NC State Wolfpack College Football Pregame Quote, 08/26/2019

Game week is finally here and I’m excited to jump into the season. Obviously, college football kicked off in an exciting fashion this past weekend. I’m excited for our players and staff, and everybody that’s invested so much since we got back together in January.

Coming off the season, we flew back from the bowl game and the next day we were on campus with 17 freshmen moving in. And then all the things that we’ve dealt with and talked about already staff-wise. There’s been a lot of time invested. We do it for these games and the 12 promised opportunities.

I’m excited for this group of young men. They’ve worked hard and we’ve put a lot of time into the leadership of this football team, and it’s unique. Each team is. We elected our captains yesterday, and I’m excited for those guys ‚Äî James Smith-Williams, Jarius Morehead, Nick McCloud and Dylan Autenrieth ‚Äî to have that honor. I’m looking forward to working with them in that role.

As we’ve talked about, we are a young football team. There are nine guys that are going to be starting for their first time in this game; there’s 17 freshmen, a redshirt freshman and 17 sophomores in our two-deep. Last year I had eight grad students that were seniors starting for me, and now I have really eight seniors. It’s different, but it’s also a team that’s really hungry to prove itself. We all know we have to earn our way and earn our record. We’re going to have youthful moments, but I’m excited to go through that with those guys and help them grow, and coach and work through it.

I’m not saying these things to be pessimistic at all. I’m excited about these guys‚Äîit’s just a different team. They are very hungry, and that’s made practice from a coaching standpoint very enjoyable. There’s a lot of guys trying to earn their right on the field. It’s been great competition throughout our training camp and throughout spring football.

Just so everybody knows, with the NCAA coming out and saying that there are no injury reports in college football, it’s not a topic that I’m going to spend time on. When we have a season-ending injury, I will give you guys that information. Tyrone Riley and Danny Blakeman are two of our players that are out for the year. They’re both going to be fine, and we’re in the process of applying for Tyrone’s sixth year, so we’re excited to have him back for next season. Those are the two guys that are out for the year.

As you saw on the two-deep, we named Matt McKay the starter for the ECU game. Matt’s accuracy, leadership and ability to really protect the team with his decision making and his consistent play, is really what prevailed. We look at a million things: on the field, off the field, with the teammates and all the different statistics that you guys are aware of.

The thing that was fun was just watching all the guys improve. I think (quarterback coach) Kurt Roper has done a really nice job, and I’m excited about the progress. You can look at the quarterbacks, at least we do, in three ways: your offensive system and their mastery of that, their situational IQ and how they apply the game of football to situational football and then their ability to recognize defensive structure. Throughout the spring, this is an area that Matt has just had a lead in, and with that being said, I’m really impressed with Bailey Hockman’s and Devin Leary’s improvement. Even Bailey, just like most transfers, that first semester when Ryan Finley was here was really challenging for him. It’s been fun to see him integrate with his teammates and become a guy that has a lot of personality. You get to see that come out in him. I think Devin and Bailey both have really good arm talent.

This is game one, so at some point you have to name a starter in a lot of positions, but as you know, it’s a long season and a lot of things can happen. All those guys are preparing to be ready to play, and when you’re not the starter for the first game, you look at it as: ‚ÄòI’m not the starter yet,’ if you’re the backup and want to be a starter.

I’m excited to continue to work with those guys and I’m excited for Matt McKay and what he has done. We will play a lot of young players at running back. You guys can see how I listed that. There’s speed and depth there, and as we found out in the past, we’re going to need them all. It’s a position that takes a lot of hits. Having multiple guys there that can run is good for our offensive system.

I think in game one, and you saw it in those two games that were on the other night with the Miami-Florida game and the Arizona-Hawaii game, execution is the key. You see a lot of mistakes in opening games. You see a lot of penalties. There were 23 penalties in one of those games, and eight turnovers in one of the other games. Our ability to execute with a young football team, to not beat ourselves, to not let game day change our focus ‚Äî because now you have all the fanfare that goes with it ‚Äî is important. There’s going to be a lot to look for in this football game, and a lot of firsts for our guys. I’m excited to get in there with them.

