Sep 27 (Sat)
12:00 AM
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NC State head coach Dave Doeren
I’m obviously disappointed for our senior class, they wanted a win for their last home game. I appreciate the fans who came out to support us. We’ve got a short week in front of us. We go play our rival in six days, so we’ve got to get better quick and do whatever we can to get some guys healthy. Go up there, try to get bowl eligible and win a rivalry football game. We’ll put this one behind us very fast. We had a chance to win today and didn’t, obviously, we didn’t make enough plays when we needed to. It was a hard fought first half, but we just didn’t play well enough to win.
I told the guys I’m sorry our seniors didn’t win today, but we have six days to prepare for our rival and still have the chance to go to a bowl game, so that’s what we have to focus on.
It comes down to tackling, which I don’t think we did as well as we have (been). Defending the run is all about the opportunity, tackling, playing fundamentally sound. We did that at times, other times, especially at the end, we didn’t.
Miami head coach Mark Richt
Opening statement…
“It was a great victory for our team. I’m really proud of everybody, it was a great effort. Obviously, it was a great battle between two teams that are very evenly matched and the first half showed that. In the second half, we got some things going, we got a little run game going and started using some of our quick passing game with some bubble screens and things of that nature to keep the ball moving.
“Overall, it was an outstanding day for us and we’re happy to get win number seven.”
On the last touchdown…
“To finish with a touchdown on that last drive was huge. We got a nice kick return, which was close to being a disaster. We knew the wind was blowing, so we moved him up 10 yards and that wasn’t quite enough and the ball hit the ground just like it did with their guy. Their guy got a nice Sunday hop and our guy got a tough hop, but he got a hold of it and we had a nice return and then we score at the end, which was great.”
On the defense…
“I thought our defense played fantastic at the end. We made some beautiful plays when it counted the most and forced a couple turnovers. We almost had another one with the ball in the end zone before the last touchdown that they scored.”
On punter Justin Vogel…
“Vogel was great. That 58-yard punt was a monster and had to have at least a 5.0 hang time, which is very, very rare. To kick it 58 yards and then have to call a fair catch is hard to do, being able to flip the field after a not so good offensive series was important.”
On the NC State front line…
“They’re very physical, very big, strong and they’re a veteran group. They have nine juniors, two seniors, a lot of redshirts and they’ve been around a long time. They did a super job. We were able to break off a couple of long runs and that was the difference in the game.”