Dave Doeren sorry for fake-injury talk

ByAndrea Adelson ESPN logo

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

NC State coach Dave Doeren apologized to Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher on Tuesday after accusing the Seminoles of faking injuries in their win over the Wolfpack on Saturday.

In a statement released on Twitter, Doeren said: "I have apologized to Jimbo Fisher & want to apologize to his staff, players & FSU fans for my comments that took away from a tremendous football game. I left an emotional locker room & took those emotions w/ me to the press conference. It was a great college football game with tremendous plays made by both teams. That is where the focus deserves to be. I have the utmost respect for Jimbo, his staff and players. FSU played a great game and earned the win."

The two coaches have traded barbs since Doeren's initial comments Saturday, after No. 1 Florida State rallied to beat NC State 56-41.

"The tempo we had was working until all the crazy fall-down things were going on and the clock kept stopping," Doeren said after the game. "You know the refs can't do anything about that, but it's horrible the way the tempo gets slowed down by these injuries. We went fast in the first quarter; I guess there were no fake injuries."

When asked about his comments Monday, Doeren said his team has dealt with "multiple people falling down" and limping off the field through the first five games of the season and called it "unsportsmanlike" behavior. He specifically pointed to one second-half play in which a Seminoles player "walked off the field as slow as humanly possible, and he's back in the game."

Asked for a response to Doeren's comments on Monday, Fisher told reporters in Tallahassee, Florida: "I accuse him of not knowing what he's talking about. They're not fake injuries. No one faked injuries, and we wouldn't do that. We'll coach Florida State, and he can coach North Carolina State."

This is not the first instance in which a high-tempo team has accused its opponent of faking injuries. Last season, then-Washington coach Steve Sarkisian accused Stanford of faking injuries to slow the Huskies' tempo in a 31-28 Cardinal win.