NC State Wolfpack College Football Pregame Quote, 10/28/2019

We’re getting ready for five games here in one month. It’s a great opportunity for us to get better, and really that’s the focus with our team‚Äîjust taking it one day at a time, one opportunity at a time, working with these guys on improving their skill sets and playing together. 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 an opportunity.

We’ve got a great opportunity against a really good football team this week. We’re excited to play against Wake Forest in an in-state game and a rivalry game. They’re a very good football team. Dave Clawson and his staff have done a really good job, and they’ve got a lot of experience and a lot of good players.

When you look at them on offense, they play at a very fast tempo. Their receiving corps across the board is elite. They’re playing at a high level. I think the way Sage Surratt and Scotty Washington use their size well on the perimeter, and use it to their advantage being strong. What Kendall Hinton has been able to do, transitioning from quarterback to their slot, he’s making plays for them. Both quarterbacks have played. I’m not sure who we’ll see, but they’re both really good players. Their tight end does a nice job in the package they give him, and the offensive line has only given up eight sacks. I think that their left tackle is one of the best in the conference, so it’s a really good challenge for them.

Defensively, on the other side of the football they’re sound. Their defensive end, Carlos Basham, Jr., has done a really good job. He’s a very disruptive player‚Äîbig and long and has kind of taken over that playmaking role for them on their front. It’ll be a good matchup for us with our tackles and him. They do a good job stunting and blitzing, and just changing up their different things. There’s a lot of guys that are in there that are making plays. They’re experienced at corner and those guys have been there a long time. I think they’re strong safety, Nasir Greer, is a very, very good open-field tackler. I enjoy watching him play. He’s a good football player.

They don’t do a ton on first and second down. They know what they’re doing, they do it well and they do a lot on third down. That’s going to be an important down and distance for us in this game.

We’re looking forward to just getting back at it. We had a good chance over the bye week to get some guys some rest that needed it. We had a really good practice yesterday. I thought the guys came back from the back 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, but at least the guys we had in the last game are able to play together again over the past week and this week we’ll have some continuity there.

On his process with the quarterback position:

I think for us, on our side, it went the way that it went. They made it happen that way, and I’ve said it from the start ‚Äî 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 at practice know what happens on a daily basis. Devin Leary is ready. I don’t think we forced him into the position before he was ready, which I think for any quarterback is a bad thing. He’s taken advantage of, not only when he was 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. In the last game he threw three touchdowns and they were all on fourth down, which shows a lot of clutch. He’s earned this opportunity, and I’m excited for him.

Devin took all the reps with the ones this week and got a lot of work. It was good work for him and a good opportunity to run it. Looking at the conversations you have with offensive coordinators and your quarterbacks is ‘what do you see well? What do you think of this play?’ And then go out and rep it. You’re just trying to make it fit him so that he can play fast. We got him a lot of work and he’s done a good job. He’s excited about the opportunity.

On the OL depth chart:

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, that changed us at tackle, which was a couple weeks back. Ikem Ekwonu and Bryson Speas have started at tackle and Emanuel McGirt, Jr., has played a lot at tackle.

The way that we play inside, Speas can also go inside, and McGirt, Jr., can go out. But you have to list ten guys. We’re trying to redshirt Timothy McKay if we can, but as we’ve seen in certain games ‚Äì I lost two corners in one game‚Äîyou can go from being a redshirt guy to a player pretty fast. All those guys are getting those reps in case of that. What we’d like to do is keep it to where Speas or Dylan McMahon is playing inside. Joe Sculthorpe can play guard or center. We have some flexibility inside with that.

On the CBs:

Whoever is playing against their wideouts has a challenge. They have an opportunity to play against some really confident, good football players and a quarterback that is accurate in getting them the ball. They’re excited about it, and they’re studying a ton of film on those guys. Whether we have our starters or whoever, in my opinion, those three that they put out there are as good as anybody. It’s an elite group and those guys will play hard.

The good thing about De’Von Graves and Malik Dunlap is that they’re long, strong guys, so there are plays where there are body-to-body catches and push-offs and all that, and they’re going to be able to hold their ground. You’re going to have to make some really good plays. Our game with them last year, they had two circus catches to swing the momentum of that game. They were well-covered guys, so you’re going to have to cover and not allow them to catch it with one hand.

On WR Devin Carter:

If you’re looking at the positives of that game, Devin Carter had 160 yards. For the last three weeks his confidence has 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 that one long run. That’s good for him to be able to do that for us. It’s definitely a boost to that position group.

On the Wake Forest series that past few years:

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 a part of those games, but not many. 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. I think that’s the thing with our football team right now. Not that I don’t care who we play ‚Äì I do ‚Äì but I care a lot more about how we play as a football team right now. If we just get better and make the plays that we can make, then we’ll be in every game and have a chance to win. Hopefully at quarterback, Devin Leary continues to get better and better and makes those plays that he showed us in the fourth quarter last week, and that will help our offense.

On WR Tabari Hines playing against his former team:

I actually talked to Tabari Hines about it. His answer was great ‚Äî he said ‘I can’t think about it that way. I’ve got to be the best me for this football game.’ He can’t get hung up on what it was there. It’s hard not to have personal feelings about playing the school you were at, but he was very quick to say that it’s not about that, and that it’s about playing for these guys here. We’ll see where that goes. Those are the comments he made.

On the bye week helping the team hit the reset button:

I think regardless of 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 fallen in the season. Whether we won or lost that game, there were a lot of things that happened. There was a point in time when there were nine freshmen on the field at once. For us, to be able to get all those guys back, and figure out who is going to be healthy and who isn’t, it was a great time to have that opportunity. Getting ready for five games in four weeks, which we’re about to do, we needed that break to get ready for this stretch run.

On the remaining games:

We talked about it yesterday. 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. I told them to let it all go. The only thing they need to worry about is being perfect. If they do that, they’ll find their best selves. That’s all we need. If we can just get the best version of us, and make sure that each week we’re improving what we’re putting on tape, I feel confident in that football team. It’s when we’re in a situation where things don’t go well and there’s that panic that can happen at times with young guys. Our guys just have to let it go and play ball and cut loose.

That’s the mindset we have. We’re going to make these 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 graduate assistants and quality control staff calling the plays. It was a lot of fun. We’ve had some things we’ve done after practices and bowl games during the bye week where we call out freshmen up against freshmen. Ikem Ekwonu was playing wide receiver on a play and Jeffrey Gunter covered him, so we’re having some fun with these guys at practice. They’re working hard, but we’re giving them five minutes at the end to really enjoy football. I think that’s the thing that gets lost sometimes in the pressure cooker of college football for these kids. There’s all this stuff going on in the perimeters. For them to get back to why they play is really important.