COVID-19 vaccination rates will remain a popular topic for a while when it comes to collegiate athletics, and NC State football head coach Dave Doeren was predictably asked about the topic during ACC Kickoff in Charlotte on Thursday afternoon.

Doeren acknowledged that while he was heartbroken over the fate of his good friend and Wolfpack baseball coach Elliott Avent’s squad at the College World Series, when a COVID outbreak led to the NCAA eliminating the Pack on the cusp of a potential national title, it was also a learning opportunity.

“We're going to talk about it when we get together collectively,” Doeren noted. “Our guys have seen it. We've talked one-on-one with several of the players. Like everyone, my job is to help these young men grow, help these guys compete, put them in the best places they can be and keep them as safe as I can keep them.

“At the same time, it's not my job to make medical decisions for our football team. All I can do is educate them, get them around the people that can help them make great choices. That's what I'm trying to do.”

Notebook: NC State players at the 2021 ACC Football Kickoff

Top five takeaways from Doeren's time at ACC Kickoff

The threshold for allowing normal operations inside the football facilities is an 85-percent vaccination rate for the team. Doeren did not provide specifics, but he seemed optimistic.

“Where we're at numbers-wise, we're going to be in a good place,” Doeren said. “I don't know exactly what our percentage is today. I feel comfortable with where we're headed.

“Guys have to make decisions for themselves. I just want to know why they're making those decisions, and can I help them get the info to make the right ones for them and protect us, protect our team, but ultimately make them feel good about the decisions they've made.”

Doeren noted that when you go into preseason camp knowing who your starting quarterback is going to be — in this case redshirt sophomore Devin Leary — “there’s just a different feel as a head coach.”

Leary confessed that he has a newfound appreciation for the little things in football after breaking his leg in his third start of 2020. Doeren can see the leader in the quarterback coming out more comfortably.

“I think he has a lot of respect from his teammates,” Doeren said. “He takes it very serious. He loves it; he’s tough. He’s growing as a leader. He’s learning how to speak. I think that comes with being a good player.

“Early in your career, you want to lead. Particularly at quarterback, you’re used to leading. You get to a school and you haven’t made enough plays yet to be a leader, vocally. Now he’s done that, and he’s learned the value of all the little things that you take for granted when you are not an injured player.”

Doeren also felt that Leary, “made a positive out of a negative" when it comes to the injury.

“He learned a lot about himself,” Doeren added. “He learned a lot about preparation.”

Leary’s healthy return is one of several reasons why there is a lot of optimism surrounding NC State’s football team in 2021.

Doeren appreciates the depth that his staff has built for the fall.

“Just the experience and the depth that we have at most positions, where we can sustain an injury and put out a product that we can feel like we can beat people with week-in and week-out,” Doeren said. "It’s not always like that."

That said, the coach is not prepared to say if his team is better than 2020, yet.

“Last year was a fun team to coach,” he added. “We had a great chemistry. We overcame a lot of adversity. We did a lot of great things together. A lot of them are back and they want to be better than last year. I can’t tell you we are until we prove that we are.”

Doeren identified two areas of competition on the depth chart that are among the most intense heading into preseason camp.

“In the secondary, there is a lot of competition, at the corner spot, at our strong safety position, the backup positions at free safety and nickel, there’s really some good competition,” Doeren noted. “On the offensive line, with Joe Sculthorpe leaving there’s a lot of competition for his spot [at right guard].”

Two hot-button issues in college football are name, image and likeness (NIL) rights for players and the potential expansion of the playoff.

On the latter, Doeren and other coaches met with officials involved in planning for the potential expansion to 12 teams for the postseason prize on Tuesday. Doeren remains on the fence about the idea.

“There’s a lot to come on that,” Doeren said. “Am I against it or for it? I don’t know if I’m either yet. I was a part of the 16-team [FCS] playoff twice at Montana and went to the national championship twice so I understand the length of the season and how that played on our roster, but at the FCS level we don’t have [non-playoff] bowls.”

On NIL, Doeren’s main priority is making sure players are educated and informed on the decisions that they make.

“As you can imagine, people want to take advantage of them,” Doeren said. “We just want to be there for them through it and hope that they get the good side of it, not the bad side of it.”

He also understands that some bigger brand programs may try to turn it into a recruiting advantage.

“Some schools are going to have guys that make a ton of money and they’re going to walk in their homes and say, ‘Come here and you can be like that.’ You can predict that is going to happen,” Doeren acknowledged. “How much is that going to happen in the ACC, where one school has it all? I don’t know.

“I am just trying to coach football right now and help my guys. We are still in COVID, by the way, it’s not gone. We are still having to manage all that. There’s a lot of other things I am more concerned about.”

Reports surfaced Wednesday that both Texas and Oklahoma are considering leaving the Big 12 with eyes on joining the SEC.

Doeren’s big break in coaching at the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) level came as a defensive assistant at Kansas in the Big 12. The purist in Doeren wishes that the league had retained its configuration from those days.

“I was in the Big 12 when it was the Big 12,” Doeren noted, referring to when the league had Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Texas A&M. Now Colorado is in the Pac-12, Nebraska in the Big 10, and Missouri and Texas A&M in the SEC.

“We had incredible rivalries in that conference, it was awesome. It really was,” Doeren concluded.

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