Duke
Carter: We knew we could win
Duke defensive lineman DeWayne Carter speaks to the media after a 28-7 win over Clemson.
Good morning, everybody in the back. You good questions for Dwight D. How are you guys able to shut down that little short? You know. Uh, we were far from perfect. Let's, let's start that off. Uh We were far from perfect, but I think we're really gonna show up when we go back and watch the tape and we show tonight. Is that how hard we play? Right? And how much we love one another and how much we care about this game. And ultimately, I was able to keep us. So we get on the red zone. We're kind of getting down down the field bound down the field. The red zone is relentless that don't break mentality kind of showed up. That's obviously not what you want to do, but it showed up and we were able to pull it off. So it was pretty cool when you've been here through some really tough years. Did you ever imagine that you'd be in a situation? Students storm in the field like this. No, honestly, no. But, um, it's funny, it's funny how things happen when you wait it out and when you know where you're supposed to be. And I believe when I committed here, um, where I was supposed to be, I committed to the school, I committed to a great staff that we had previous. And luckily enough we able to get a really good staff coming as well right behind him. So I believe you follow God's plan for you. Um, it's divine time and whatever it is and, you know, it might have been a long game. You know, I might have liked to have a couple more wins on the front end, but it's a good start to the year. We got to live more. You gotta ask you about, he plays down the stretch chief among them. That monster is a dog. I mean, since we got here, the kid is every bit of 56, right? 1 80. But he might be the hardest hitter on the field. He's one of the hardest workers on the team. He's one of the strongest, one of the fastest and he knows how to play the game of football, right? And he cares, that's a kid who cares more about this game about this team and a lot of guys on this team, right? And he puts on everything and he's always around the ball. That's why he shows up. That's why I can turn kicks. That's why he can do everything he can do because he took the care for his team and he's a good fit. It's like kind of, I guess we say he's one of the definitions of our program. It's one of him. This is a bit of a statement game for you guys. How many do you see it that way? Yeah, I mean, we knew we could win. I mean, you don't come in the week preparing to lose, right? Uh We accomplished ourselves. We knew prepared. And uh one thing about our team is we worry about us, um expectations, projections like those are external and our standards are personal to us. And we know what our standard is. We know we can be and we know we have in this building and we know the type of staff we have, we know we have the type of players we have as well. So at the end of the day, I believe we can compete with anybody. And that's the, I said, you should have, you set expectations, you guys will likely be ranked this week. You're gonna be dealing with some different stuff. How do you keep humble and just keep moving forward? Yeah. Uh So, like I said, expectations are internal, right? So we don't really focus on external. Um If we get we ranked, whether we're not ranked, it doesn't really matter. Uh We'll focus on next week and that is what matters. Uh We just play this game week by week and that's how coach kind of runs the program. That's the blueprint to our program and it's not gonna change because of where I win was really, really hot. I was running for ball fan today about a seven minute time a advantage. Just talk about the ability of your day kids to withstand all of that and keep my Yeah, I mean, you know, we work out in the summer and train too. We condition too. So, um it's about at the end of the day who want and more on that field, right? So nowadays in the day, modern, modern college football skiing is no huddle, hurry up tempo, shotgun spread. You gotta be for whoever runs it. At the end of the day, we train all off season to withstand those offices and excel for a defense when playing and stuff like that. So at the end of the day, it was just excuse me, at the end of the day, it was um another day business for us was just the most happy to the locker room after a win or probably 100% it was. And, you know, it's just because we know how much went into it, right? And you talk about we don't really focus on expectations, right? And we're not happy because we prove people wrong, right. We're happy because we proved ourselves right. And that's a big thing for us. You know, we're kind of a better heavy team this year. A lot of guys have been through a lot of stuff over these past couple of years. Um Some new guys came in, went through stuff in their own universities. Um It's just, you know, good to get a win, right. And show that your hard work goes somewhere so that they go to waste those guys. I do wanna ask you about three guys in the secondary, the, the transfers that came in that especially Jeremiah from back at the very end of start camp here, right. What difference have they made for you guys? Like, yeah, I mean, they're both players. So our m showed up um in the spring and they fit right in. I mean, we hang out together from the jump, um invite us over whatever it may be like they feel right and they jump right in and that's one thing about our team. It is a lot of good people and good character, high character, good people is a part of our program, right? And if you do not have that character, you will not fit in. Now, we're gonna run you out of there, but you're gonna run yourself out of there, especially as how it goes. So they good people, they feel right in and Jay, I mean that our teammate, so he's been our teammate, right? So him coming back is just pretty cool to have him back for us last year playing the school board, speaks for itself. But at what point of the game did you guys realize as a team that you were that much better than Clemson coming. We have our own opinions or whatever. But I, I wanna know from a player perspective when you guys realize like Clemson is not all that. They were hyped up. Yeah, I mean, our mind says one drive at a time and that's essentially what it is. It wasn't like, all right, we gotta win this quarter, win this quarter, whatever. It's one drive at a time, go out there and win, He's driving right. So we don't really, until it, whoever I forget what the last touchdown I feel bad. Maybe whoever scored the last touchdown. That's when it was kind of like, alright, I can breathe a little bit like kind of get out of here and then go out and play a couple minutes defense. But the end of the day, like we were locked in into that three minute mark, right? It's hard but the stands, they're behind you, calling your name trying to look around you. But at the end of the day we were locked in. That's just another mo of our team. What was your view of to with my view? Um I saw the replay so I, I was on the binge breathing actually. Right. So that was really, really hard. I look up and Riley gets to rumble and I'm like, all right, and I just hear a crowd noise. I'm like, all right, maybe at the first time and then you hear noise, noise. I'm like, oh, he's like you look at replay for sure enough, broke a tackle slips, guys holding blocks. I think Nicky had a guy gloved up about five yards on the field, rose leading up the field like it was just, it was just fun to see on the replay, but I missed the initial, the initial run. Thank you. Thank you guys. Ok.