Following NC State’s blowout loss at Clemson Saturday, the team will look to get back on track with a very important game at Syracuse this week. Head coach Dave Doeren addressed the media at his weekly news conference Monday; here are some of the highlights.
On the loss to Clemson: “Obviously disappointed in last week. To win a game in Clemson against a great football team, we needed to play our best, win the turnover margin and stay on the field on third down. We didn’t do that. We just never really got in a rhythm in the football game. I thought our guys had great attitudes throughout the game. We just needed to play an error-free game and create a bunch of turnovers. I thought we did a good job managing their run game but obviously didn’t do a good enough job in coverage. Didn’t get off the field the way we have been on third down. Offensively, didn’t stay on the field the way we have been on third down. Just really a recipe for disaster against a great team.”
On this week’s game against Syracuse: “We’ve got a great game coming up against a really good football team. A team that’s undefeated at home, and also a five-win team like us. Excited for the opportunity and impressed with what coach Babers has done. The way their players are playing. … The biggest thing that jumps out, they’re plus-eight in turnover margin. They’ve created 17 takeaways, which leads our conference. They’ve got an experienced group on offense. There’s nine players on offense that are either seniors or juniors, and on defense four seniors and seven juniors.”
“… Offensively they’re maximum speed tempo; they’re running the ball well. I think their tailbacks are playing really good for them. They run hard; they’ve got different body types that they can go to to change it up. They always have good receivers, big guys on the perimeter and in the slots. They’ve got two quarterbacks that are playing well. [Eric Dungey] always is an aggressive, fiery competitor and runs well. He’s still their leading rusher by a few yards, has eight rushing touchdowns. And [Tommy DeVito]’s come in for a few games and played really well for them. He manages their offense, throws the football with accuracy.”
“Defensively, I think their D-Line is really, really talented. Their two ends are exceptional players. They’ve created a lot of plays in the backfield. Between them, 17 TFLs and 13 sacks. Defensive tackle [Chris Slayton] is a redshirt senior. He’s a big guy, 309-pound kid that makes a lot of plays. 4.5 TFLs. I know having [Antwan Cordy] back for them in the secondary is a veteran guy; he’s a leader. They’ve had some injuries at corner, but I thought their backup came in the game and really played well.”
On graduate quarterback Ryan Finley and junior receiver Kelvin Harmon’s struggles against Clemson: “I don’t know if there’s any one thing; I just don’t think we got in a rhythm. Ryan, he made a really good throw to Kelvin on the one drop, and that was probably a momentum play that could have helped us in the game. I think as a team, when we got behind, one thing I think we’ve been really good at is just doing our job, playing with fundamentals and playing hard.”
“We got behind in that environment against a team that we really wanted to play well against and started to get away from our technique. Guys started to try to do too much instead of just doing what the play calls them to do. And when you do that in football, it’s never good. When you start trying to do too much or do somebody else’s job, you typically don’t do your own. It wasn’t Ryan; it wasn’t Kelvin. As a team, across the board, I think we just got away from what we’re good at. Offensively, I don’t care what offense you run, if you’re out every time on third down and you’re getting stopped, it’s really hard to have rhythm in the game.”
On his conversation with Finley: “He had a couple throws he’d like to have back. But he also had some good throws. I told our whole team the same thing, ‘Let’s get back to being us.’ It is what it is. As much as we wanted to win that football game, we didn’t play well enough to win. And they did. Everybody has to own that and move on. We can’t let it beat us again.”
On if it’s easier to move on from a blowout than a close game: “Probably so. We just didn’t give ourselves a chance to win the football game. And they did everything the way that we would have liked to have done it. They executed really well in the football game. When you’re playing in a game of any sort against a good opponent, you have to play to the best of your ability. You have to make the plays that are there to make and you have to make a few that aren’t and create some plays. When you play anybody, I don’t care who it is, in the ACC, you’ve got to be on point.”
“You can’t turn the football over when you’re driving. You can’t have guys drop passes that they always catch. It’s just basic stuff. It’s what you have to be able to do, and it’s what we’ve done. I think that’s the biggest thing I told the guys is, ‘You guys are really good football team when you just do your job’. We’ve just got to get back to that.”
On injuries: “I don’t have anything for you, and I won’t. We’re going to wait and see how long it takes these guys to get back. I haven’t talked to Justin yet; we meet at 3:30 today. All of them were feeling better but I don’t know where they’re at yet.”
On preparing for both Syracuse quarterbacks: “It can be [difficult]. It depends on what they do differently. We have enough film on DeVito to know how things change. Dungey creates a lot of plays on his feet and he runs the ball a lot. DeVito can run; they just haven’t used him that way as much. You just have to kind of see what their plan would be if he goes in and it’s like it was in Florida State, it’s like it was against UNC. We know what the differences are.”
On learning how to handle adversity from last year’s seniors: “Possibly. Obviously we lost a tough game at Notre Dame last year and bounced back, started playing really well again. In a similar fashion we had some guys dinged up at Notre Dame last year just like we did in this game. I think our guys, yesterday, the message was very clear on how we need to move forward. They were all on board with that. We need to learn from what happened and why, get better and get ready to play a really important game.”