I can’t wait to see our fans, parents, families of our coaches and our student section. The game is at noon here on Saturday, and it’s a sold-out, in-state game against a team that we know and respect. We have a huge fan base, and we appreciate them and we need them to be our 12th man for four quarters.

When you talk about playing ECU, it’s interesting. We obviously played them at the end of the season with a different staff. There were a lot of players that didn’t play in that game for them that we will see, particularly on offense: Holton Ahlers at quarterback, that we know a lot about and have great respect for, the receiving corps with Blake Proehl, Tyler Snead, and Deondre Farrier are three of their starting receivers that were not in our game last year and then the running back, Darius Pinnix Jr., who is a big back that was used as a guy in their backfield last year in a lot of ways. He was a wildcat quarterback for them. There is familiarity in a way because we’ve played them, but at the same time, we’re facing a new system and a new staff with a lot of new personnel.

I respect their staff immensely. I think Mike Houston is a really good man, and a really good football coach. He was a great hire for them. Donnie Kirkpatrick and Steve Shankweiler, who has been on our staff, and Bob Trott, their defensive coordinator, are really good football coaches. It’s fun to go up against guys like that, and I expect a hard-fought, four-quarter game. For us, it’s no different. It starts with us not beating us. The line of scrimmage battle is critical in a football game like this, and the field position, special teams play and all of it is important.

For us, our seniors and our leadership council have talked about our approach and having a 1-0 mentality. It starts with us taking care of us, and it’s how we play and not who we play and how we prepare to get ourselves ready to play the best football that we can play in the first opportunity that we get, and then building from there. This is a football team that has to improve every week. We have to, as young as we are. When you look at the roster 45% of it is made up of freshmen and redshirt freshmen. There’s going to be lots of opportunities, learning opportunities, teaching opportunities and coaching opportunities. One guys that makes it everyone has to learn from, and I think the ability to do that as a football team is going to be paramount going forward, so those are the comments I have prepared for you guys, so now I’ll open it up for questions.

On Matt McKay and the quarterback competition:

He’s been here longer and he has more relationships, and I think he’s used that to serve others. It’s really things behind the scenes ‚Äî when those guys go out and throw on their own, when they go in and watch film and when’s he’s talking to guys in the locker room, and in Matt’s case, has gotten in front of the leadership group and talked and been vocal that way. Those are probably the things that stand out.

I think off the field, his relationships help more than anything. On the field, these guys, including Ty Evans have good relationships with the guys. You see them joking around, hanging out and eating with (the receiving corps). It’s not a popularity contest to win the job, but I do think at some point, with the statistics and the way guys play with that guy on the field, our offensive will forever be an offense where I want that guy to protect the football team with his decision making first. I tell them all the time that the defense is going to do a good job at times and the play we call may not be a good play, but to just get us to the next play because it may be a touchdown. We don’t have to force it. I think that happens sometimes with guys who are trying to win a job, and they’re making a throw they shouldn’t make‚Äîan Elway-type throw‚Äîand then it goes into a window they can’t fit it in and it’s picked off, as opposed to taking the checkdown or scrambling back to the line of scrimmage and getting us to the next play, which could be a huge play. It’s just a learning process for those guys, but we went through this with Ryan Finley and Jalan McClendon, I mean Jalan was a super popular guy on our team, and Ryan won the job. This is week one. Right now, Matt’s decisions, statistics and long competition we’ve had have put him in that place.

