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Tony Gibson ready to start over with Wolfpack defense

NC State football’s new defensive coordinator Tony Gibson is blunt. There are going to be changes, and perhaps a lot of them, coming for the Wolfpack.

Gibson was promoted two weeks ago to the title, along with being moved from safeties coach to linebackers. Gibson was the co-defensive coordinator last season, assisting Dave Huxtable, who held the position Gibson now occupies for the past seven seasons with the Wolfpack. Huxtable was let go following the end of the campaign.

Gibson noted that NC State head coach Dave Doeren approached him after making the move with Huxtable and asked for Gibson’s vision. Gibson sensed after those conversations that Doeren was on the same page with him.

Gibson is not looking to replicate his defenses at West Virginia, where he was the defensive coordinator for five years prior to NC State. He’s also not going to try to re-do the Wisconsin defense that Doeren helped establish when the Wolfpack head coach was the Badgers’ defensive coordinator from 2006-10.

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Gibson was promoted to defensive coordinator two weeks ago.
Gibson was promoted to defensive coordinator two weeks ago. (Ken Martin/The Wolfpacker)

He’s also not just making a few tweaks to what NC State’s defense has been.

“We’re going to blow everything up and start over and build this defense around our personnel that we have,” Gibson said.

He then added: “I assured all the kids and I assured all the families that it’s going to look totally different than it did a year ago.”

Gibson has a starting point for his idea of what the shape of the defense will look like, and he likes some of the pieces. He noted the coaches have high expectations for soon-to-be eligible redshirt junior defensive end Jeffrey Gunter, who sat out last year as a transfer from Coastal Carolina.

Gibson also praised the year that rising-junior nose tackle Alim McNeill had in 2019, and he likes the returning experience at linebacker.

“I feel really good about what we have here,” Gibson added. “It was good to be here for a year and sit back and kind of evaluate and see the strong pieces and where I thought maybe we could make a difference next year. Where we’re going to make a difference in spring ball with some of the players that we have.

“It may be some position moves. It may be guys that have played some at one spot to move to another, and just getting guys that we have to fit our scheme. That’s kind of what we addressed in this recruiting stuff.”

One of the priorities in recruiting was to add some help in the secondary, he noted.

“There’s been obviously a lot of injuries that hurt us this year, and we have to try to build this thing with speed and get more guys that are athletic enough to play corner and safety and the back five positions,” Gibson explained. “I want to be able to take a kid that is a nickel, a corner, a safety and be able to move those guys.”

While the offseason will now be filled with speculation about what to expect from a new-look defense, Gibson did offer one hint about what might be coming.

“My style is aggressive,” Gibson said. “I joke all the time, I live aggressive. I don’t want to sit back and let somebody dictate to us how we’re going to play defense. We want to bring that to them.”

Before the team left campus for winter break, Gibson made it a point to meet with the defensive players.

“Kind of gave them my vision, what we wanted to do and how we wanted to build this thing,” Gibson said. “I want them to have ownership. I want those guys to feel comfortable and be confident in what we’re doing and what we’re building.

“I’m not going to try to come here and do what we did at West Virginia. I want them to completely reset and start over. I think that’s the only way we can build success.”

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