Dave Doeren meets with media before Wake Forest game

NC State football coach Dave Doeren met with the media Thursday for one last time before Saturday’s 8:00 p.m. kickoff vs. Wake Forest. The game will be at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh and can be seen on ACC Network.

A transcript of Dave Doeren’s availability is provided below.

Dave Doeren Pre-Wake Forest

On Wake Forest:

Dave Doeren: “A really good opponent, playing a team that’s coming off a tough performance, which I know from personally speaking when we don’t play well you have a lot of want to get back on the field feelings and get that out of your mouth. So I know they are going to be inspired, not that they wouldn’t be any way with it being an in-state game.

“Excited to play them. It’s been a oddly enough 45-42 two years in a row with us winning one and they winning one. Kind of a weird score. Hopefully we don’t give them that many points, but a very good football team. [Dave] Clawson has done a great job building a program there and lot of respect and I know that they’ll come in here and play hard, and we’re excited to play as well.

“It’s been a good week, really good week of practice. Excited for MJ, he’s really practiced well.”

On MJ Morris this week:

Dave Doeren: “Really good, really good. It’s not just like what he knows but how he interacts and his positivity and energy. It’s. been impressive to watch.”

On Morris’ practice in September and now:
Dave Doeren: “In September he’s just trying to learn an offense, and now he’s running an offense. It’s different. He didn’t know his teammates. He probably didn’t know half their names. He got here in the summer. He’s one of many now whereas before he was kind of like, ‘Who’s that guy again? What’s that mean? What’s that play? What coverage are you talking about?’

“The thing that impresses me most about him is he’s very, very coachable. You tell him something, he can transition from a conversation to the next play and that’s awesome at that position to have.”

On Morris being more vocal:

Dave Doeren: “I told him last week you got an opportunity to make this yours. Go out there and, I’m not going to use the words I said, but go out there and make it yours, and he did. I told him, ‘I’m proud of you, man. Now just take it to the next level. Like, it’s your group. Let them know what you expect and they’ll follow you.’

“And he’s done that.”

On sustaining fourth quarter success offensively:

Dave Doeren: “Sure, obviously we want to do that. I think there’s like this feeling that we wanted to not score touchdowns for 10 quarters. That’s not the case. We want to be in the end zone. We feel like for two weeks there it was tough. I mean you lose your quarterback, you go play in a tough environment, you can’t hear anything up there so it made it difficult regardless of who’s playing the position, and then we figured out who our guy was and he sparked us and got us going.

“Hope to build on that fourth quarter performance. Hope to bring that obviously into this game. We’ve been able to expand the offense a little bit since then. Each week it’ll grow now that we know who we’re playing with.”

On if Kurt Roper called plays in second half vs. Virginia Tech:

Dave Doeren: “No. Kurt signals. He does tell people what the play is, but Tim calls the plays, so that’s erroneous.”

On defense vs. Wake Forest and taking away anything from Louisville win over Deacons:

Dave Doeren: “I think that [eight turnovers] is so uncharacteristic of them. They have been top three in turnover margin in our league for a long time. One game doesn’t make a team.

“Obviously, we want to get turnovers. We call them takeaways on defense. That’s part of what we thrive for each week is two or more, really three when you’re playing a team that’ll have this many plays in the game potentially.

“Anytime we can punch out a football or strip a football and tip a ball that creates a pick or go up and get one, we know that sets up our offense. That’s complementary football is all about. That’s how you win games, is setting up the other side of the ball.”

On sacks vs. Virginia Tech:

Dave Doeren: “It’s good to get that pressure. It’s momentum play for one. Hitting the quarterback’s great, but when it’s not a 7-yard loss or a 10-yard loss or a fumble that comes out, those are big plays. We were able to get to the quarterback last year, and there were a few times we were that close. We need to be able to continue to keep that pressure on and not make it easy for [Sam] Hartman. He’s a really good player.”

On offense with Morris at quarterback:

Dave Doeren: “We’re going to do what he’s capable of, but you saw in the fourth quarter we were running our offense. It’s more of what do we have that fits how we want to attack the opponent we’re playing. Are they a man team? Are they a zone team? What do they do in their front? What are their pressures? What fits that is easy for him to see, and making sure that we’re running plays that fit the quarterback.

“It’s not about simplifying because of him it’s about him giving him the best plan to be successful.”

On Morris not knowing victory formation:

Dave Doeren: “Yeah, so we’re burning timeouts at the end of half and game. You know, he’s young, and we want to make sure he knew exactly how to handle those moments. When you’re practicing game-ending plays, 4-minute offense is what we call that situation, your third quarterback doesn’t really get reps.

“When Devin went out and he became the two, we’re trying to play catch-up with a lot of stuff.”

On defense discipline vs. Wake Forest:

Dave Doeren: “The patience of getting the depth of the ball, a lot of times you’re used to how the timing of plays are on defense. You win and you’re outside your gap and you know if you done it enough how long it usually takes for the ball to declare. With them, that’s not the case. You have to really be patient and to get off the blocks you have to get to the level of the ball or it will end up spilling out into your gap or bouncing out into your gap.

“I think we had 10 of those against them two years ago when we beat them where the ball got off the edge late because a player ducked into another gap wondering where the ball was at. That discipline in the run game is critical, getting off of blocks, which Louisville did a great job of is critical.

“Getting our hands up, too. The quarterback, one of the things about walking the ball up into the line like they do he’s very close to the line of scrimmage a lot when he throws and he’s not a tall guy. Trying to get some of our hands up helps us there, too.”

On any team like Wake Forest:

Dave Doeren: “No, they’re unique. I haven’t seen another team do that the way they do. Everyone has the zone read where you’re reading the safety or a backer or defensive end or counter or power or whatever it may be, but the way they walk the ball up into the line is very different.”