5/25/2020 football Edit

Dave Doeren talks recruiting during pandemic

Matt Carter • TheWolfpackCentral

Editor

Between a four-win season in 2019 and five new assistant coaches added to the staff, NC State football head coach Dave Doeren knew that class of 2021 targets were going to want to visit and see things for themselves before committing to the Wolfpack.

Obviously, aside from a big junior day in January and some smaller visits centered around home basketball games, NC State has not had that opportunity due to the extended dead period forced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People want to see the new coaches, they want to see the players, they want to see the direction of the program, and then all of the sudden they can’t,” Doeren explained during a live video interview hosted by The Charlotte Observer.

“We’re in a position where we are doing the best we can. We got some really good kids we are talking to. … I love the direction where we are headed with everything, but we need to get people back here. We need to get on the grass, we need to go win some games.”

Doeren noted that NC State in particular is hurt by the dead period because it cannot show off some of its biggest assets — including the city of Raleigh, which routinely ranks among Forbes’ best places to live, and a campus being reshaped under the direction of Chancellor Randy Woodson.

“I think what happened is every year that I’ve been here, the spring and summer have been very good opportunities for us to show off Raleigh and in my opinion one of the greatest places in the world. … The people come up and want to visit and they are like, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t know it was like this,’” Doeren said.

Doeren added that also during his tenure at NC State, the month of June has tended to be its best in recruiting, partly because of those earlier visits.

“We just haven’t had that opportunity to get people here to do that,” he added.

NC State has six verbal commitments thus far, fewest of any teams in the ACC. But Doeren sees a lot of dynamic factors caused by the pandemic that should make for some busy and interesting times ahead.

“I think what it’s done is a lot of these kids have made decisions before they wanted to,” Doeren said. “I think a lot of them had plans to come visit us and visit other schools and compare their A, B, C and D schools and then make decisions.

“Because of this some of them have hit the pause button on it, and some of them have made decisions earlier than they wanted to. I do think you are going to have a lot of people flipping this year based on how the seasons play out.”

Doeren pointed out that in the 2016 class, NC State was able to finish strong by flipping five players who were at some point committed elsewhere, headlined by four-star receiver Kelvin Harmon who went on to become one of the better wideouts in school history.

“I’m not going to hit the panic button,” Doeren said. “I know this is a really early part of what’s going on.”