NC State coach Dave Doeren respects Virginia Tech's tradition
NC State coach Dave Doeren was around some coaches who engineered turn-arounds.
Doeren himself has turned around NC State after a rough first year, and has gone to bowl games in eight out of nine years. The Wolfpack are bowl eligible at 7-3 this season.
NC State plays at Virginia Tech at 3:30 p.m. Saturday on the ACC Network, and the Hokies’ past history reminds Doeren of various aspects he wants in his own program.
“I have incredible respect for their program that Coach [Frank] Beamer built,” Doeren said. “I have respect for [Virginia Tech coach] Brent [Pry] and how he has picked it back up. I know he’s emulating a lot of things Coach Beamer instilled in that program.”
Doeren was an assistant coach at Kansas from 2002-05 under coach Mark Mangino. Kansas was 3-8 overall and 1-7 in the Big 12 in 2001 before Mangino arrived. The Jayhawks reached a pair of bowl games in Mangino’s first four years, while Doeren was there, and eventually went 12-1 and made the Orange Bowl in 2007, following Doeren’s departure.
Doeren left for Wisconsin, where he was from 2006-10, and while he wasn’t a part of Barry Alvarez’s staff, Alvarez’s fingerprints were all over the program. Alavert went 119-72-4 with the Badgers and turned the program over to coach Bret Bielema, who hired Doeren. The Badgers had been to just three bowl games from 1964-until-1993.
Doeren also talked Thursday that he enjoyed watching from a distance from Beamer, who essentially had the kind of success with the Hokies that Alvarez had at Wisconsin.
Beamer inherited a 10-2 team, but it fell quickly, going 2-9 in 1987 and 3-8 in 1988. It took his seventh season to reach a bowl game, which would be an eternity in social media times. However, once he revved up the program, Virginia Tech went to bowl games under Beamer for the next 23 years.
“As a young coach, watching what Coach Beamer did on special teams, in college football, he was a groundbreaking coach when it came to how he attacked people in that area,” Doeren said.
Beamer built his foundation on defense and special teams, and his former long-time defensive line coach Charley Wiles is now at NC State. The Wolfpack’s defense this season has been impressive of late under defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Tony Gibson.
“Tony does a great job with the guys,” Doeren said. “His position coaches do a great job for him. We play 11-man football over there. Those guys play hard for each other. They execute and understand. He does a great job of building off of looks and disguising things from one side and coming from another.”
NC State is fourth in the ACC in both allowing points per game (19.4) and total yards (314.9) per contest. Playing defense has gotten harder and harder over the years, due to the various rules changes that favor offenses.
“It is challenging with RPO’s, lineman down field, the way sometimes officiating goes with guys touching in coverage,” Doeren said. “It is hard. The strike down has gotten smaller and smaller.”
Doeren was a long-time 4-3 defensive coach, but has switched to a 3-3-5 in adjusting to the speed of offenses, who often play three- or- four receivers. He commented on defensive end Savion Jackson’s roughing the passer penalty this season that would been nothing in years past.
“That would have been called a wimpy hit back in the day,” Doeren said. “Back then, those guys would have clotheslined quarterbacks.”
With NC State producing NFL defenders at various spots, and having All-American candidate Payton Wilson thriving in his sixth year of college, the recruiting sell has become easier for Doeren and his staff.
“This is a place you want to come and play defense,” Doeren said. “This system is aggressive, multiple and productive. The stats don’t lie and the kids have fun in it.”
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