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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 29, 2018

Dave Doeren

Greensboro, North Carolina

DAVE DOEREN: Yeah, excited to get into regular season play and our home opener here with James Madison, a great opponent that is 28-2 over the last two years and back-to-back National Championship appearances. Got a great task here in front of us, and the kids have worked really hard going back to January through this very hot fall camp, and now it's just -- as a coach you want to go see what they can do and let them enjoy the hard work. They've worked for hard for these 12 guaranteed opportunities, and I can't wait to see them in Carter-Finley with our fans and go out there and battle together.

Q. If you take a look at the running backs, Reggie, Ricky, Tyler, what you can say about the backfield going into this season and what you've taken away from them in the fall and how close these guys are in your opinion.
DAVE DOEREN: I'm really excited for Reggie to start. I think he's been a guy that's played along with some really good players and kind of had to play second fiddle to him at times, and now it's his position. He looks really good. He's in great shape. Mentally he's in a great place. I'm excited for him as a senior to have this opportunity because he's definitely worked hard.

The young guys behind him, when you look at what all three of the guys really can do, because Trent Pennix is repping, as well, and Tyler Baker-Williams and Ricky Person, I mean, you have three young, talented backs, and we've always liked to have that change of pace just to make the defense have to play us differently and how our stretch play hits and the runners hit those plays a little different based on their speed.

So we'll just have to see how game day affects them. They're all getting reps in practice, they're all working at it, and they all possess a little bit different ability levels when it comes to catching the ball and running routes and playing through contact. It'll be exciting to see those guys out on the field competing and kind of see what game day does to them.

Q. On your side, you were given something that a lot of coaches aren't given in college football, and that's time to build a program and do things the way you felt was best. What can you say about the time so far at NC State and being given the opportunity to grow and expand and know that things don't happen overnight?
DAVE DOEREN: Right, yeah. Well, there's no doubt a lot of hard work has gone into it. We just got out of our fifth year and have played in four straight bowl games. There was progress along the way. I think building it up with the players we have and the staff, it's been fun. It's been a lot of hard lessons, a lot of fun times, a lot of roller coasters up and down. But you really got to see guys grow up, and to me when you recruit guys and get to see them graduate and finish their senior years and then be given the opportunity to continue that, for me it's a blessing. We love it here, it's such a great place to work and live and recruit too. It's exciting. I came here to do something that hadn't been done, and hopefully we can continue to sustain it and continue to elevate it each year because that's our number one thing we talk about each other is to make it better than it was.

Q. You guys are basically rebuilding your entire defensive line this year. Heading into the season opener again JMU, what have you seen out of that unit and who's a guy that's maybe really stood out to you?
DAVE DOEREN: Well, we return three guys that played a lot of football for us last year in James Smith-Williams, Darian Roseboro and Draus Bryant. I don't look at it as rebuilding. You're just taking two guys that are now seniors and one that's a junior and elevating their rep count. The biggest part of it is building the depth along with those guys, and Shug Frazier played a lot, and we redshirted a junior college player last year in Larrell Murchison that's probably the most improved player on our football team. We're excited about the starting unit and a couple of the guys that can rotate in. Game day will be important for some guys like Ibrahim Kante, who was a redshirt last year, who we're really excited about his progress in fall camp, and Deonte Holden is a fifth-year senior that has been injured throughout most of his career and now is healthy. We're not just replacing seniors with freshmen, which is the positive. The big thing now is the stamina that's required to play more reps and how that impacts the guys.

As far as JMU's backfield, that's the strength of their football team and they're outstanding, and they've got a lot of them. There's three or four backs that a lot of people would love to have on their roster. So that will be a great challenge for us.

Q. Along that defensive front, what's the key to slowing down that JMU running game?
DAVE DOEREN: Beating blocks and tackling.

Q. Obviously you have more scholarships than JMU does. Is this one of those games where you've got to play on a lot people on the defensive line, on the offensive line to wear the Dukes down as the game goes into the second half?
DAVE DOEREN: That would be great if it worked out that way, but we're going to play the guys that we think give us the best chance to win, and so many positions are deeper than others, so we'll see where that puts us in the rep count of plays. They have 63 scholarships, and I know they partial scholarship a lot of guys and probably have a lot more than 85 on scholarship when you look at their entire roster. I think both of us have guys that are ready to play, and it's time for those guys to go do it.

Q. Obviously they beat an FBS team last year. Have you pointed that out that the guys in the preseason in camp here to make sure they understand what lies ahead on Saturday?
DAVE DOEREN: Of course I have. I mean, that's my job is to talk about our enemy, so that's what we do. They're 28-2 in two years. They're a great football team. Our guys respect the heck out of them. Coach Houston and his staff and that football team there has done a great job.

Q. I'm curious with the NCAA's new redshirt rules, do you have sort of a concrete plan in place of how you want to play guys, how much you want to use them, or is it going to be more fluid as the year goes on?
DAVE DOEREN: Yeah, you know, I'm kind of the mindset of I'm going to play the guys that are ready to play. I don't look at it as an experimental opportunity. I mean, this isn't experimentation, this is our jobs. This is our livelihood. This is how we put food on the table. For our players, it's their futures, and they're seniors that have invested a lot of time. I'm not going to go out there and experiment and ruin their season on one. If a kid shows us he's ready to play, I'm going to play him.

To me the best part of it is when you have injuries and your depth charts change, you can actually take a guy that's been on the scout team developing and getting better and plug him in and not burn his year, and that to me, when your roster has attrition is where it's really going to be useful for us.

Q. When you think about the idea of a young kid who maybe he's not ready right now to play for you, but the fact that he knows that there might be a chance for him late in the year or in the bowl game, will that help --
DAVE DOEREN: Sure.

Q. Will that help him stay kind of engaged?
DAVE DOEREN: I would think so. We haven't gotten through this yet, so I can't really tell you how it's going to end up, but you would think so. On paper it sounds like that's what they should be doing.

Q. Talking about Marshall, the running back from Dukes, he used to play at Georgia Tech and he transferred there because his father went to JMU. What type of running back have you seen on film that you may have a problem with on Saturday?
DAVE DOEREN: Marcus is a really good player. We offered him in high school and thought a lot of him coming out. He has a great family, really, really good parents, got to know them through the process, as well. He runs hard. He's tough. He's experienced. He's played in big games. We're going to have a guy that's coming home that really wants to play well in front of his friends and family.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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