you can play really hard knowing that there’s someone coming in. Whether it’s Ford (Howell) or Riley (Nicholson) or Airius (Moore), it’s just getting a break and a rotation where they can play faster, longer.

On the starting safeties playing a lot of snaps:

(Jarius) Moorehead was able to play some in last week’s game, which helped those guys I think. Dexter (Wright) was having a really good camp, and as long as he’s having a good week this week, I would assume that would be an option for Coach White. If he felt like he needed to do that with Josh (Jones), or Sean (Boone) for that matter. But right now, it’s Monday. Haven’t seen him tackle yet, but that’s one thing for Dexter, if he’s feeling good, it could be an opportunity for him. After three games, what have you liked about this team: I think the fact that we’re playing so many different guys and so many guys are involved in making plays on both sides of the ball is a good thing. We had fourteen guys touching the ball on offense last week, and there are four backs carrying it for over five yards. So it’s just the efficiency of it, just plugging your guys in and using your depth and not having a drop-off per say because there are a lot of different statistics you could go through and I don’t think there’s just one you could point out. Team focus: We’re not worried about anyone but who we’re playing this week, and that’s all we’re gonna do for the rest of the season. It’s us first and what we can improve on, and then it’s our opponent and what we can to win this game. And just having that process-oriented team that focuses that way is the best way to handle it. And for our guys especially I think they’re most successful when they’re in a routine. We’re gonna focus on ourselves early in the week and then focus on our opponent and polish it all the way to the kick. I know that’s what our players are most comfortable with.

On Wake Forest QB situation:

Well I don’t know if he’s out or not. We heard 2-4 weeks, and our game is two weeks, so we’re preparing like he’s going to play. Both of them are very good. I think Wolford played a good game last September 27, 2016 week, he ran the ball very efficiently and he’s accurate. He’s a winner, he was in high school, you can see he’s competitive. He’s got players around him that are playing really well. I mean, they’ve always had number 85, their tight end, Cam, does a really nice job. He has every year, and he’s a big feature for them on third down and in the red zone. But their tailbacks are playing hard, they’re running low; their linemen are creating space for them; their receivers have improved and they have a little more depth than they’ve had in receivers. I just think that, like any program when you’re in your third or fourth year, there’s more depth and you’re able to develop more players. Their scheme is that their going to run play with extra pullers and have a pass behind it and it stretches you and it puts you in some one-on-one situations. You either light in the box and you have to beat blocks or heavy in the box and you have to cover them one-on-one. So they do a very good job schematically and they got two quarterbacks operating it well. Obviously Kendall is, both of them can run, but Kendall can really run.

Keys to the game:

Just starting with our defense, we have to control the line of scrimmage and I think we’ve played a lot of young guys that are now big and have experience and play well and have the fundamental base to play with depth and winning the line of scrimmage in a game, in any conference game, but in a game where a lot of it is gonna be on the line of scrimmage because they do want to run the football, it’s gonna be critical, and I know they’re saying the same thing. They need to win the line of scrimmage over there. That’s gonna be a big part of this game. I just think offensively we have more guys that can make plays with the ball after the catch now, and being able to use them in space, which helps us, run the football. If you have to go out there and defend some of the things that happen in space, which we weren’t able to do in the past, it does help our inside run game.