NC State football head coach Dave Doeren spoke to the media Monday afternoon to discuss the team’s season-opening loss to South Carolina and the upcoming game against Marshall, as well as to provide updates on injured players.
On junior nickel Freddie Phillips Jr., left South Carolina game with injury: “He did tear his achilles and is out for the year, so tough break for a young man that’s done a great job. The surgery was successful. I know Freddie will do everything just like he did this last year to get back. This will be a redshirt year for Freddie, since he did not redshirt as a freshman or sophomore.”
On injured senior cornerback Mike Stevens: “Mike looked great yesterday. He was running around; he was backpedaling. He’s ahead of schedule. I don’t think he’ll play this week, but we should have him for Furman.”
On culprits in the loss to South Carolina: “Coming out of the game, the things that stood out on a negative side, obviously the opening kickoff, we had two missed tackles and had a chance to contain the ball and turn it back to three guys, and didn’t. Obviously the opposite of how you want to start a football game.
“Two turnovers, that we committed, that they earned on their side of the ball, defensively, offensively [that] led to 14 points for them. They got touchdowns off of both, so our sudden-change response needs to be better. And then obviously the missed field goal. And that adds up to 24 points.”
On the positives from South Carolina: “[Redshirt junior quarterback] Ryan Finley had a very good game throwing the football. [Sophomore receiver] Kelvin Harmon had a 100-yard game. [Senior all-purpose back Jaylen Samuels] tied Torry Holt’s record with 15 catches in the game. I thought [redshirt junior] Garrett Bradbury in his first game as a center really did some good things. He directed traffic and played hard, took over 100 snaps.
“That’s impressive alone, for an offense to have 103 gradeable snaps, and for several of those kids to have played every snap says a lot about their conditioning. I thought Jonathan Alston defensively in his first start as a defender did a lot of good things. He gave up a touchdown early and bounced back; in the fourth quarter he had a big sack and a big interception. Defensively, holding them to 1.5 yards per carry was a positive.”
On this week’s game against the Thundering Herd: “As far as Marshall goes, moving forward, I have a lot of respect for Doc Holliday, and obviously he has a history here. … Studying them now, they have good skill. They are a young football team, other than their quarterback. They’ve got a third-year starter at quarterback that has thrown a touchdown in 22 straight games, that’s the nation’s longest streak. They have a tight end that’s on a bunch of the watch lists in Ryan Yurachek. They have a great kickoff returner, which obviously we need to do better on that unit. He returned two for touchdowns last week for them.
“… They’ve got a lot of talented kids; they’re just young in some spots, but I know this will be a big game for them. For us, I know it’s a game where we need to finish some plays, get back to doing what we do well defensively, which is stopping the run, not giving up big plays, finishing some sacks. … Offensively, just continuing to do what we do in the run game, and getting better at what we do. Continuing to get the ball to our playmakers as we did. Protect the football. I think that’s what the game’s all about.”
On the need to move on from a tough loss: “One of our team goals is to maintain our 1-0 philosophy, and that means win or lose, you move on to the next game. I think we learned from last year that we let a game beat us more than once. I think that can happen with success and failure. I think that’s part of growing up, is you’ve got to learn how to handle both. Now that we’re into the season, it’s five days of prep and you play. I think that’s the best part of what’s going on now, these guys have learned how important it is just to move on, one way or the other.”
On the player discipline process: “Some of them are not my decision. Some of them, there’s certain rules within the athletic where ‘If this happens, this happens.’ … There are other times, and there’s so many different things that a kid can be involved with. The way I do it is every kid’s different, every situation is going to be studied and looked at.
“There’s certain things that are cut and dry. If you steal something on our football team, you’re gone. Zero tolerance. If there’s felony things that happen, that’s an athletic department thing, they’re automatically suspended. … Programmatically, I’ve always looked at it like my job is to bring young men here and make them into the football players they can be, help them graduate from the University with the degree that they want. Help them become great men. Along that process, there’s going to be growing pains at times. In [suspended right tackle Will Richardson’s] situation, if he makes a mistake, and I feel like it’s a mistake he can learn from and I feel like he can become better for it, that there’s remorse there and he still has the respect of his coaches and teammates, that’s something I’m willing to sit down and listen to.”
On senior wide receiver JuMichael Ramos, coming off a knee injury: “He practiced last week. He was out for a little while prior to that because he was a little sore. This week, I don’t know if you’ll see him on offense, obviously our receivers are pretty good. It’s not because he’s not healthy that he’s not out there. … He will hopefully be on some special teams this week to get him back into gameflow and see if that can help him get on the field there.”
