Our friends at Backing the Pack join us for a look into this year’s NC State team
The Q&A returns this week with a lovely conversation with Essad of Backing the Pack, the SBN NCST blog. Unsurprisingly, he had some very poignant and direct thoughts on Doeren’s tenure as head coach in 2024, the flaws from the coaching staff resulting in the Wolfpack’s downturn this year, and where they go from here. In short, whichever team loses on Thursday night is going to be very disgruntled.
From the Rumble Seat: I know there are rumblings of discontent in Raleigh regarding Dave Doeren’s tenure with the Wolf Pack Wolfpack. He’s been the model of consistency for his time there, so why are fans clamoring for his job after one down year? What do you think the ceiling is for NCST in the modern era?
Backing the Pack: This is the key debate among the fans, and there is no right answer, and depends on who you ask.
On the plus side: Yes, Doeren is NC State’s winningest coach. He has formed a great program that is respected around the country. He’s also put a ton of guys into the NFL, to the point that scouts always show out to their pro days because they know the staff is great at developing players. Payton Wilson on the Steelers is the latest example. His players love playing for him, and he clearly loves being at NC State. He’s elevated the floor for the expectation to be 7-8 wins at minimum year in and year out.
But on the negative side: Success breeds expectation. At a certain point, the fans want a little more. I think NC State fans get a bad rap for having unrealistic expectations. Most of those narratives are from national media folks who don’t actually talk to fans following the team closely. When we say we want more, it’s for small things that have been in sight for years where Dave Doeren has JUST fallen short. Winning 9 games is nothing to sneeze out, but there’s never been that one single magical season where they won 10 or 11 games and made it to Charlotte to play for the conference title. There is nice floor of 7 wins, but a hard ceiling at 9 wins. It’s an unfortunate reality that if he fails to make a bowl, that will be three of his 12 years (year 1, 2019, 2024) to have down years. Nobody has any illusions that NC State will turn into Clemson at peak Dabo and compete for national titles and playoff berths. But Doeren has had at least three separate times where he fell one win short of appearing in the conference championship game. The fans want to win the ACC, that’s the goal. And not even every year, but just win it ONCE, maybe? They haven’t won the league since 1979 and are one of the few teams to have never appeared in the conference championship game since its inception.
Going into this season, the fans were sold on the idea that “next year is the year”. The coaches pumped up the fans saying they were going all in to win the ACC in 2024. A ton of money was spent on NIL to build a great roster. It wasn’t fan expectation, the coaches outright said they were gunning for the title this year, so the fans went along with it and bought in, literally. So now, the fans are left thinking about how the roster was in place to win, and the season went sideways. Meanwhile, SMU comes in the league in their first year and are likely on their way to Charlotte. It leaves people thinking they’re getting passed by, and if it didn’t happen this year with the soft schedule NC State had…then will it ever happen??
I’m on the side of being a supporter of Doeren, I think he should be able to leave on his own terms. But if he decided to retire after this year and go fly fishing in Montana, I’d probably be okay with it. If he does come back then some serious changes need to be made in player evaluation and development, which leads into question 2…
FTRS: What is the biggest contributor to the Wolfpack’s downturn this year? Is it just a bad luck year or a cumulative result of coaching and recruiting?
BTP: Three things: (1) quarterback play, (2) offensive playcalling, and (3) defensive roster construction. (1) The roster was revamped this offseason to try and put more playmakers on offense, and they succeeded with the talent brought in. Grayson McCall was brought in to be THE guy. The 3-time Sun Belt player of the year put up huge numbers in Jamie Chadwell’s offense at Coastal Carolina. We crushed a lot of his game tape over the summer, and his playmaking jumps off the screen. Unfortunately, he suffered a season ending concussion injury last year, and we now know he never fully recovered. He took some more big hits this year and has now retired from football. We just hope he doesn’t have any lasting health issues. This led to highly touted true freshman CJ Bailey stepping in. He has been quite good from the jump, but he’s still very much a freshman doing freshman things. He’ll make some great plays and then miss wide open guys for surefire touchdowns. We just have to take the lumps while he learns. If he stays at State for 3 years then his ceiling is huge. (2) Offensive coordinator Robert Anae can’t decide what type of offense he’s running. The playcalling is bafflingly inconsistent, and usually telegraphed to any team who studies the game film. (3) So much of the focus was on the offense, and it was needed, that nobody paid much attention to the attrition on defense. Defense coordinator Tony Gibson is one of the best in the country, and everyone just thought he’d have it all under control (Narrator: he did not). Veteran players have regressed and somehow forgotten to tackle, and routinely get beaten for huge chunk plays early and often. When you have a freshman QB, you can’t also have a bad defense and expect to win much of anything. All the bad things are happening at once. Many are pointing to player evaluation and development, or lack thereof. When you focus on reloading via the transfer portal, you lose a lot of that “juice” you get when you have guys for multiple years in your highly touted S&C program. The portal should be used to supplement spots only.
