NC State Wolfpack College Football Pregame Quote, 11/11/2019

I’d like to start off by thanking our fans and students for the atmosphere and crowd we had in the game Saturday night, particularly in the first half. I know right now it’s tough as a fan base as we’re suffering through some difficult things, but I also know we’ve built a heck of a program here and these kids are working really hard. They’ll continue to do so.

Being young and facing the injuries have created a reality of adversity that we’re in. I really believe adversity shows you your true self. I think for us, it’s an opportunity for us to be the best leaders that we can be. I was raised by a great family, and I had a terrific grandfather that used to say, ‚Äútough times never last, but tough people do.‚Äù I think that’s a great thing for this program right now. I look forward to continuing to persist and fight and help these guys get better.

We have a great opportunity this week. I’m excited to get back on the grass with the guys. They were good in our meetings yesterday. It really comes down to not beating us. As good as Clemson is, we obviously gave them a lot of opportunities with the turnovers we had in the first half. It’s about ending every drive with the football, and handing the ball to the referee at the end of every play whether we finish each drive with a kick, punt, field goal or extra point. That’s got to be what we do to win football games.

Defensively we have to get much better at our tackling fundamentals. The last two weeks that has not been where we need it to be. It’s really just consistency with technique, which allows you to be consistent in your fundamental execution of your plays.

As far as Louisville goes, I have a lot of respect for Scott Satterfield and his staff. They have good team speed. They inherited a team that had some really good skill players, and those guys make plays for them. They have three receivers that are averaging over 17 yards per catch. They have a young tailback that is very dynamic. They play hard on both line of scrimmages. Their coaching staff does a great job, and it’s going to be a great opportunity. For us, it’s about just helping whoever is in the lineup to execute as good as they can. We have to practice really, really fast. The hard thing for us right now is our scout team ‚Äì we’re taking guys from the scout team to play on the upper fields ‚Äì so our scout team doesn’t give you the best look all the time. Having that speed against each other, we’re going to have to do some good on good throughout the week to make sure that we can simulate the speed we’re going to have to play against.

They’ve had some turnover issues early in their season, and they’ve gotten that together. They’ve been relatively healthy as a football team. I do think personnel-wise that their quarterback is playing well. He’s a very good athlete. He only has three interceptions and 10 touchdowns. I mentioned their three receivers ‚Äì I think they’re all really good players. They do a good job with them on their play-action scheme and jet schemes in getting them the ball where they can make plays.

On defense, they’ve struggled in some games and in other games they’ve been very productive. They are a disruption-based defense. They bring a lot of pressure. They give you a lot of looks and a lot of different coverage. It’s another week, another challenge and another opportunity for our football team.

On things that have come to fruition this season:

We’re punting and kicking the ball well. Those two things are happening on a consistent, weekly basis. I was worried about our punter going into the season with AJ Cole, III, being a four-year starter. I think Trenton Gill has done a great job on kickoffs and on punts. That’s been consistent. I wasn’t sure with all the change in our special teams how that would go, and we’re covering kicks better than we have.

I think Todd Goebbel has done a really good job with our coverage units. That’s been one area that I was concerned about just because I didn’t know what it would look like.

A lot of the rest of it has been ‚Äì I don’t know how many starting unit combinations we’ve had now ‚Äì but I don’t know how you can predict consistency when you’re inconsistent in your lineup every week. That’s the hardest thing, and nobody sits in their office in the preseason and goes through what we’ve gone through and have those answers. You’ve just got to do the best you can with what the trainer tells you that week and get the guys ready.

On the linebacker corps:

As far as the linebackers go, Isaiah Moore will be back this week, so we’re excited for him. Drake Thomas and CJ Hart are fine. It sounds like Payton Wilson is going to be good. We’re still waiting to find out on Louis Acceus. We haven’t heard yet on his status.

On the injuries:

I wish it was all one injury so that I could tell you that we’re not doing something right, but it’s not. It’s a foot here, shoulder here, knee here and a concussion here. We’ve had a lot of different things. I don’t know. It’s just one of those things we’re going through right now.

