NC State fired its coach Mark Gottfried earlier this week, despite the Wolfpack advancing to the NCAA Tournament four times in his six seasons. It’s been a rough week for Gottfried and still he’s handled the situation in the public with nothing but class. He even chose to finish out the regular season as NC State’s coach.

For Saturday’s game against Notre Dame, Gottfried gave ESPN a sneak peak behind the home locker room as he prepped his team for the game with his pre-game speech. His speech was ... interesting. He compared his situation to a dog being run over by a car.

“It’s like if I’m that dog,” Gottfried said. “And that car rolls over me, that car’s on top of me and that tire squishes me. You’ve got a choice to make right there. I can promise you, fellas. I’m gonna bite that damn tire. Bite that damn tire!”

As inspiring a speech as it was awkward, his team responded fairly well, given the circumstances. Even though their coach was just fired, they had lost six-straight before facing the Irish and despite taking a 13-point deficit into halftime, the Wolfpack nearly mounted a comeback late in the second half before falling 81-72. 

So hey, maybe they did bite the tires after all.

But the Fighting Irish freight train still ran them over to improve to 21-7 on the season and 10-5 in ACC play. NC State has lost seven straight games dating back to Jan. 23, and at 14-14 overall and 3-12 in the ACC sit just a half-game up from being in dead last in the conference standings.