Doeren discusses mental mistakes, young receivers and Hurricane Dorian

Video highlights from Wolfpack coach Dave Doeren's postpractice session with the media Thursday

Here are some highlights from NC State coach Dave Doeren final media availability before Saturday's game against Western Carolina, starting with one of the Wolfpack's top priorities at practice this week: eliminating the many mental mistakes it made during last week's season opening win against ECU ...

'"We had a punt block we should have blocked, we had a guy lined in the wrong gap. There's a multitude of plays on both sides of the ball where you've got a guy eyeing his instead of that and the targets of where we want to hit in the run game. Some of the protection things, some of the young backs have to do a better job. Matt on his reads, he missed an easy one on a third down. There's just a ton of little things throughout the game, some of them didn't even hurt us but some of them could have been big plays."

On how much better the team will be at eliminating those mistakes this week

"It's the second game in college for some of these kids. They're going to see looks they've never seen, because obviously our opponent's not going to show us everything they showed the last team. They're going to make adjustments, It's the ability to take your systems - your offense, your defense, your specials teams -- and adjust on the fly. Sometimes that's hard for a young player to do. You hope that you clean up anything that was wrong a week ago and there's going to be new things you have to adjust to."

On the availability of injured freshmen defensive linemen Josh Harris and C.J. Clark, both of whom are listed on this week's depth chart ...

"They're not ready yet. They're getting there. We were hoping we'd have Josh for this game, but he's just no ready yet. As the season progresses, they're getting close. They're running, lifting and all those types of things. We just need to get them back into football."

On the progress of the young receivers whose roles will increase because of the injury to C.J. Riley and Tabari Hines' ability to play multiple positions ... 

"They're excited for the opportunity. I think Max (Fisher) had a really good week, Devin's been consistent all the way through camp, so I expect him to be ready to take on that role. Jasiah is he one that's got to take the next step for us. Dropping that pass (last week), I know he's ready to make up for that. It was a bad experience for him, but a good one to learn from and get better.

"The thing that you love about Tabari is his football knowledge. He can play any position. He knows the entire offense, which is really impressive for a guy that came in as late as he did. He's a very competitive guy. He's got a lot of energy. He's just so excited to be playing, he gives us a utility player that can fill a lot of gaps for us."

On handling the distraction of Hurricane Dorien as it approaches the North Carolina coast ...

On how closely he is monitoring the progress of Hurricane Dorian ...

"Very closely and not just for the guys on our team. We have a lot of friends and family from the team, from the coaching staff. We know thousands of coaches that live in those areas. So we're monitoring it as closely as we can. Just a lot of prayers from this state to all the others that are getting it."

"Our position coaches, in all their meetings, have talked to the guys about it. We've been  through this, unfortunately. It seems like a yearly thing, so our guys know how to handle it and who they can go to on our staff. We'll see how it goes this week."