They’ve mostly been game injuries. Tyrone Riley got his foot stepped on in a drill. We’ve had two or three practice injuries, but about 90% of them have been on game day, which is really weird. A lot of times, because they’re playing so fast, you don’t have that. Most of the injuries that I’ve dealt with over the last six years have been during training camp where you’re having back to back to back to back type work. You just don’t have the recovery aspect that you normally do during the season.

When all three guys were down at once, I just looked up at the sky one that one and I was like, ‚Äòcome on now.’ I just went by each pile and asked how they’re doing. Quickly two of them said they were okay. Payton Wilson’s was the one we were most concerned about because the other two guys gave me the thumbs up pretty fast.

I’m just going out there to comfort the guy and make sure he’s okay. Second, I get information so that I can tell the coaches if he’s done for the day or if he’ll be back quick. With where we’re at situation wise, there’s not a long list of who can go into the game. We’ve got to be ready.

On Louisville’s run game being similar to NC State’s:

The stretch or wide zone ‚Äì whatever you call it ‚Äì is the staple. It was at Appalachian State, and it was here with Dwayne Ledford. They are doing more QB run game because their quarterback is a good athlete. He can run. He’s their third-leading rusher. They have more 12 personnel than we were able to do here with the bodies that they have there, probably. 75% of their run game is stretch, which is what we did when Ledford was here. You see a lot of that.

On handling the Clemson blitzes:

It could be better. There were times when we won and times when we didn’t win. I think when you get in a game like that where you’re down as fast as we were, they’re just going to tee off and put you in some tough situations protection-wise.

There were a lot of different things being thrown at two true freshmen. I think Dylan McMahon and Ikem Ekwonu played really well for freshmen in that game. I was proud of them for how they competed. There were times when our backs won and times when they didn’t. Our quarterback did take some shots. He showed some toughness, and obviously you’d like to keep him up.

On DE Xavier Lyas:

He came in and saw me on Sunday. I wish him luck. I’d rather talk about the guys that are here.

Someone did put out a great screenshot today though that their girlfriend was in the portal. I thought that was pretty funny.

It’s life. Some of these guys don’t play as much as they want, and that’s how it goes. As far as our depth, we’ll be fine. We have enough defensive ends; we’ll be good.

On player development:

I don’t think that we’re at a point where patience is really what we’re doing. We’re trying everything we can to win the next game with who we’re playing with. I told them in week three or four, if you’re a freshman and you’ve played in all the games, you’re not a freshman anymore. It’s just a one day at a time, what they’re struggling with kind of thing and how we can make them better regardless of their age kind of thing right now.

They’re all football players that need to play better, and that’s how we’re approaching it.

On the team staying positive:

I believe in karma. I think if you’re a negative person every day, you bring negativity into your life. If I’m negative in that building, then the building has a negative feel. My job is to create an environment where people want to be great. I’ve got to be positive to make that happen, but I also have to be truthful. I have to tell them the facts.

I think that if you’re a positive person and you have a positive outlook, and you’re trying to find solutions instead of problems, better things happen. There are a lot of days where I’m picking people up because not everyone sees things like that. I think a lot of people like to look at the negativity that’s going on out there. To me, it’s a problem you get to face one way or the other ‚Äì you can attack it or you can run from it. I like attacking it with the right attitude.

On the Thursday game following Saturday’s night game:

That wasn’t very fair, but we’ll be home Saturday night at 1 a.m., and then we have to leave on Wednesday to play a game. I think it’s something that the league should look into for both teams that play a Thursday short-week game to never have to play a night game on the Saturday prior from the player safety standpoint. I think that would be a wise discussion.

We’ll have to adjust. It will be very difficult to practice with pads on that week. Maybe we’ll get one day. Our guys have a lot of academic obligations too. We’ll wake up on Sunday, and it’s already game week Wednesday. It’s crazy. That’s a short turn around.