North Carolina State University Athletics
NC State head coach Dave Doeren
Opening Statement:
“I'm really proud of our players and the way they responded at halftime and came out and played a really good second half. You knew it was going to be a spirited game. We lost our poise in the first half and didn't handle some things well, but I thought we responded and played a really good football game in the second half. We got our run game going after a couple of stalled drives, and the defense just hung in there until the offense could get it going. Nyheim (Hines) with 200 yards rushing and we were down to our third string guard there at one point. I thought Fedd-Jackson came in the game and really played his butt off for a true freshman, which was great to see. Gavin Locklear did a good job on punt returns. Germaine Pratt (had) another huge pick, so I'm really proud of them. To say that we've got six ACC wins, (which) hasn't been done in 23 years, I think that's a big deal for this program. Talk about going in the right direction, I think that's a great sign of what we’re doing here. There was about 150 recruits down on that field watching us and a great atmosphere by our fans. Our student section is awesome. I love those guys and appreciate them so much. (It was) great to finish the year that way and look forward to going out on the road recruiting with a win over our rival and get ready for whatever bowl game they put us in next Sunday.”
On what he got out of the seniors today:
“You always worry in the first part of the first quarter about them being too emotional, which I think we were. I thought we started good on defense and offensively scored, and then we just kind of stalled out. There was a lot of chippy stuff going on on the field. I’m not going to say that they were being cheap. I couldn’t see it all, but our guys were saying there was a lot of stuff happening. We just didn’t handle it well. Once we got settled down and talked in the locker room about how we need to be and how we need to act and that we were going to talk with our pads and put it on the scoreboard, we did that. I was really proud of the senior leadership after we settled them down. I think we just had to channel it a little bit.”
On being patient with Nyheim Hines:
“That’s part of the stretch play too. It allows your offensive line to run off the football and play with speed. There’s going to be some one-yard, two-yard, three-yard rushes, and then all of the sudden they’re going to get tired, and you’re going to split them. That happened a couple of times there at the end. I was really proud of Reggie Gallaspy with his run after the catch there on third down. I thought that was a huge play in the game for us. Those two guys back and forth all year have played well off each other, and Jaylen Samuels finished it with a touchdown. It was fun to watch that.”
On his relationship with the senior class:
“I’ve been through a lot with them. A lot. Good, bad, terrific, ugly. I’ve watched a bunch of young guys make mistakes and helped them grow up, and I’ve had a lot of heart to hearts. Those are going to be some incredible people on our planet when they’re done playing football. You want to find a terrific person to run your company that’s going to outwork people and be tough and persistent? That senior class is that. They’re great human beings. They’re going to be great fathers, and they’re fun to coach because they just play hard and love the game. It’s a special group of guys. They’re a tremendous bunch of role models for our younger players to see how it’s supposed to look and to pass the torch down. That’s what we talked about today. It was a legacy game for them to be able to say they’ve won three of four as a senior class against Carolina, to be able to say they won one at home because they hadn’t done that, to be able to say that they got that sixth conference win. It hadn’t been done since they were born. None of those kids were alive when it happened last time. That’s a lot. They’ve done a heck of a job helping us build the program the way we want to build it.”
North Carolina head coach Larry Fedora
Opening Statement
“Give Dave [Doeren] and his team credit for a hard-fought win. It was a heck of a game. We just ran out of gas.”
On not having the right parts in place this season
“I will tell you this, the 11 guys that we put out on the field, they fought and gave everything they had. We had some guys out there that weren’t playing in the positions that they should be playing, but they did what they had to do and tried to help this team win. They gave everything they had.”
On adjusting to the lack of depth at linebacker
“Well, we had to play more nickel and dime. We only brought three, so when one of them went down for a while, we moved Allen Artis down there. He played some linebacker for us. He hadn’t done that this year.”
On what broke down in the defense during NC State RB Nyheim Hines’ long runs
“I don’t know if we misfed a gap or missed a tackle, I don’t know. I’d have to see it on film. We thought we had done a pretty good job of playing the stretch except for those last couple [plays], so I’m not sure what it was.”
On if the team has experienced a game like this before, giving up two big plays late
“We hadn’t done that lately, but we gave up a couple catastrophic [plays]. I don’t know if we had a chance to get the guy on the ground or not. I’d have to go back and see it. Somebody had to have misfed a gap for him to come through there that quick and be that wide open. I would imagine we either missed a line or misfed a gap.”
On how his staff will evaluate the season moving forward
“We’re not going to do anything any different, the way we evaluate the season and everything that we do. We’ll go back and evaluate everything. Everything that we do in this program. We never stop doing that. We’ll try to tweak things to make things better. Hopefully we’re going to get a bunch of guys healed up, and then we’ll be ready to go.”
On how difficult it will be to evaluate the season given the multitude of injuries
“You’re going to see a lot of young guys playing. We’re going to evaluate the development that they made throughout the season, how much they got better, and where they will fit the scheme as far as in the spring.”
On QB Nathan Elliott’s performance vs. NC State
“I thought he played just like he has the past couple games. Really gutsy. I thought the offensive line did a nice job of keeping him up in a lot of those situations. There were just a couple thrown balls that he’d probably like to have back, but I thought overall, he led the team well. I thought he played with everything he had.”