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WR Kelvin Benjamin
On opportunity to make a lot of plays on deep balls this afternoon:
“Definitely, we looked at film and went over their defense all week. We wanted to take the change on deep balls and give our receivers a chance to make plays.”
On his touchdown catch in the third quarter:
“It was a slanting up bomb. I got on top of him quick, two or three steps, and went up and got the ball in the air. When the ball is in the air you just have to make a play for it and get the ball.”
On Duke’s defense with 8 to 9 guys in the box challenging Florida State to pass:
“We knew they were going to come in and play man. We also knew they would come in and play physical. Coach Fisher gave us the right film to watch and the right tools to do stuff in practice.”
QB EJ Manuel
On getting the deep ball going today:
“We definitely took advantage of the plays we saw down field. The receivers did a great job, the o-line gave us some time to get down there and make some plays down field. I wish my (completion) percentage was a lot better but we were still able to make some plays.”
On stretching the field against Duke:
“The game plan was obviously to stretch the field, establish the run, but at the same time stretch the field.”
On the ability to stretch the field and how that helped open up the running game:
“(It helped) tremendously. A lot of those gaps, those guys were able to cut back. They were trying to play me on my fakes and things like that on the boot leg, so that kind of opened up the cut backs for our backs. They did a great job of seeing it.”
On the play of the running backs and wanting to do this for Chris:
“Those guys are giving their second effort and that’s what you want to see from your running backs. Obviously, one of our brothers is down and out for the season but those guys are going to set up and do well for him.”
WR Rodney Smith
On the play of the offense and getting on Duke early:
“We try and do that to everybody. We try and hit them in the mouth early and try and make big plays and we were able to do that today. We are happy with our overall performance, besides the turnovers but we are going to get back to the fundamentals on that, so we should be good to go.”
On the game plan and looking for the big plays:
“That was one of the goals, for us to make big plays, so those guys were playing man on man against some of us and we needed to make plays against them.”
On the turnovers by the Seminoles:
“We just have to go back to the fundamentals of football, keeping that football high and tight and not letting the defender get his hands in there and knock it out. It was a mistake by us. We will get back to the basics this week.”
On the bye week:
“We have some guys that are banged up so this week is going to help us. We will go through some rehab to get our bodies back together.”
Xavier Rhodes On the defensive performance: “We played good. We held them to seven points. They didn’t do much passing or running, so we played good. We met our goals on defense.” On playing more press coverage this season: “We can press a lot more. We play more aggressive, more aggressive than last year.” Tyler Hunter On his punt return for a touchdown: “I just trusted my blockers. I knew if a guy got close my guy would take him out, so I trusted him and caught it and followed my blocks until the end zone.” On the defensive performance:
“We didn’t cause any turnovers. We played very discipline football. When we played man, guys stayed on their man. When we played zone, guys focused on their zones. I thought we played pretty good.”
On the offense scoring points early:
“It really gives us a lot of comfort knowing the offense is clicking on all cylinders. We know that if we go out and do what we do, we have a good chance to win.”
Lamarcus Joyner
On N.C. State losing its second conference game:
“It’s great. That puts us in great position to make the ACC championship. We are now put back up on that pedestal so we have to take advantage of it.”
On stopping Duke’s passing attack:
“These guys came in second in the ACC and first in their division, so we challenged ourselves. Those guys felt like they could compete with us. They have a great team. To shut down that kind of offense with the players they have, the coaching, and the system they run, it shows you about this organization and how good we can be as a team.”
On stopping Duke WR Conner Vernon:
“That’s always the kind of statement we try to make. We try to take out players that are threats. If you are a threat and get our attention, we need to take care of that. Being able to double him and put pressure on his side; that was the game plan and it went through.”