It was only one practice, but NC State’s first day back with football looked sharp
At N.C. State’s first practice to begin the 2021 football season, everything looked crisp.
The 100 or so players moved effortlessly from field to field, at a pace that looked frantic to the naked eye. The players, though, knew what to do. They stuck to the script and went from drill to drill, moving like a herd as soon as each horn sounded.
With super seniors (thanks to the NCAA’s extra year) and so many guys in their third or fourth year with the program, this Day 1 felt different. The players know the drills. They know where to line up. With only one new position coach on the staff, the team is familiar with what’s expected.
Head coach Dave Doeren finally has what could be considered an old team. This is a far cry from 2019 when he had to throw young guys onto the field before they were ready.
How do you challenge a group that’s already seen so much?
“These guys have really high goals for the football team,” Doeren said. “So it’s easy to hold them to little things.”
Junior linebacker Isaiah Moore, entering his fifth fall camp, says there isn’t a lot of figuring out of what’s going on at practice; everyone is on the same page. But there isn’t an ounce of complacency, he said. There’s plenty of motivation for the Wolfpack.
“We went 8-4 last year,” Moore said. “And that wasn’t the goal. Eight wins is never the goal here. We know we still have things we want to achieve and things we want to overcome internally and we are going to keep striving for that each and every day.”
Cleaner practice
Wide receiver Thayer Thomas is also entering his fifth preseason camp.
Thomas, who was second on the team in receptions a year ago, has seen plenty of fall practices and can tell when something is different. He noticed something about the first day that could be a good sign of things to come.
“I don’t ever remember being this clean coming into a fall camp for a first practice,” Thomas said. “I don’t think we had one turnover, it just seemed like everybody was on the same page, just a veteran group that knows how to practice at this point. Very excited to go from here. We were just happy with how clean it went today.”
Thomas credited that cleanliness to a few things. First, having a full spring practice unlike last year helps. The group being so experienced also plays a huge part. The third thing, as Thomas explained, is the team taking care of and trusting each other on the field.
“I can trust the defensive guys aren’t going to try and take my head off,” Thomas said. “Because we know each other’s value and importance on this team. We just have good trust on both sides of the ball.”
N.C. State returns 20 starters and got some surprising returns in super seniors C.J. Riley, Emeka Emezie, Tyrone Riley and Daniel Joseph, all guys who took advantage of an extra year.
Doeren hopes that veteran leadership, combined with the game experience from 2020, can bring another nine-win season or better back to Raleigh. An 8-4 year, plus a bowl trip a year ago, helped erase the memories of the 4-8 2019 season. But the Wolfpack left a lot on the field, losing two of their four games by three points or fewer. Five of their eight wins were also one-possession games.
“In those one-possession games, there are details, little things, you can hold them accountable for out here because they add up,” Doeren said. “It’s a hungry team and it’s competitive. There are some guys trying to get on the field versus some guys who are really good. They can’t have a down day and keep their job.”
Working on one thing
The phrase ‘the little things’ came up multiple times after the opening day of practice. It’s a message that’s hitting home.
Sophomore offensive lineman Ikem Ekwonu mentioned it. So did sophomore quarterback Devin Leary. Ekwonu is an all-conference lineman and Leary is one of the most respected voices on the team. If the message is sinking in with those two guys, it’s probably a good thing throughout the entire locker room.
Those little things could be the difference in actually challenging Clemson for the Atlantic title, or the season going poorly with another struggling year.
“We’re not making a lot of mistakes,” Ekwonu said. “And the mistakes we do make, we don’t make them again. I feel like we are definitely headed in the right direction.”
The Wolfpack was the most penalized team in the ACC last year, and will take fall camp to work on those details that caused them to rack up 891 yards worth of flags in 2020. Ekwonu feels like if the team works to improve just one thing in each of the next 25 practices, they will be better.
“It’s easy to look at the big picture and what we want to accomplish,” Leary said. “As we kind of self-reflect and look at why we didn’t have the success that we wanted, it was all the small details. Something Coach Doeren preaches to us is every single day we have a ‘one more’ that we have to accomplish. It can be the smallest of details, I think that’s something that we started to embrace, was that the small details matter.”
This story was originally published August 4, 2021 at 2:00 PM.
