Given the history of the NC State football program, Dave Doeren should be commended for his efforts in stabilizing the program. While he didn’t bring home conference titles like Earle Edwards, Lou Holtz,
or Bo Rein, and failed to reach the double-digit win threshold of Chuck Amato, Doeren has supplied stability to the program that hadn’t been reached since the Dick Sheridan days. His teams reached nine wins in a season on four different occasions, with those four campaigns coming across a seven-year span that also included a pair of eight-win seasons and resulted in five Top 25 finishes. That’s a run of success unmatched in Wolfpack football history. The man should be appreciated for that.
Unlike Sheridan’s tenure in Raleigh, which ended with the program still ascending at the time of his exit, the program has plateaued under Doeren and is on the descent following a 6-7 effort a year ago and a current three-game skid against FBS opponents. The remaining schedule isn’t daunting outside of a trip to Miami, but there are also no sure-thing wins that remain. Things certainly seem stale with the program.
Doeren has previously stated his intent to retire early, and it would seem that he’s likely to retire at the end of this season. So where does NC State go from here assuming Doeren does retire at the end of the 2025 season?
Given the current landscape with NIL and the transfer portal, NC State overachieving their current spend in football is a tall task. From a money-to-results perspective, Doeren has been as solid as you could hope. A 91-68 record, even if it was largely built on soft non-conference schedules, is an impressive result for a team that rarely if ever spent in the upper half of the ACC. That 48-53 conference mark, which currently sits at 39-30 since the start of the 2017 season, is on par if not better than should be expected all things considered.
NC State is in a precarious spot. There’s not enough donor money to push this program into the upper third of the conference in spend on the football program, including in NIL. So what does NC State do? Shell out big bucks in an ever-escalating market for a brand-name coach? That might be hard as any big-dollar coach is going to want an equivalent big-dollar pool of cash to work with for assistants and player acquisition.
Does the program go with a rebound coach, one who failed at a higher level but could still elevate the Wolfpack program from it’s current standing (think James Franklin, Billy Napier, or Dan Mullen)? State will be one of a number of players for the services of those coaches.
Do they take a swing at an NFL coach with no coaching experience and hope it works out (here’s your Jon Gruden dart throw), even if that likely falls into that first line of big-dollar coach? That hasn’t worked out so hot for the blue clad school down the road.
Do the Pack look at a top assistant coach from one of the blue blood programs? Hiring an assistant without previous head coaching experience can be a risky proposition, but former Notre Dame and Alabama OC (and current Cleveland Browns OC) Tommy Rees is a name that’s been mentioned already.
Does State take a swing at a young, lower-level coach who may not command as high of a salary and instead take those “savings” to spend on the assistant coaching and NIL pool? This is likely the wisest investment.
The Wolfpack aren’t in a position to dump a ton of money on a head coach. Getting in a bidding war for one of the top names on the market isn’t a wise use of the team’s finances. Instead, State should embrace the method of hiring younger coaches with successful track records at smaller schools; the same approach that brought in Holtz and Sheridan.
That’s not to say that the method is always successful – far from it – but it’s one that will supply the program with higher spend on assistant coaches and NIL funding comparative to schools that spend similar on head coaching salaries. The emphasis on the contract of the head coach should be incentive based. Let’s be honest, if the Pack wins 10 games and the head coach gets a $1M bonus for it, drumming up that cash won’t be hard. You say $2M for an ACC title? Done.
State should be looking at more up-and-coming coaches with energy and an exciting brand of football. Memphis’ Ryan Silverfield (hey, we talked about him before!) is probably aiming too high given his 27-6 record over his last two-plus years, as is Tulane’s Jon Sumrall and his 38-10 record as a head coach, but jumping in early on USF’s Alex Golesh, JMU’s Bob Chesney, UNT’s Eric Morris, or Texas State’s G.J. Kinne would be a wise move. Looking at successful FCS coaches should also be on the table, such as NDSU’s Tim Polasek, Harvard’s Andrew Aurich, or Montana State’s Brent Vigen.
The safe bet in all of this is that, if Doeren does intend to retire at season’s end, Wolfpack AD Boo Corrigan has been working the back channels to know exactly where he’s going with this next hire. Given how well the hiring of Will Wade went for the NC State men’s basketball coaching job earlier this year, all confidence should be in Corrigan to navigate a similarly successful hiring circuit for the football program.
NC State could go a number of ways if/when Dave Doeren announces his retirement. Being smart with the financials of it will be key, all while bringing in a coach who’s going to up the energy in and around the program.