FTRS: The Yellow Jackets have had an up and down year due to injuries, but are expected to be largely healthy for this game. What defensive unit for the Wolfpack is most vulnerable Thursday / or which one are you most worried about?
BTP: One request, can you put in a word with the GT coaching staff and ask them to kindly please not run the ball? That would be a huge help. Years ago, Doeren and staff were criticized when shifting away from the traditional 4-3 defensive set to the 3-3-5 stack. In the end it turned out to obviously be the right choice, and many of those complaining fans forgot they’d ever complained about it. But the problem is, when you have this defensive scheme, you have to change your focus from building around the defensive line to the linebackers and secondary. NC State did that successfully for years, with a long string of high level LB’s and DB’s. Those dudes just aren’t there anymore. Payton Wilson saved the day on defense many times last season, and painted over a lot of cracks that are very visible now. NC State has not brought in an elite LB recruit in a couple of seasons, and it shows. And to top it off, the veteran cornerback Ayden White secured the bag to come back for his final year, and everyone rejoiced. Yet, he has forgotten how to tackle and has been getting beat regularly and now teams are no longer afraid to throw to his side of the field. The 3-3-5 defense has allowed NC State to be a stalwart defense against the run, specifically. But without a strong LB corps with a strong secondary to back them up, the Wolfpack have been getting beat for big plays week after week. This has started to slow down as the season has gone on, but two teams like GT and UNC to end the season can definitely exploit this flaw with their strong ground games.
FTRS: Who does NCST consider their biggest rival in football? And is it different for basketball?
BTP: The answer is, always has been, and always will be, Carolina. We don’t like them boys in blue. It’s an interesting dynamic with the Triangle teams in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. Old school NC State fans remember a time when Duke was not UNC’s primary rival. The exit of Jimmy V coincided with the rise of Coach K. This was alongside the emergence of ESPN, who saw marketability opportunity in pumping up a Duke-UNC rivalry game. NC State did its part by being largely irrelevant in the 90s while those other two skyrocketed. A generation later, and current UNC fans have been raised as Duke being their primary rival in basketball, and begrudgingly accepting its NC State for football, although they have a longstanding rivalry with UVA. For NC State, though, we never stopped disliking the Hells, I mean Heels. A major feather in his cap is Dave Doeren’s insistence on taking the rivalry game as seriously as the fans do. He fans the flames and we kind of love it. After his first year (3-9 record), Dave has gone 7-3 against UNC. Even in the down years, it is very satisfying to be able to expect he’ll be able to rally the team up to beat a team that seriously tries (unsuccessfully) to pull off argyle and make it look tough.
FTRS: At QB, Bailey’s passing numbers look pretty good, but he’s taken a lot of sacks. Is that due to O-line play or him holding on to the ball for too long?
BTP: Yes and yes. As I said, he’s a freshman. A good example is the last two weeks. Against Stanford, he had all day to sit back there and pick them apart. He looked outstanding, leaving fans thinking he’d turned the corner and would only go up from there. He was 18/20 for 234 yards and 3 TD’s. Then, against Duke, their defense was able to rattle him consistently. He didn’t know where the rush was coming from. At a certain point, it seemed he’d lost hope the offensive line would hold and just looked to run or whatever closest throw he could make to dump it off. But the thing is, the tape shows there were chances to step up in the pocket and make a throw. These elite receivers have been working hard all season to get open, and Bailey just won’t see them. The Pack lost by 10, and there were at least three times where receivers were breaking free and he never saw them or threw it too late. That being said, the offensive line was a known issue going into the season, and it has been rough to say the least. Major attention needs to be on fixing that area in the offseason.
FTRS: And finally, how do you see this game going? Is the Wolf Pack Wolfpack going to rally around an embattled coach, or does the team see this season as over and a disappointment?
BTP: I expect a competitive game for at least three quarters, but the GT ground game seems like it will ultimately wear down the NC State defense. I’m predicting most of the players will fight to the end, but it’s unclear if that will be outweighed by others quiet quitting. Final score: GT 31 – NC State 23