Dave Doeren didn’t hide from it after NC State’s 31-28 loss at Stanford. The Wolfpack coach put the result on his own shoulders after a game in which the defense was exposed and the offense ran out of answers late.
“A lot of takeaways. It starts with me.
The guys didn't play well enough, which means I didn't have them ready. I was really disappointed in our defense.”
NC State came out of a bye week and still got knocked around in a road game that pushed the Wolfpack to 3-4 overall and 1-3 in ACC play. Doeren said the defense handled the run well enough, but the passing game was a problem from the start, with Stanford’s No. 0 doing major damage throughout the day.
“I thought we stopped the run well. We didn't defend the pass.
No. 0 had a day. He's a good player, but we could have done a lot better covering him.
We made some good adjustments and played better for a while. In the second half, they out-physicaled us on that side of the football.
You can't win games if you can't win one-on-ones. That was very disappointing.”
On the other side of the ball, NC State was dealing with serious damage up front. Doeren said the Wolfpack were already working with three backup offensive linemen, and then Daniel Cruz went down, leaving them with four backups in the mix. Still, he credited CJ for battling through it and using his legs to keep the offense alive.
“CJ battled. He used his legs and helped us.
I was proud of the guys for getting that touchdown at the end and giving us a chance to onside it. But it wasn't good enough.
Not even close.”
The first half stung most for the head coach. Stanford jumped out to a 14-0 lead, and while NC State clawed back to tie it, the Cardinal’s 90-yard drive in the final two minutes before halftime stood out to Doeren as a defining sequence.
“Very. I felt great about the preparation.
The guys practiced well, but we obviously didn't play the way we expected. What I liked was how we responded and got it back to 14-14.
The most disappointing part for me was their 90-yard drive in two minutes to close the first half. We were getting the ball first in the third quarter. You'd like to think we could hold somebody there when they have 90 yards to go.”
Doeren said there was no big schematic surprise from Stanford. The problem, in his view, was that the Cardinal simply won too many snaps, protected their quarterback well and gave No. 0 space to operate. Stanford’s receiver was targeted 12 times and caught nine passes, and NC State tried different coverages and even matched Brian Nelson II on him at times in the second half.
“No, they just blocked us. They gave their quarterback time.
We knew they'd run max protection. That's something they've done against everybody.
But on the drop-back stuff, we didn't win enough.
No. 0 got open a lot in the first half. He was targeted 12 times and caught nine.
Some of it was zone. Some of it was man.
We doubled him at times and took him away. We put Brian Nelson II on him when we did that in the second half.
But they executed better than we did.”
He also pointed to problems in coverage that went beyond one player. In his view, the linebackers weren’t getting deep enough early, the spacing between the back end and underneath defenders was off, and the pass rush wasn’t helping the way it needed to.
“It was a lot of things. In man-to-man, they won at times.
In zone, our linebackers didn't get deep early in the game. There was too much separation between the back end and the underneath coverage.
Then there was the pass rush. We weren't winning enough one-on-ones.”
Doeren said the lack of pressure wasn’t about play calls. It came down to fundamentals and winning the matchup in front of them.
“It's not execution. It's that guy blocking you.
It's fundamentals. At some point, you've got to win one-on-one.
I always tell a defensive lineman that a good defensive lineman should win more than 50 percent of his one-on-ones. We're not doing that right now.
Double teams, max protections, chipping, all of that I understand. But in a true one-on-one, you have to win more of those than you lose.”
There were other details that bothered him too, including a screen Stanford hit for 20 yards after NC State had identified the play before the snap.
“They gashed us wherever they wanted to. Second-and-12, and we told the guys, "It's a screen." They ran a screen, and they still got 20 yards.
There's no excuse for that. We had a guy right there to stop it, and he missed the tackle.
We told them what play was coming in the helmet. We knew.
We still didn't stop it.”
With five games left, Doeren said the focus shifts to health, recovery and the next matchup. He said the team had already adjusted its goals coming out of the bye, and now the job is to move forward one week at a time.
“We've got five weeks left. We adjusted our goals coming out of the bye. We had six left, and the goal was to try to win them all, one at a time.
Now we move on to the next one. Take it one game at a time, one day at a time, and keep trying to get better and find a way to win.”
And for now, that means putting Stanford behind them quickly.
“We go back and try to get these guys as healthy as we can. We start tomorrow.
We'll land on Saturday, put this one to bed, and move on to the next game. That's all you can do.
Go fight and try to win the next one.”
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