If NC State is going to make a coaching change this year, it will do so in what might be the most hectic carousel cycle to date. Already there are eight power-conference vacancies, including several jobs that are clearly better than NC State’s: LSU, Florida, Penn State, Virginia Tech, UCLA, Stanford, Arkansas, and Oklahoma State. At the G5 level, Kent State, UAB, Colorado State, and Oregon State are also open.
More carnage is a certainty, as we’ve not even reached November yet. People have been watching
Auburn all year, and Wisconsin is another obvious potential opening. Steve Sarkisian reportedly is quite open to heading to the NFL if an opportunity presents itself, which would add another premium gig to the market.
The record in recent years for open power-conference jobs is 14 in 2022, a number likely to be topped in 2025. Overall, FBS appears on the way to over 30 head coaching changes for the third straight year.
It’s a great time to be a sports agent, but not so much a college administrator. Especially so for decision-makers behind a middle-class program like NC State’s. If NC State could choose its timing, this would not be the year. But with Dave Doeren’s situation increasingly untenable with a late-season rebound unlikely—never mind that he might be retiring regardless of this year’s results on the field—it seems we are going to join the traffic jam at some point in the next several weeks.
On the one hand, NC State was never going to compete for a coach with a high-profile football school like LSU, Florida, or Penn State. Just as NC State doesn’t compete on the same level for recruits with those schools. In that sense, it’s not that detrimental to have them in the fray. On the other hand, in a year with fewer high-quality openings, NC State might have the potential to hire above its standing, so to speak. That is not going to be the case here.
The real difficulty lies in competing with other solid jobs like Virginia Tech, or Arkansas, or Oklahoma State—though with its recent financial commitments, Tech looks like it has placed itself ahead of this group. More openings in the middle class, many of which at places with more resources simply because they exist in the Big Ten or SEC, just adds complications.
Where NC State ultimately stacks up in the eyes of the coaching industry, or where it sets the horizon of its search, I have no idea. I do know it’s going to get wild all over the place. Just don’t go talking yourself into some pie-in-the-sky candidate (and please do not even think the name Jon Gruden), and you should get through this deal with most of your sanity.
