NC State Wolfpack College Football Pregame Quote, 10/07/2019

I’m excited for a home game Thursday night and the opportunity to play for our Military Appreciate game, which is a very special night. It’s my favorite night in the stadium. To see the representation here from our state and our country, and to wear a uniform to honor them, what a great place to do it.

I’ve always loved the fanfare and pageantry that goes along with our Military Appreciation Day, so I’m excited for that. We’re looking forward to our fans being there in full force for another night game and supporting our players.

Before we get into players and games and all that kind of stuff, I have a few things. CB Taiyon Palmer, injury-wise, is out for the year with a knee injury. RB Ricky Person, Jr. is out but not long-term. He will be back, but he won’t play this week, and the same goes for OT Justin Witt. Those are two guys that have injuries that should bounce back but aren’t back yet.

It was a good time for us to have a bye week, obviously, after five games. There’s a lot of information for us to study, opportunity for the guys and coaches to digest a lot of film without a game right at the end of it and to study what we need to improve on. We had some good practices and they got a chance to have a Saturday off where they could really just reflect, hit the reset button and come back. I thought we had a really, really good practice yesterday coming off of that, and again this morning.

Obviously playing a midweek game creates a different schedule for your team and your coaches. That’s unique in its own right. Coming out of that week, looking at us offensively, we’re running the football well. We’re playing really good football in the red zone. We’ve got a lot of first downs. We’re first in the conference in first downs offensively. We’ve got to improve our efficiency on third and short. We need to get more explosive plays and be more efficient in our pass game. Period.

Defensively, we’re stopping the run. I think we’re doing a really good job on third down pressuring the quarterback. We’re doing well in total defense. There are some routes we have to get off the film that we haven’t been able to stop consistently. We just need to get more takeaways. That’s the biggest thing I’ve talked about. That’s a huge goal for us to improve in that area.

As a team, I feel like if we just eliminate the presnap and postsnap mental and emotional penalties that have hit us the last two games, which is really focus, discipline and maturity, we’ll be in a good place. These are things that we can fix and things that the guys understand. We need to do a good job as a staff in putting these guys in positions to make plays, and then they need to make them. It comes down to coaches coach, players play and together we go through it.

I’m excited to get back into a game with them. As you’ve seen on the depth chart, Bailey Hockman will start for us at quarterback. Devin Leary, who also came in the game at Florida State and did a nice job, will have an opportunity. I feel like they’re giving us more in the pass game. Matthew McKay is doing a really good job in a lot of areas and needs to improve on his pass game, and he will. I’m really impressed with how Matthew came to practice the last two days. He’s going to get better. He’s an incredible young man. For us to be able to do more things from a scoring standpoint and to move the ball down the field, those two guys give us a better shot with their arms right now. Matthew will continue to work on the things that he can.

I thought Bailey Hockman came in the Florida State game, showed a lot of poise and guts, and took a lot of tough shots in that game. He kept getting up and competed. Devin Leary came in cold at the end and through it around well. I was proud of those guys. Just like at the beginning of the season, those are tough conversations to have, and I thought Bailey and Devin handled their roles, but improved and improved and improved in their roles and took advantage of an opportunity that was presented. Matthew McKay will do the same now. I know he will.

Talking about Syracuse, our opponent, we know a lot about this football team. They’re really, really good at taking the ball away on defense. They have 12 takeaways. Offensively, as you guys know, they’re up tempo and they have very good receivers and a running back; their quarterback can throw it. He can extend plays with his feet. I’ve had some good football games with Syracuse since I’ve been here, and I respect Coach Babers and his staff quite a bit.

Schematically we’re familiar with both sides of the ball. I think their defensive front is arguably one of the best in the ACC. I have a lot of respect for their defensive lineman, their defensive ends and their rotation at defensive end. I think they have a really formidable group right there. They make a lot of plays for them and help them with their coverage in their pass rush.

On bye week schedule:

We came in and put the game to bed. We did not go out and work them out like we normally would on a Sunday. We took that Sunday just as a film day and a recovery day. On Monday and Tuesday, the guys were in the weight room but didn’t have any practice. They had three straight days off the field. On Wednesday and Thursday we got back into football and worked on our first and second down stuff. Friday was just a weight room day for them and then they were off completely on Saturday. They came back Sunday, which is really game-Tuesday, and got into our game week routine from there.

On RB Jordan Houston:

I think him and Zonovan Knight are very critical right now to us, as is Trent Pennix. Those are our three backs. All three of those guys have shown the ability to make plays, to be consistent and to get tough yards. They’re playmakers. They’ve played good football for us to this point. They’re going to get more opportunities with Ricky Person, Jr. out, and I look forward to seeing them take advantage of that.

