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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 27, 2013Dave DoerenCOACH DOEREN: Happy Thanksgiving to everybody, and looking forward to our game with Maryland. End of a long series, and a very even series. It's 33‑32 in the series if I'm not mistaken, and a chance to play them here on senior day for us, a team that, like us, has dealt with injuries throughout the year, a very talented team, and has had a tough loss last week, but started fast to the season. And for us it's a chance to play our last game at home here for our seniors and try to end the season on a positive note, coming off of a tough loss in which we had a good fourth quarter rally but fell short against ECU. With that we'll open it up for any questions. Q. I wanted to ask about the fourth quarter rally. What does it mean or what does it say, it's been a long time since you've won. You've had a tough losing streak. You're getting killed at home. What does that rally say about the team and maybe how they're performing this week? COACH DOEREN: Yeah, I wouldn't say we're getting killed, but we definitely haven't won a game. We haven't won a game. We've been in a lot of these games and haven't found a way to win in the fourth quarter, and it's something we've been straining to do as a staff and with our players, and felt like we finished the game the right way, and the second and third quarters kept us out of the game. It was good to see Brandon play as well as he did, four touchdowns and no interceptions, and hit a lot of people. He hit a lot of throws that he hasn't been making and still had some I know he wishes he had back, but it was his best game since he's returned from injury, and a lot of young players continued to make plays. ECU obviously played better than we did Saturday, but our team hasn't quite. They continue to come to work every day, and that is a positive, and I've seen a lot of growth in some of our players. Q. I apologize for the choice of words, but I was talking about just the East Carolina game. I thought you were in bad shape until the comeback, so forgive me from that. Let me go on and ask you about All‑ACC. We have to do that this week. I think we can do skill people, okay, we can look at numbers, but help us out on the offensive line. Is there anybody on offensive or defensive line that maybe you could make a case for that we ought to give strong consideration to? COACH DOEREN: Well, Joe Thuney for us is probably our most valuable offensive lineman because he's played all three positions and he's played both tackle spots with what we've had to deal with from a depth and injury standpoint on the line. He's done a lot of things and held his own and done better than that at times. I think that Duran Christophe has started every single game and played almost every snap for us. Those two guys would probably be the most deserving on the offensive line. D‑line standpoint, there's a lot of guys that have made plays. Art Norman has played the most and Thomas Teal. After him would probably be our two most productive players, and until he was injured Cato‑Bishop was having a very, very good season. Just unfortunate he missed five games in the middle. Q. I wanted to ask about Maryland. Last year they kind of struggled after they lost all their quarterbacks to injury. What do you see with Brown and what difference he makes and how dangerous he is? COACH DOEREN: Well, there's not many good teams out there that don't have a quarterback playing well for them. It's hard to find them at whatever level you're looking at. I think when you have depth at that position, it's easier to sustain the injury, but Randy was‑‑ last year at Maryland; is that correct, so probably hadn't established the depth he wanted there yet and didn't have one but had multiple injuries at that position. So that's very difficult for any coach to overcome. And now having a guy that lost the football not once but twice with CJ, I'm sure he's playing with that senior mentality that I'm out of time and I've got to play my best football, and I'm sure he's preparing the right way, as well. Q. Speaking of quarterback injuries, obviously Mitchell struggled with that earlier this year. His good performance last Saturday, is that a product of getting healthier? COACH DOEREN: That's part of it, yeah, and I think the reps. I think what people don't understand is two things: We inherited Pete Thomas and Manny and Manny wasn't ready to play, and Pete we felt like we needed competition there and we brought Brandon in who hasn't been a starting quarterback, but he's a very smart football player. He learned our offense and we felt like he was more multidimensional, and so every game Brandon would have played would have been his first year as a starting quarterback, and every one of those reps would have mattered for him as a growth at his position. He had a great fall camp and it showed in the first quarter of the first game, and then he lost five and a half games. So a lot of the growth that‑‑ he's really like a freshman. He's playing his first year as a starter at that spot. I think what you're seeing now is some games under his belt. Florida State, the way he got to play there, and then he struggled in that game, and then North Carolina and didn't get to play against Duke and got a little healthy‑‑ excuse me, played against Duke and got injured and got healthy in the BC game, and he's just got four games of reps here where you're starting to see the progress. I think for a coach, I think the more you coach a guy, the more you understand what his strengths and weaknesses are, and to be able to detail a game plan that fits him better. Q. This is the last game of your first year at NC State, and people on the outside don't always see all the things that are happening inside. Talk about some of the things you think you've established this year in your first year as the head coach of the program and the kinds of things that you want to create for the future? COACH DOEREN: Yeah, I appreciate that. Well, we had the highest team GPA they've had in football history my first spring here on campus. To this date we've had very few off‑the‑field issues to deal with. Our players have really taken the one attack, one goal mentality that we've established as far as the accountability to your teammate and those that play here and played before you mentality, and I think there's a lot of bad things publicly going on in all sports, and our team has done a nice job with that. I think we've played a lot of young players, and we're recruiting extremely well, and within that, we've done $900,000 worth of facility improvements and we're getting ready to build our indoor here in February, which will be done next December. So there's a lot of positive facility changes to a place that already had good facilities. I think all the people that have been around here and understand what we're doing from the inside out really get the progress. Unfortunately the win‑loss part of it hasn't matched up with that, but we know where the program is headed, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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