NC State hires Dave Doeren [5:25 Update]

Click here for video designed to help you get more familiar with NC State’s new football coach.

5:25pm Update
NC State fans who were fearful of a long and drawn-out coaching search had nothing to worry about this year as Athletics Director, Debbie Yow moved exceptionally quickly to hire the candidate that we can only believe was her #1 candidate from the beginning. (Arkansas has only had about 8 months to prepare to hire a new coach).

Dave Doeren, most recently the Head Coach at Northern Illinois, will be publicly announced as the next NC State Head Football Coach at a press conference on Sunday afternoon at 4pm.

Northern Illinois won their second consecutive MAC Championship Doeren’s overall record at NIU over two years as head coach was 23-4 and 17-1 against Mid-American Conference (MAC) opponents, having won 21 of their last 22 games. NIU had the highest scoring differential (Scoring O-Scoring D) in the MAC this year with an astounding 23.0 points as they gave up only 17.5 points per game while scoring 40.5 points per game.

NC State fans across the internet are initially expressing satisfaction and appreciation of the hire; he is young, intelligent, dynamic and will embrace the NC State culture like Mark Gottfried did. The N&O’s Joe Giglio has tweeted that Doeren’s deal is worth $1.8 million per year for five years. So, make no mistake that Doeren will be expected to deliver results in return for the faith shown by Debbie Yow and NC State. SFN has not yet confirmed the early indications that Doeren will bring most of his staff with him. You can learn more about this staff by clicking here.

Doeren was also drawing attention from Auburn, Boston College and Purdue for their open coaching positions. (Link to Yahoo! Sports article)

One day after leading Northern Illinois to its second consecutive Mid-American Conference title and into contention for a BCS bowl berth, Dave Doeren has emerged as one of the hottest coaches in the country.

Auburn, North Carolina State and Purdue have all expressed interest in the second-year Huskies coach, industry sources told Yahoo! Sports.

Link to NC State’s announcement.

Dave Doeren, finalist for the 2012 National Collegiate Coach of the Year Award, sponsored by the Maxwell Football Club, has been named head football coach at NC State, Director of Athletics Deborah A. Yow announced today. He comes to the Wolfpack from his position as head football coach for the No. 18 nationally-ranked Northern Illinois University.

“Coach Dave Doeren is a highly motivated overachiever who shares our goals to pursue aggressively a high level of achievement in the classroom and on the field of competition,” stated Yow.

Doeren’s overall record at NIU over two years as head coach was 23-4 and 17-1 against Mid-American Conference (MAC) opponents. This season, Doeren led the Huskies to a school-record 12-win season that came on the heels of an 11-win season in 2011. With his recent win over Kent State, he captured his second MAC championship. NIU is the only NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision team to win 21 of its last 22 games.

In his two seasons at the helm, Coach Doeren’s prolific offense scored 40 points or more 16 times in 27 games. This season alone, the program scored 40.8 points per game and is in the Top 15 nationally in 4th down conversions (2nd), rushing offense (9th), scoring offense (10th), 3rd down conversions (15th), and total offense (15th).

“I am honored and excited to join the Wolfpack. NC State has world-class facilities and fans that are second to none,” Doeren said. “I want to thank Chancellor Woodson and Debbie Yow for this tremendous opportunity. My family and I can’t wait to get to Raleigh and become Wolfpackers. While I look forward to our future at State, I want to acknowledge and thank the Northern Illinois players and fans for their support the last two years, especially President Peters and Jeff Compher [athletic director].”

Doeren has mentored Heisman Trophy candidate Jordan Lynch, the most productive dual-threat quarterback in the nation, who gained 2,962 passing and 1,771 rushing yards with 43 TDs. Lynch currently ranks third nationally in total offense.

[snip]

Prior to becoming the head coach at Northern Illinois, Doeren served a five-year stint from 2006-2010 at the University of Wisconsin as the co-defensive coordinator, linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator. He finished his last three years as defensive coordinator and his defenses were consistently ranked in the Top 25. During Doeren’s time there, Wisconsin posted a 49-16 record and played in five bowl games (Rose Bowl, Outback Bowl, Capital One Bowl and twice in the Champs Sports Bowl).

Doeren arrived at Wisconsin after four seasons (2002-05) at the University of Kansas. He was the linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator for three seasons before being promoted to co-defensive coordinator. The Jayhawks led the Big 12 Conference and ranked No. 3 nationally in rushing defense in 2005 and were 11th nationally in total defense.

Doeren coached the secondary at NCAA Division I-AA (now Football Championship Subdivision) power Montana for two seasons in 2000 and 2001 and was the Grizzlies’ recruiting coordinator for one year. Montana won the I-AA national championship in 2001 and went 28-3 with two conference titles in Doeren’s two seasons there.

He started his college coaching career as an assistant at Drake from 1995-97, where he coached linebackers before adding defensive coordinator responsibilities in 1997.

A four-year letterwinner at Drake (1990-93), Doeren earned Academic All-America honors as a senior and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in pre-medical biology and a master’s degree in educational leadership.

Doeren was an assistant at Kansas and Wisconsin before taking the Northern Illinois job in Dec. 2010. His background is as a linebackers’ coach and defensive coordinator but the Huskies run a version of the spread offense and rank 12th in the country in scoring (40.5 points per game) and 16th in total offense (482.5 yards per game).

 

What they are saying:
* BC Interruption (link)

For Boston College, this eliminates one of the prime MAC coaching candidates from the Eagles’ wish list. May we see a rematch of the 2012 MAC Championship Game coaching match-up as an ACC Atlantic Division showdown in 2013?

