NC State Wolfpack College Football Pregame Quote, 09/23/2019

Going back to the Ball State game, I want to start out by thanking Brenda Tracy and the #SetTheExpectation opportunity that we had, and James Smith-Williams for organizing it and giving us the opportunity as student-athletes and coaches to be a part of something that was so special. It was great having her with us. I said a lot throughout the week about it, but it was pretty special to have that be a part of the game day atmosphere. I’m super thankful to our players for that.

From the game, the good things were that offensively we averaged five yards per carry and we continued to be efficient in the red zone. We were 100% in the red zone in terms of scoring. We improved on third down. We were 100% on third and medium, which was really the area that we’ve struggled. We were 8 of 10 in the first half on third down. I thought we made some good contact, difficult catches ‚Äî body-on-body catches ‚Äî which was an area that we needed to improve.

Defensively, I thought we improved in the run defense, holding them to less than three yards per carry. There were four times our defense was put on the field after turnovers and the onside kick and getting stopped on a fourth and one where they held them to a field goal or less. It was a great response by our defense. I thought it showed a lot of mental toughness. I thought we were good on third down defensively from third and three up. We did a nice job getting the ball back, and we got some pressure on the quarterback.

I thought our special teams were exceptional. Trenton Gill was six of seven on his touchbacks, and he punted the football well. He flipped the field position, and we covered his kicks well. We were aggressive in our coverage. The blocked punt by Max Fisher and the scoop returned down by Malik Dunlap was good. The punt return by Thayer Thomas for a touchdown was a huge momentum play for us in the game, and something that we’ve been waiting on. We’re excited to see that part of our special teams step up.

On the bad side, third and short and fourth and short on both sides of the ball need to get better. I thought we dropped some layup catches that are easy plays for us. We have to focus on catching the football and making our layups for the quarterback. You hate to see two interceptions. They were tipped balls that ended up being picks ‚Äî a tremendous play by their guy on the one play. The onside kick is obviously a play you want to be able to recover to put the game away. Too many completions on us over 15 yards ‚Äî none of them were touchdowns ‚Äî they’re plays that affect your field position. Those are plays we’ve got to be better at moving forward. We got one takeaway on defense at the end, but creating more takeaways is a huge area of emphasis for us that helps our offense.

From a health standpoint, Dylan Autenrieth is out for the season unfortunately. He’ll be back and have an opportunity to get a sixth year as well after next season. I hate that for him ‚Äî just another really good player and a captain. He’ll do a great job leading our football team to the best of his ability. On a positive, James Smith-Williams is back in action and we look forward to gaining James back this week. I’m not sure how much, we’ll see how he responds in practice, but he’s really excited to get back on the field with his teammates.

Moving forward, we get a chance to play at an incredible venue against a football team that has great talent. They’re outscoring their opponents in the first quarter at an alarming rate. For us, starting fast, particularly on the road, will be a huge point of emphasis for us, but more importantly, playing four quarters of football. When you look at them offensively, their quarterback got dinged up in the last game, so I don’t know what his status is, but both of their guys that they have ‚Äî Alex Hornibrook came in, and he’s completing 70% of his passes. The tailback is really their guy, and not to take anything away from their receiving corps because they’re outstanding. Cam Akers is a really good football player and all-purpose back. On all three downs he’s effective and efficient. He can run you over, he can make you miss and he’s good after contact. He’s averaging 127 yards per game. He has eight touchdowns, and he’s their third-leading receiver. He’s thrown a touchdown ‚Äî really good football player.

Their wideouts are scary guys. They can run. They’re average 19, 15 and 14 yards. Their slot receivers are tremendous players, and so is their tight end. We’ve got to do a great job up front, and really across the board, of defending the run and not giving up big plays in the pass game.

All these teams we play now are no-huddle, up tempo. That’s par for the course. Just building on what we did last week on defense is going to be key in this football game. Being better than we were the week before and learning from our last road trip, and understanding our shortcomings there. Their defense ‚Äî they’ve got a really, really good defensive line. They’re impressive. They’re big with three starters over 300 lbs. and a 340 lb. inside tackle (Robert Cooper, Marvin Wilson, Cory Durden). You’ve got some mass that you’ve got to deal with. Their linebackers are quick guys and they’re long. Their safety, Hamsah Nasirildeen, is a North Carolina native and a really good football player for them. He’s their leading tackler. They have an active defense and they have a good staff. They do a lot. They’re three-down, they’re four-down, they pressure, they play press coverage and they play quarters. They do a lot of good things on defense.

We have to execute at a high level. It starts with us not beating us, and eliminating the penalties you’ve heard me talk about is huge. Obviously, you don’t want to do anything to hurt your ability to have manageable down and distances. We’re excited about this opportunity and the chance to go play a storied program.

On losing TE Dylan Autenrieth:

Dylan Parham has done a good job for us, so his role just steps up. We were rotating the three tight ends as you saw, with Cary Angeline, Dylan Autenrieth and Dylan Parham, so now it’s just two guys getting the share of those reps. Thomas Ruocchio is a guy that we trust that now ends up in a position where he can play. You may see different personnel groups. You saw us using Ikem Ekwonu at times as an extra lineman in the game. We’ve got to be creative. Any time you lose a part of your team, you’ve got to figure out how you’re going to replace it, but we have other bodies and personnel groups.

On QB Bailey Hockman:

We haven’t talked about it yet. That’s what we do today, is game plan. Our staff meeting is at 3:30. I was excited to get him in the game in a series that wasn’t mop-up duty. It was good for him to play, and obviously did some good things. He had a nice scramble to get us a first down, and then the interception, which he’ll learn from and grow from. We don’t have anything in stone yet.

