Doeren Discuses His QBs, State of the ACC Atlantic and Chris Ingram's Status

Here are highlights from the NC State coach's regular weekly press conference Monday

NC State football coach Dave Doeren held his regular weekly press conference on Monday. 

Among the subjects he discussed were the performance of his young quarterbacks in Thursday's win against Syracuse -- speficially, whether backup Devin Leary earned more playing time with his cameo appearance against the Orange and how much growth Bailey Hockman showed in his first career start:

"Devin did some good things. He came in and had a couple of completions. He had a really nice throw, but unfortunately we didn’t come up with the catch. He had a teachable moment where he tried to be superhuman almost on a play. Sometimes you’ve got to just recognize the defense did enough and just run and get what you get, or just throw it away. It gives us a chance to continue to get him some reps and help him develop and be ready in case he’s needed."

"I thought Bailey did some really great things. If you ask Bailey, he’ll tell you he didn’t play well. But, I thought he played better than he did the week before. That’s what you want out of both of them, is improvement, and I think we got that."

Doeren was also asked to assess the performance of true freshman left tackle Icky Ekwonu in his first career start in place of injured Justin Witt:

"He did some things really well. On the first play of the game he had a pancake block, on that first play which was a drop-back pass. He handled it. There’s some things obviously that all five of those guys have to do better, but first start playing against the level of play player he had in Syracuse, that’s in my opinion the very best they had in that rotation. Their front is very good."

Doeren said he's too busy worrying about his own team to be surprised -- or concerned -- by the results of this weekend's games in the ACC Atlantic, especially Wake Forest's high-scoring loss to Louisville:

"With what we’re dealing with, with the age of our team and the injuries to our team, I think every week if we can just not beat us and get better, we’ll have a chance to win every game. I told the team after the Florida State game that the only team on our schedule that I’m worried about is us. I think that’s true. I think we can be in a one-possession team with every team we’re playing and win. We’ve just got to get better at the things that we’ve got with who we’ve got, and we eliminate the things that beat us."

"When you watch college football right now, every week it’s ‘how is this team playing with that team?’ There’s guys getting upset. I can’t get into all that. All I know is that if we beat ourselves, we’ve got no chance. None. That’s where our focus has to be, getting these guys that are now into game seven playing like veteran players."

Starters Justin Witt, Nick McCloud, Ricky Person still aren't on the depth chart issued Monday, meaning they won't be playing again this week. Cornerback Chris Ingram, however, is. But Doeren isn't ready to commit to whether the Wolfpack's interceptions leader will be ready to go against Boston College:

"We’re still waiting on the verdict on that. We’ll meet with the doctors today on all our guys. We meet with (trainer) Justin (Smith) at 3:30. He hasn’t been ruled out yet. 

Finally, Doeren was asked why it seems as though State's games always seem to come down to the wire. The last three meetings have been decided by a touchdown or less:

"In the past, it’s two teams that don’t beat themselves a whole lot if you look at us and them. We’re turnover margin teams that really care about that. You look at the penalties, and we’re usually in the top three for least penalized teams. We’re physical teams that can run the football and put a lot of stock into stopping the run. You’ve got a similar mindset in the two teams. Maybe that’s why, I’m not sure. We respect them a lot."