WRALSportsFan
NC State coach Dave Doeren discusses upcoming game against Notre Dame
NC State's home opener is set for noon ET Saturday against Notre Dame.
What we got to do to win this game and a really good opponent obviously coming in here and an opportunity to get into our second game, their third. But I like the steps, you know, and, and the process that I've seen from these guys and that's what I challenged him to do. This is a week, we have to compete in every single aspect of our game. Prep our practice habits, our nutrition, obviously with the temperatures here, our hydration and sleep. And so it's been a great week to see the result. I got bigger games, but that's something I think. So, you know, I think most of these guys grew up even in their backyard as kids thinking about playing in big games against opponents that are ranked on national television. I mean, if they didn't, then we probably recruited the wrong guys, you know, even in the front yard in the front driveway playing basketball, you know, three seconds game winning shot, you know, and those are the guys you want to recruit the guys that are always thinking about playing in huge games, huge moments. And so, yeah, there, there's an element of that I think this is the first top 10 match up we've had at noon in the stadium since I've been here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it is, most of them have been at night. So, you know, getting into the stadium as you know, with our fan base, you have to get here early, there's going to be a long line to get in and we want everybody in there for the entrance and obviously for the first quarter. So just keep that in mind coming in here, it's going to be jam packed, getting into this game and I talked about explosives. No, didn't have as many last week as y'all would have wanted. Is there a specific number that you're aiming for each game or how do you? Yeah, I mean, for him it's nine a game. I think some of that depends on the number of plays too. It's, you know, if you have 100 plays versus 70 plays, its expectations should be a little bit different in those two scenarios, but on average, it's a nine count that we're looking for in that category and he calls him his pillars for victory. But you know, there's five things he's really trying to get week in and week out and one of them is the explosive play number last week was y'all's first time. Thank you. First down in the week two of any adjustment. You know, I don't think you adjust I just think you have to really know that those possessions are precious. Right. And your opportunity to get the ball back. If you're in a tight game at the end, you know, you're not going to see as many teams be able to come back in the fourth quarter down by three scores. So you have to know, you know, in each half, once you get to that last eight minutes of the second quarter and fourth quarter, kind of where you're at, you may be in a two minute mode faster, you know, in a game that you're down hasn't happened to us yet. But those are things, you know, that we've discussed and obviously it does dictate some things we're talking about less touches on offense. So Donna mentioned, um, you know, knocking off some of the top left a little bit going from game 11 to the champion defense when you see that improvement from game one game, what, what you, where, where do you, it's different every year, you know, in this game, obviously, we gave up a couple of big runs. And so why did that happen? You know, guys got cut out of their gap. So, you know, gap integrity, what we call block destruction on defense, taking on a block, getting off a block, those two things need to be better. So those are two areas that we would say we were successful in if we do that after this week. Offensively, there's a ton of things on both sides of the football. Right. But offensively, you know, we missed a couple of opportunities to stay on the field, whether it was a ball location for Brennan or a catch for perimeter player. So, you know, all the little things that you didn't like, you want to see those and then you'll come out of game two with new little things. Right. And each week it's something that you want to focus in on with the guys. Yeah, that conversation comes up every now and then. You know, it's like the story you got when you were a kid, you know, grandpa walked up hill, you know, and in the winter time the work and all that stuff and people were, oh, we got to play in the rain. I'm like rain, you know, we played in a hurricane man, like the water was up to our caves, you know, it was. But, you know, people don't believe that like that, that, that game was, it was like a waterfall coming down the stairways in the stadium, you know. So, yeah, it's one of those stories that, you know, that's what football is about. It's making memories and sometimes they're good ones. Sometimes they're not, that's obviously going to be a great memory. It's one of the things we showed the Pump Block team this week. You know, we showed them that play, I showed him a pump block for a touchdown that we've had against this team. And so those are memories that last with the program when you think about the significance of each possession, considering that it's how important are your specialist. Yeah. Uh, field position is a big deal and special teams really is what that is. It's about creating a short field for your offense, a long field for your defense to defend. And so your ability to punt the ball well, to cover kicks well, and tackle well to make field goals when you have to kick them, all those things are critical and they were critical before. But, you know, each offensive team in the stadium is going to get 7 to 8 fewer touches in the game. And we all know the importance of one play in every game, you know, going back to the years of watching football. What if they didn't have enough time to run that one play, you know, and so you have to think about those things in the game. Yeah. Has done a great job, you know, no different than Trent, no different than AJ. He came in, had to develop, had to get in the weight room and work. Uh, he deserves the credit, you know, for how much better he's got. And I do think it helps when there's a standard of what we expect in that room. And you can point to it like, hey, if you come here and we see that you're going to be the guy, you're gonna be on scholarship, right? If you come here and do what you're supposed to do, you could be like our previous two punters that are starters in the NFL. And so there's a road map for those guys in that room and I'm proud of them for continuing it and look forward to seeing Caden. He's got a lot of football here in front of him. Yeah, they both practice, looked really good. They're both excited. It's gonna be great to have them both in the lineup. The correlation. But what do you see? Well, you know, third downs when he's dropping back, that translates two minute drill and did a great job in the last game marching them down the field in a no huddle offense. So you see his comfort level in those scenarios which, you know, in that offense he was in before he was spread out a lot and he was throwing the football a lot. So that's where you see, that's the guy we defended all the time. You know, when he's under center hand and off counter and things like that, it's different, you know, but you can see the game management stuff that he has and just how poised he is and then when he scrambles, you can see his ability to continue moving the chains that way. Thank you all real quick. I'm gonna run y'all out. OK. Thank you.