I think they knew. We talked yesterday with those guys, and it really wasn’t decided until four or five days ago. I wanted to give Bailey Hockman and Devin Leary every opportunity I could to improve, and I will say that they have. Bailey really came on towards the end of camp. It’s just over a complete body of work. They were great, they understand it and they’re both motivated to continue to improve. They’re young, that’s the thing in this thing. Bailey was awesome ‚Äî he was like ‚Äòcoach, I was a fourth-teamer as a freshman, I was a third-teamer, now I’m in the second position and I want to be first, and I’m going to keep working to get there.’ It’s all about continuing to improve so that when your opportunity arises, you’re ready for it.

I don’t have a plan to go in and say ‚Äòthis guy is going in this series and this guy the next.’ What we haven’t seen from these guys is gameday. We’ve just got to see how it goes. I’m not going to have a quick hook; I don’t think that’s fair to a player. There are going to be mistakes, whoever it is. We’ve got to let them get in the flow of the game and learn from what’s going on. What you don’t want is to have to make a decision because of an injury. We’ll just see where it goes, and the other guys have to be ready.

On ECU’s Mike Houston:

We opened with James Madison last year, so we had a lot of time to study their systems. They’re a very sound and physical team, and they run a run-pass option style offense with multiple runs, and their quarterback is a big part of that in their run game. They’re going to give you a lot of formations and they’re going to play with tempo and vary their tempo. Coach Steve Shankweiler is a good offensive line coach schematically, and he’s tough, so it’s going to be a line of scrimmage type of game from that standpoint.

Defensively, JMU was statistically one of the best in the country for two years in a row. Last year, we didn’t run the ball well against them, so we know that they’re going to be physical and outnumber us, and they’re going to force us to make contact catches in coverage. They play a lot of man-to-man. We expect similar schemes. I’m sure they’ve had to tweak a little based on their personnel, but last year we studied an entire season of his football team before we played them in the opener. We have a good idea schematically.

As far as Mike Houston goes, just being around him, he’s a tough guy and a straight-shooter. He takes a lot of pride in where he’s from, and I think he’s a guy that fits pretty well at the university and will do a great job there.

On preparing for ECU:

I don’t know how much being Houston’s first year plays into our preparation. It’s unique; this game itself is unique. We’re opening with a staff that we opened with last year, so there’s a lot of knowledge. We’re opening the season with the team that we closed with, so we know some of their personnel, not all of it. We probably, in this scenario, know more than we might facing a new staff.

We will watch JMU film for their scheme and ECU for their personnel.

On the depth chart:

There were a lot of guys that got valuable reps in positions that were open that we had to make decisions on. Sometimes you know who your first team is, but the other guy has played well enough that he’s going to play, so we’re going to rotate those guys. There are guys like Ibrahim Kante who’s not a first on the depth chart, but he’s going to play a lot, and we look at him as a staff like he’s a starter. It’s the same thing with Bryson Speas‚Äîhe’s a guy that played really well in camp. He’s going to play on the offensive line. It was like that for Joe Sculthorpe a year ago; he was like our sixth man, but he played a lot every game. Some guys are listed that way because they’ve earned that, they’re going to player and we look at them as another starter.

We rotate a lot, as you guys know, at certain positions, and with our up-tempo on offense you’ll see a lot of different skill players at receiver and at running back. We’ve always rotated on our defensive front. The area that we have the most depth that we haven’t had is at linebacker. You will see some guys throughout the game, particularly because we have some guys that haven’t played a lot and won’t be ready to go for 75 plays in a game yet.

On former Wolfpack QB Jacoby Brissett:

I sent him a text. I know he’s ready for that opportunity. I just wished him luck. I know he’s swamped. He wants to do well, and he’s kind of a guy who doesn’t talk a lot during the season because of his focus. He’s done everything the right way, and he’ll do a great job.

On the weather and keeping players hydrated:

It starts with the education process. It started a long time ago with the team in August camp. In the heat of North Carolina, and the South in general, your players have to understand their bodies in a certain way. There’s a lot more science now, and our nutrition staff, our training staff and our weight room staff are constantly are educating our players. We actually did another one today on how their bodies run and what the fuel is. Not everybody is the same; some guys sweat a lot more salt, some guys sweat a lot more electrolytes and some guys sweat a lot more water. They have to know that. We have things that we do with them to test their sweat to tell them how to replace it with the right stuff. They each drive a different car and what kind of fuel their car needs to run the right way is really how you look at it.

