Dave Doeren postgame transcript and video

NC State football head coach Dave Doeren spoke with the media following the Wolfpack’s 21-20 win over East Carolina Saturday afternoon at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium in Greenville, N.C. Below is video and also a transcript from the Q&A Dave Doeren had with the media.

Dave Doeren transcript

On the game:

Dave Doeren: “First you got to give East Carolina a lot of credit. We were up 21-7 and their kids fought ,and they deserve a lot of credit for that. Those two goal-line stands, we fumbled one and then got stopped on the other, which in my opinion that was maybe the most disappointing part of the day, is that. Two goal line opportunities where we didn’t come up with points.

“There’s a lot to look at on film, lot to improve. It always starts with the schemes that we’re running. Look at how we’re coaching things with what guys that are running them and where we can get better. We will, we’ll get a lot better but one thing I can’t do is change our record tomorrow.

“We’re 1-0 as ugly as it is. It doesn’t count any different than if we win by a hundred, so excited . Last time I was here I was in that dark tunnel, I think Luke was asking me some dirty questions in there. We lost, so it’s good to get a W down here.

“You got to give Mike Houston and his staff and his team a lot of credit. They did a great job today.”

Did you have too many people on the field when you called timeout ahead of the potential game winning field goal for ECU?

Doeren: “No, we had some injuries. We didn’t have enough people. We had two guys go down on that play.

“And so I wanted to get the right people on and wanted to have 11 people in the game, obviously, and we were going run a max block type thing. One of the guys that would’ve been in was out with an injury so we had to find his back up.”

When the players walked off the field they didn’t look happy. Do you have to pick them back up?

Doeren: “I don’t think so. I think they’re probably more mad than I’m going to be with them right. There’s a lot of guys that expected to play better than they played today.

“That’s film going to be very embarrassing for some of them and not because I’m going to embarrass them. We missed a ton of tackles, guys that normally as you know we tackled very well as a defense last year with a lot of the same players, and so we just didn’t get it done.”

Any updates on injuries to Payton Wilson and Trent Pennix?

Doeren: “Not yet. We’ll have to do all this stuff we do with the docs. Once we know we will let you guys know.”

On runnning back Demie Sumo-Karngbaye’s performance:

Doeren: “Very impressed with Demie Sumo, running back. He’s probably the bright spot of the day to be honest besides our special teams. Hard to tackle, runs through contact, tough took care of the ball. Huge bright spot.”

On the defense:

Doeren: “Coach [Tony] Gibson and his staff deserve some credit. I mean you hold a team to 20 points, and it’s a team that scores a lot on offense. They have a lot of skill. They have done a good job in the transfer portal getting some good players in there, too.

“But, they kept the guys in front for the most part. But if you ask Tony, he’ll tell you they didn’t play very good. A lot of missed tackles in that game.”

Thoughts as ECU lined up for last field goal try:

Doeren: “He had just missed an extra point, so I thought he was probably in his head a little bit. We had two guys jumping. We thought we might get a low kick because he had to drive it, and he didn’t. He just missed it.

“I was hoping he wouldn’t recover from the missed extra point. That’s hard as a kicker. That’s a big moment. Obviously, I’ve been on the other side of that a couple times. It’s tough on those kids. That’s a lot of pressure.”

How do you get the offense to rebound?

Doeren: “You coach them. You go in there and you talk about things they did wrong. You own the things that we as a staff need to do better for them. The players got to fix it with their coaches and then you go execute it better. It’s collective. It’s never just the coach or the player. It’s always a two-sided thing when you’re trying to get better, and that’s the beauty of this game.

“We got 11 more regular season games and you heard me say this earlier, we have to be a team that improves every week. Look forward to be 1-0, and we get to try to do that.”

On if officials stopping two goal line plays influenced the calls?

Doeren: “We didn’t get it done. … I don’t know what happened after the one where the ref stepped in and there wasn’t a timeout called on either side of the ball. It was kind of a weird moment. I thought we were going to score on that play, and then we couldn’t run that play anymore because they saw it. So, we really lost another play in out short yardage package there that we would’ve run. It wasn’t two plays. It really became three. We had to go to the fourth play.

“It shouldn’t come to that, to be honest. First and 6 inches down there and I’d like to think you can get in, but we couldn’t”

How happy are you with the special teams today?

Doeren: “Really happy with them. Collin Smith and Shane McDonough’s first game with us. Did some good things. Sean Brown had a huge tackle. Jasiah [Provillion] blocked punt, Sean Brown recover for a touchdown. Those were huge plays in the game, and very proud of those guys. Thayer had a great punt return, too, not to leave that out.”