* Sports Illustrated’s Stewart Mandel chimed in with a positive response (link)

 

Previous entry
Last night, Northern Illinois’ Head Coach just won his second consecutive conference championship. Today, Doeren may be in the process of cashing in on his success with a new job at NC State.

After the News & Observer shared that Debbie Yow is meeting with Doeren this afternoon, WRAL’s Jeff Gravely just tweeted a more substantial comment. Gravely is known to have developed a strong relationship with NC State’s Debbie Yow, so this comment could have some significance:

Not to be out done, WTVD’s Mark Armstrong just followed up with the following:

A little bit more than 24 hours ago I was discounting the potential that Northern Illinois’ Dave Doeren could be NC State’s next head coach. For those that don’t know, Jerry Kill was the head coach at Northern Illinois before taking the Minnesota job two years ago. Kill was beset with health issues (seizures) throughout the 2012 season. During this past week some insiders in the MAC and Big Ten part of the country were speculating that Kill would retire due to medical reasons and Doeren would step in at Minnesota as the obvious fit for continuity reasons.

Link from yesterday’s Washington Post article titled, “Kill’s seizures haven’t gone away, but determined Gophers coach has school backing.”

For an NC State-centric Q&A focused on Doeren you can click here.

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Dave Doeren NCS Football

41 Responses to NC State hires Dave Doeren [5:25 Update]

  1. choppack1 12/01/2012 at 6:21 PM #

    Solid hire. Best of the candidates we had a chance at IMHO.

  2. MrPlywood 12/01/2012 at 6:28 PM #

    Beat The Hat.

  3. Lunatic Fringe 12/01/2012 at 6:36 PM #

    17 recruits from Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina. The recruiting coordinator (best recruiter) was at Ole Miss.. Pretty impressive number of southern players for a school located in Dekalb, Ill.

    I also believe he will have some staff staying at NIU so some room to add guys from our staff or else where.

    Great hire.

  4. 61Packer 12/01/2012 at 6:49 PM #

    It is indeed a great hire!

  5. wolfinisolation 12/01/2012 at 7:03 PM #

    NIU AD Compher was at State for ten plus years

  6. albunde6 12/01/2012 at 8:12 PM #

    Point of order with regard to recruiting for new coach: 48 players at NIU are Freshmen, RS Freshmen and Sophomores.

    18 Illinois (3 soph)
    8 Wisconsin (2 soph)
    7 Missouri (6 soph)
    4 Florda (2 soph)
    2 Michigan 2 Kansas
    2 Indiana 1 Minnesota 1 Ohio 1 North Dakota 1 Alabama 1 Canada

    These are his recruits. We can assume nothing from these numbers for recruiting at State.
    Good hire, no Drama.

    Go Pack!

  7. tlk1969 12/01/2012 at 8:21 PM #

    I REALLY like this fella!

    I sincerely appreciate what TOB has done while he was HC, and I wish him all the best!

    Having said that, “Welcome to the family, Coach D! I think we’ll all be very happy together!”

    And, lastly, to Dr. Yow: “Great job with both your speed and results. . . I have great faith in what your doing, and I honestly sleep well knowing you’re running the AD.”

    GO PACK!

  8. chriscgray 12/01/2012 at 10:07 PM #

    Who cares if the guy doesn’t have a southern connection. I looked at his current roster and he has a few NC guys and some Florida guys. He will be fine with recruiting, looks like he’s had a long resume of it for being such a young coach. Heard steve logan say we would have to crack the 2 million annual mark to hire someone, so its good we should have money left for coordinators

  9. WolftownVA81 12/01/2012 at 10:14 PM #

    This appears to be a very good hire. I was pleased with what I saw him do last night but that was only one game. However, I do have faith that Debbie did her due diligence and we got the best man for the job. I think we have sme exciting times ahead. Welcome coach Dave.

  10. BureauOfMines 12/02/2012 at 1:35 AM #

    This is great. I’m very optimistic.

  11. lawful 12/02/2012 at 7:30 AM #

    So goes the credibility of my source.

  12. tobaccordshow 12/02/2012 at 8:15 AM #

    Old13 – I spent a year in KC after college. Liked the town although winter sucked. Good BBQ for sure but still have a soft spot for eastern NC.

  13. saigonwolf 12/02/2012 at 8:19 AM #

    Based on many of the comments I’ve read on this site over the past several months since there was speculation TOB would either resign or be fired, I think DD is exactly the coach many here wanted. Also, as far as I’m concerned, his hiring gives this site that much more credibility with me, because I had never even heard of DD until he was mentioned HERE as a candidate. So kudos from me to those of you who thought he was a good candidate, and I totally agree! I’m excited for the 2013 season.

  14. Texpack 12/02/2012 at 9:04 AM #

    This is the type of guy I wanted to see hired. He’s got all of the background you want to see and all of the unanswered questions too. Can he recruit at the next level in our neck of the woods? Is he the product of an exceptional QB? Time will tell. If you don’t make this move you never find out. Well worth the risk.

  15. WPPHAN 12/02/2012 at 11:10 AM #

    Anyone know what time the presser is today????

  16. ChiefJoJo 12/02/2012 at 1:40 PM #

    “I don’t understand… Isn’t Yow supposed to fumble around for a month, loose 25 lbs from the stress of the search and ultimately hire a third tier candidate?”

    LOL. Awesome. Yow knows what she’s doing. You never know how it will work out but from what I’m seeing this looks like a really solid hire, and confirms again that wNC State FINALLY has very competent leadership in Woodson and Yow.

    He’s has head coaching experience, is energetic, young, seems to relate to players, has produced good results, has no off the field issues, and values education. Given that he was a hot commodity in coaching circles, I’m impressed Yow was able to bring him in so quickly.

    So will he be coaching the bowl game?

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