On Kurt Roper’s background and using multiple QBs/Matthew McKay as a red zone QB:

We’ve talked about everything. We’ve done that. He had two rushing touchdowns in the game down there. We’ve talked about all of it.

On catches to convert on third down:

Thayer Thomas had a great two-handed catch, and then Emeka Emezie had the one-handed catch. You can go back to last year and there were a lot of circus catches made by our wideouts. Plays where people think they shouldn’t have been caught, and they were caught. That’s football. You’ve got to make some tough plays. We’ll make those. I’m more concerned about the layups we’re missing than I am about the circus catches we’re making. That’s going to happen from time to time. The ones ‚Äî like the first play of the third quarter ‚Äî that Emeka Emezie doesn’t catch that ball ‚Äî those are the plays that we have to have. Eliminate the penalties and make the layups, and then let’s see what happens. That’s the biggest thing to me that we have to do: be the team that doesn’t beat itself and take advantage of the plays that are there. Then go make the great play. That’s how you become elite. We’re still working on that.

On RB Zonovan Knight:

We don’t know on Zonovan Knight. We expect to have him. I think he could have gone back in the game, but in the place we were at, Ricky Person, Jr. was playing well and Jordan Houston was playing well. Seeing him yet today, he’s been in the training room doing all those things, but we expect to have him Saturday.

We need all those guys, particularly in the heat that we play in. Like I’ve said from the start, the change of pace that they all bring, including Trent Pennix, are things that help you in using their skillsets to open up the playbook.

On Florida State:

If they play the first quarter for four quarters, they’re killing people. They’re up 56-9 in the first quarter right now. I’m sure they’re talking about being a four quarter football team. They’re like all of us. You want to play your best football for four quarters, and they’ve got really, really talented football players on that field. Their offensive skill is elite at every spot.

On first half vs. second half:

Our second quarter has been our best quarter. It has. In the first quarter, it’s been pretty stale. We feel people out and make adjustments. Defensively we’ve played well in the first quarter, with the exception of West Virginia. In the third quarter, we’ve got to come out of the locker room hot. That’s what we have to do, and it’s not like we’re coming out there without a plan. We went out there in the first series and had two mistakes in the first two plays that we can correct and will correct. That’s the whole part of the football game when you’re dealing with young players. We’ve got to settle in sooner and then be able to maintain that throughout the game.

On starting ACC play:

It’s really the second quarter of our season, is how we look at it. This week, getting a break, and then a Thursday game and then our schedule gets kind of crazy with all these Saturdays that we’re not playing. I think you can look at it from the outside-in and say the stakes are different, but for us they’re not. We’re looking at this as the next game and the next opportunity. I said that from the beginning of the season. Our players were very adamant about having a 1-0 mentality each week and not getting too up or too down, and never playing to the level of your competition per say, but playing to what we put on tape and how we can get better from the week before. I think that’s going to be the same message no matter who we’re playing because of what these guys have asked for.

On WR Thayer Thomas:

The thing you love most about him is how consistent he is. Every day he’s a gym rat. He’s in the meeting room, he’s working on his craft, he’s trying to get better, he doesn’t get up, he doesn’t get down. He’s just the same guy. For a coach, that is so nice to have knowing what you’re going to get from this dude every day. That’s what I love about him. The plays are coming because of that in my opinion. His consistency makes him a consistent playmaker.

it’s going to continue because that’s who he is. When he doesn’t make the play, he’s able to get to the next real quick. He believes in his work ethic and he trusts his coaching and the plan. He’s very versatile and very smart ‚Äî high football IQ and highly competitive. That’s what you want in a football player.

It was awesome for him. He is a lot faster than people give him credit for. He’s got great acceleration. His shuttle time is one of the best on the team. Anytime you’re running under a four-flat shuttle, that’s an elite time. He’s done that multiple times. Thayer has really good explosive movements, he makes good decisions, he’s not afraid. That’s what you need at punt returner: a guy that can make a guy miss and stick his foot in the ground and quickly accelerate through the holes that are there.

On the progress of the team:

It’s been challenging for them. That’s the hard part. You want to build off of the chemistry that you have. You lose Tyrone Riley in the second practice of fall camp and then you lose CJ Riley in the first game. Nick McCloud is out after the first game. James Smith-Williams is out after the second game. We lost Joseph Boletepeli for one game. It’s a revolving deal with your chemistry at times, so it does make it challenging. Like I told the team last week, we don’t have freshmen, we don’t have seniors ‚Äî we have a football team. We need to just go do our job, and not worry about your age anymore. Period. The fact that we only have seven active seniors or whatever it is ‚Äî it doesn’t matter anymore. We’re going to have to get the most out of what we’ve got. We’ve got a young team and we’re not going to talk about it. We’re just going to worry about playing and doing our job and getting better. Letting these guys be the bets that they can be through our schemes, plans and ability to coach them through things and get them better fundamentally. I think that’s the bottom line. We need to play smarter and we need to play with better technique. We are playing hard. That’s one thing that you see. Elevating their ability to move forward in the program without saying in a year he’s going to be better. No, he’s got to be better in three days. That’s where we’re at.

On the depth of the program:

The last two recruiting classes have helped with that. The guys that are having to play right now are guys that we did a good job evaluating and recruiting, and we’re thankful that they’re here. They’ve helped us be a competitive team. Where that takes us is really up to us now. It’s just a one week at a time deal. After this Saturday, we’ll get a little break to reset it and really study it.