North Carolina State plans to turn to a familiar face to replace one of college football’s most established, long-tenured coaches.
The veteran Dave Doeren is out after 14 seasons. Rookie coach Philip Rivers,
a celebrated alumnus, is set to be hired. This will mark the first hire of the 2026 coaching carousel.
NC State has not announced the hire. The news is expected to become official later this week.
Rivers had been coaching at St. Michaels Catholic High School in Foley, Alabama. He’s never coached in any position at the college or NFL levels.
So, is this bold, or crazy?
Maybe, a little of both.
Here's how we grade the Wolfpack’s hire:
Grade for Philip Rivers NC State hire: C-
Does Rivers know what he’s doing? Seriously, that’s a real question.
Being a Power Four coach in this pay-for-play, transfer free agency era is a beast of a job. Rivers won’t step into a program with the resources of, say, Miami, and he’s never built a college coaching staff before. It’s easy to envision how this could go haywire.
Nobody should doubt Rivers’ football acumen after his splendid 17-year NFL career, but there’s a lot more to the job than being a former player who could reliably move the chains on 3rd-and-5.
NC State took a guzzle of nostalgia with this hire. Rivers led the Wolfpack to an 11-3 record as the team’s quarterback in 2002. It also welcomed a substantial risk by hiring someone without a lick of college coaching experience.
I’d feel better about this hire if Rivers had some college coordinator or even FBS assistant coaching experience. He doesn’t.
This hire draws comparisons to UAB hiring Trent Dilfer. Like Rivers, Dilfer had only high school coaching experience. Dilfer flopped with UAB.
Both Rivers and Dilfer had star NFL quarterback careers, but the Dilfer situation was somewhat different, because Dilfer did not graduate from UAB, nor did he have any ties to Birmingham.
At least Rivers should evoke good memories from Wolfpack fans who cheered him on during his playing career. NC State must be betting donors being invigorated by the good vibes of a hire from within the Wolfpack family.
When Colorado hired Deion Sanders from the FCS ranks, he promised to bring luggage with him. And, he did. Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter, who followed Coach Prime from Jackson State, were instrumental in Colorado’s 9-4 breakout season in 2024. That was the lone successful season of Sanders’ now four seasons at Colorado. Otherwise, Sanders' tenure has been fairly dysfunctional.
In other words, hiring an ex-NFL superstar who’s short on coaching experience remains a massive gamble.
Rivers’ St. Michaels Catholic teams fared well, and he’ll bring some luggage, too. His son, four-star quarterback Gunner Rivers, is pledged to NC State.
That’s a start, but one freshman quarterback does not make a roster.
Rivers must show he can assemble a staff and build the resources necessary to mine the transfer portal for talent that can spur a turnaround.
This season, NC State slipped behind Wake Forest, Duke and North Carolina in the pecking order of in-state ACC schools.
There’s little reason why, with the right coach and proper investment, NC State shouldn’t be atop that quartet.
It’s difficult to say with much confidence that NC State hired the right coach.
It hired a celebrity, a decorated alumnus, and it gambled that Rivers is suited to be an ACC coach, without much evidence to suggest he is.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Listen to his podcast, "College Football Unfiltered." Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Grading the hire: Philip Rivers at NC State fits definition of a wild gamble