We’ll do all that throughout the week, constantly feeding, hydrating and giving guys the rest that they need, but it’s a big deal. It’s a big deal. Gameday is long. It’s a four-hour deal when you count warmups, so they have to start early in the week, and they have to understand how to do it. I think that’s something we’ve really evolved the most in, outside of the mental health area, is the ability to understand hydration.

On depth in the heat:

When we have guys that know what they’re doing, we’re going to use that for sure. Some positions aren’t as deep as others, but the ones that have that, we’re going to use it. Obviously, you don’t want to do that in a scenario where your quality goes down.

On ECU’s mindset after last year’s game:

I don’t think it affects anything. Once the ball is kicked, it’s about executing. I think it can carry you through a workout or give you a good pep talk, but it’s still going to come down to playing the game. They’re not what they were last year. They’re going to be a lot better‚ÄîI know that and our team knows that. They’re a different team, and we’re a different team. We’ve got to play the game to find out about how different.

On Derrick Eason moving to offensive tackle:

First off, I’m proud of Derrick for doing it because it’s a selfless thing. It’s about our depth. We lost Jalynn Strickland in the offseason for medical hardship, and then we lost Kendall Brown in the summer and now Tyrone Riley is out. We feel like with Josh Harris and C.J. Clark, two of the guys that are going to be available here soon, that we have depth inside that’s going to be coming back to the roster, whereas we don’t on the offensive side. 

Derrick played on the offensive line in high school and was pretty good at it. He’s a big, long guy, and he was willing to help the football team. If it’s a thing that doesn’t work out, we know we can move him back, but it gives us the ability to put another player there. We’re really excited about this freshman offensive class‚ÄîI mean, really excited; it’s as good as I’ve been around, but you don’t just want to have freshmen in it. Giving us one more guy, I thought, gives us the best thing that we can do right now. Obviously after the season we can go recruit, but we don’t have the free agent market once camp starts. We’ve got what we’ve got. That’s why we did it.

On Fr. Keyon Lesane as the kick returner:

He consistently made plays with the ball in his hands. He’s a fearless guy; he likes contact. He’ll tell you he likes running the football probably more than he likes catching it. As a returner, he’s one of those guys that will just go. Some guys dance. He will hit it. It’s nice to have a guy like that that will run through it. It’s just about the plays he’s made since spring on. It gives us a guy that could do some things after he touches it, and he’s fearless.

On DE Joseph Boletepeli:

He’s improved a lot, first of all. I think he was all over the place mentality a little bit last year like a lot of those guys are going through the transition. It’s challenging. He really applied himself, and I think learning and understanding that he has to grow as a player, and buying into that process has served him well.

He really had a great summer. Coach Thunder and those guys recognized that. He was one of those guys this summer that worked really hard, and has shown that we have a good rotation at end too. Ibrahim Kante and Xavier Lyas give us two guys in the middle there, when you talk about the classes on the football team, that have improved a lot. Savion Jackson, as a freshman, is doing a lot of things as a freshman that not a lot of freshmen do. We have a good rotation at defensive end, and then with the two seniors, James Smith-Williams and Deonte Holden, give us the older group, the middle group, and then that younger group.

On fall camp:

There were mistakes. There were mistakes every day. You do everything you can to show the guys the things we can’t do: lining up in the neutral zone, false starts, pre-snap focus penalties, post-snap emotional penalties and things like that. We took plays from the Miami-Florida game and Arizona-Hawaii game the other day and showed them to the team, giving them teachable moments. We do the most we can to educate them, to practice it and bring it up and then to show it to them. We hope that all those things stick so that we’re not that team doing those things on gameday.