On the days off helping the team hit the reset button:

We’ll find out, but just judging them based on how they were yesterday, they looked very refreshed. We were fast in practice yesterday. They’ve been in the weight room; it’s not like we haven’t seen them. I think it was good for our staff as well. We recruited Friday and then we had a family day Saturday. I think it was good for us. We’ve been in here every day since August 1. Just to have a day away from the office, to have a day away from the coaches for them, I think is really healthy at this point. It’s a weird schedule, so we’re going to have a few more of these with having two games in the month of October and four Saturdays that we don’t play. We have to keep them fresh and focused. Sometimes stepping out is a good way to do that.

On progressing as a team with injuries:

I’m not going to use it as an excuse. It’s reality. You guys know all the different guys that are out and how young we were to start. That’s the reality. The challenging part of that is the chemistry of the guys that play. You don’t have the same 11 in and out all the time.

I feel like we have gotten several guys better. It’s just building off of who’s the guy next to me all the time that changes. There’s nothing that you can do about that. You’ve just got to get the reps that you can. These guys understand that the next man up is real and that they have to take advantage of the moment that a lot of them want.

On adversity bringing a team close:

I think adversity in general forces you to do that. You either fight our you fail. We’re going to fight. That’s how we’re made here. These guys are going to stick together and they’re going to compete. We’re going to try to find solutions and stay positive. I think that that is the best thing any family can do that goes through tough times, and that’s what we are‚Äîthis football team is a family. We’re going to stick tight. We ask our fans to do the same thing for these men that are working their butts off for them. I think that’s the beauty of having a homefield advantage like we do this weekend. We need the 12th man to be real and to help these guys out.

On the quarterback decision:

Going into Ball State, we just felt like we weren’t throwing the ball efficiently enough. That’s where you saw us give Bailey Hockman the series at the beginning of the second quarter so that we could make a better evaluation. We hadn’t given him real game reps, just mop-up reps. We felt like he did well there and then he improved in practice.

As I’ve been telling you guys, Devin Leary had been getting better in the things that he was doing. We got in the game and we just weren’t moving the football. We gave him an opportunity and we started to get the ball down the field and open up some things. We are running the football well. It’s just the ability of being able to take advantage of coverage matchups that we’re getting. I felt like that gave us that.

Statistically, we’re not explosive in the pass game right now. We’re not getting enough explosive passes. We’re not getting pass interference calls on downfield plays, so we feel like this gives us a shot. For Matthew McKay, it gives him a chance to look at what he needs to do to improve, and I know he will.

On Devin Leary playing Thursday:

He could. I don’t think I should give you my game plan today. He could.

On CB Nick McCloud:

Nick’s plan is to be back as soon as he can be. The goal was this game. If it’s not this game, the goal will be next game. We’ll just keep going that way. If we end up in that scenario, we’ll get there. His goal is to help us win this year.

On Thursday home games:

It’s electric here on Thursday nights. It’s awesome. That part of it is a huge plus. The tough part of it is that if you’re the home team, your Wednesday is different than if you were the traveling team. Our plays have class that they do go to. On Wednesday we don’t just take our guys to the hotel like we would on a Friday where they don’t have classes. You have a different routine the night before the game, and then they play at night, and they wake up on Friday and some of them have class Friday morning. We might not get home until 1 or 2 in the morning. There are some unique things around it. It’s not ideal for the players when you talk about a short week game when you’re play two games in five days, that’s really hard. Especially when you’re the road team because now you’re traveling coming back. That’s part of the deal.

For our guys, that’s something that we talk about. I sat down with our captains in the preseason and showed them how the stuff was going to lay out and then I let them marinate on it, so that when we get to it, there was no, ‚Äòcoach, I didn’t know it was going to be like this.

On OT Ikem Ekwonu:

I think he’s ready. He’s played well. He’s very physical. He has a lot of physical plays. He’s done a lot. He’s played in every game. I’m excited for him. I think he’s going to do a great job. Emanuel McGirt and Bryson Speas and those guys have all waited their turns to play and now they’ve got a shot. I look forward to seeing them compete.

On QB Matthew McKay:

Matthew is a tremendous teammate and he’s a great young man to coach. I worry about everybody that goes through things to answer your question. I don’t have to worry about how Matthew is going to handle it, but I do worry about every one of these kids that goes through adversity. My job is to tell them the truth, and then try and help them through it. That’s what we’re at with him. To lose your job is one thing and to quit is another. Matthew is a fighter. He’s going to fight hard to get back just like Devin Leary and Bailey Hockman did when they we’re backups. They didn’t get in and they got better. Matthew will have that opportunity and we’ll support him through it.

He was disappointed but he understood. He just asked, ‚Äòwhat can I do?’ and ‚Äòlet’s get a plan and let’s go.’ We talked about being a great teammate to those guys. Everything you would want a young man to be. No one is going to be happy with that news. If he’s happy to lose his job, that’s another thing. The way he handled it is the way you would expect a great teammate and a competitor to handle it.