Postgame Quotes: Wake Forest vs. NC State
11/19/2017 12:00:00 AM | Football
Wake Forest Head Coach Dave Clawson
Opening Statement:
"That was a great, great win over an excellent, really well coached football team. I'm incredibly proud of our players in all aspects -- kicking game, defense, offense. We played great runs out to start and then kind of slowed down and then came back again when we needed to. The bottom line is the defense got the stops at the end of the game that they had to. There are a lot of things we didn't do well but when you play a good football team, that's going to happen. They're going to execute too and they have good players. We made one more play at the end. It was a great pick by Essang Bassey and again, we're really proud of our football team. It was a great team win and it feels really good."
On NC State's adjustments at halftime:
"They started pressuring a lot more and playing a lot more man coverage. By doing that, they eliminated some of the run-pass option we were doing so we had to run the ball against man or get open against man. We've done that all year and NC State has good players. They have a great front, they have a good secondary. We just didn't make plays and we didn't win some of the one-on-ones but the ones we did win, won the game for us."
On Wake Forest's adjustments in the second half:
"We got away from the one run play that we had success with in the first half. They started pressuring us and had some penetration in the second half. We ran some more inside stuff, more gap scheme, but the bottom line is when the team plays that, you have to be able to run the perimeter. A lot of Tabari Hine's big plays were against that. The one at the end was man-on-man coverage."
On John Wolford:
"He's the winning quarterback. The job of the quarterback is to win the game and he made the plays when he had to."
On Tabari Hines:
"Greg Dortch was having an incredible year but unfortunately he went down. We all felt good about Tabari. We've said all year Tabari is a good player. Tabari twisted his ankle earlier in the year that opened a door for Greg and that's the way it works. You recruit to have depth and we have finally built up some depth in our program, not everywhere, but Tabari Hines is a good player. He was a good player last year and he's a good player this year."
Redshirt junior linebacker Demetrius Kemp
On the fumble play:
"That was just a pure hustle play right there. I was all the way in the box and saw the quarterback throw the ball and I just burst to the ball. I mean that's what we preach every day in practice, just bursting to the ball and just hustling."
On the persistence of this team:
"It's a game of inches, that's what we preach every week, every day. Giving up is something that we don't even believe in, we preach go hard every day, every play, one play at a time. You can't dwell on something in the past, you have to always have that next play mentality and that's what we did."
Junior wide receiver Tabari Hines:
On the difficulty of his big catch:
"It was pretty hard, it was at a weird angle, but I knew that if I got my hands up that I could grab it. I worked on that at practice and I just trust my abilities."
On doing the Chubbs' sack dance after one of his touchdown:
"Oh yeah, I like that sack dance. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I took that one from him."
Senior quarterback John Wolford
On the completeness of this year's team:
"We hit a little lull there, I was missing a few throws because my hand was hurting a little bit. We were able to push through it and you know that's what it's all about. They were giving us a chance to take the lead in the fourth quarter and we have a lot of seniors on the offense, a lot of upperclassmen, and that's when you have to step up and we did it. The defense kept stepping up, over and over again, and they've been taking some heat in the past couple weeks. But they showed why this is a complete team and it's not just a one-sided effort."
On his hand injury during the game
"When I threw it, my hand got crushed between two helmets. I couldn't squeeze it for the next two plays. It's not broken or anything, just bruised. I was hoping coach wouldn't pull me and then it went away and I was able to grip it and I was fine the rest of the game."
Sophomore cornerback Essang Bassey
On his last-minute interception in the end zone:
"It was real big. I'm happy that I can do it for our team, our seniors, for beating NC State, in the locker room. You know [the seniors] have never beat them, so that was the biggest thing for me, doing it for the rest of my teammates, especially those seniors. It feels really good to get that win for them.
On how special the win felt:
"It was definitely special, definitely big. NC State especially as a rival game, ACC game, and we had them at home. We knew we had to come out, do our job, play well on defense. For us to get the win, it's just another stepping stone to where we are trying to get to for this season.
