As the 2013 NC State football season is slowly spiraling into the abyss, there has been a lot of discussion about the new coaching staff as well as the talent level inherited by Dave Doeren. The excellent guest column from Monday gives a lot of perspective on the time needed to turn around the football program as did this entry that points out that there’s no place to go but up. This entry is sort of a companion piece that takes a look at the talent level the three previous football coaches inherited for some perspective on the players Coach Doeren was left to work with.
When AD Debbie Yow fired Tom O’Brien she had the following to say about recruiting: “I have a great deal of respect for people who are aggressive, assertive recruiters,” Yow said. “I believe in this day and age, it is required.”
That lack of aggression under the previous coaching staff has been rearing its ugly head this season. According to Scout.com, NC State’s 2012 recruiting class ranked 61st, the 2011 class ranked 75th, the 2010 class was ranked 47th and the 2009 class was ranked 39th. The 2013 class that was a combo of O’Brien & Doeren was ranked 53rd.
So what did Coach Doeren have to work with when he arrived in Raleigh and how does that compare with the talent levels the previous 3 head coaches inherited?
10 players on Tom O’Brien’s first team in 2007 made it to the NFL.
13 players from Chuck Amato’s first team in 2000 made it to the NFL.
8 players from Mike O’Cain’s first team in 1993 made it to the NFL.
With all due respect to the players on the current roster, who on the 2013 Wolfpack team will be suiting up on Sundays? The first name that comes to mind is our kicker. Maybe Shadrach Thornton, maybe Dontae Johnson, maybe one or two of the guys on the d-line, maybe a healthy Rob Crisp. But all those are really big maybes.
For some perspective, TOB inherited Andre Brown, Nate Irving and Russell Wilson. Chuck had Philip Rivers, Koren Robinson, Jerricho Cotchery, Adrian Wilson, Terrence Holt & Levar Fisher. MOC had Damien Covington, Carl Reeves and Dewayne Washington. All those guys you could look at and easily say, “Yeah, that guy’s good, he’ll be playing on Sundays”. I honestly can’t say that about a single player on this year’s team. And I mean no disrespect by that. I appreciate these guys suiting up in the red and white but they obviously need some more help.
Of course a good QB can cure a lot of ills on a football team. Mike O’Cain had 2 sport star Terry Harvey at QB. Chuck Amato had a future NFL Pro Bowl QB in Philip Rivers. Tom O’Brien had Daniel Evans (even though he had limitations, he knew what he was capable of) and a future NFL pro bowl QB in Russell Wilson waiting in the wings. Dave Doeren inherited Pete Thomas (who hadn’t played in a year because of transferring from Colorado St) and Manny Stocker (who got a whopping 2 pass attempts of experience backing up Mike Glennon). Doeren had to go out and find Brandon Mitchell himself and Mitchell had been playing receiver at Arkansas. Not quite the Jordan Lynch Doeren was used to lining up under center.
To give our QB situation some perspective:
Harrison Beck’s QB rating in his 2 years at State: 93.41 and 95.41
Brandon Mitchell’s QB rating this year: 92.39
Jay Davis’s QB rating his Jr year (full time starting QB): 115.44
Pete Thomas’s QB rating this year: 112.87
Using QB rating as a barometer, Brandon Mitchell is playing worse than Harrison Beck and Pete Thomas is playing worse than Jay Davis. Let that sink in.
Listed below are the NFL players on each coach’s first team.
Disclaimer: For true freshman it’s hard to know where to give the credit for recruiting that player. For sake of this argument I’m counting true freshman as inherited by the new coach, there are enough examples like Philip Rivers, Russell Wilson & Markus Kuhn where the previous staff did a lot of the heavy lifting in recruiting. There are also lineman that switched sides of the ball like Sean Locklear and Ted Larsen so I tried to list them where they ultimately ended up playing.
Tom O’Brien – 2007 (5-7)
Andre Brown – Jr – RB
Audie Cole – Fr – LB
Anthony Hill – Sr – TE
Nate Irving – Fr-R – LB
Markus Kuhn – Fr – DL
Ted Larsen – So-R – C
DaJuan Morgan – Jr-R – SS
DeMario Pressley – Sr – DT
J.R. Sweezy – Fr – DL
Russell Wilson – Fr – QB
On offense, TOB inherited NFL caliber players at running back (Brown), tight end (Hill), center (Larsen) and quarterback (Wilson), although Wilson redshirted that season. On defense, 2 linebackers (Cole & Irving), 3 d-linemen (Kuhn, Pressley & Sweezy) and a defensive back (Morgan).
Chuck Amato – 2000 (8-4)
Jarvis Borum – Sr-R – OT
Chris Colmer – Fr-R – OT
Jerricho Cotchery – Fr – WR
Levar Fisher – Jr – LB
Terrence Holt – So-R – S
Scott Kooistra – So – OT
Sean Locklear – Fr-R – OL
Philip Rivers – Fr – QB
Koren Robinson – So-R – WR
Corey Smith – Jr-R – DE
Clayton White – Sr-R – LB
Brian Williams – Jr – DB
Adrian Wilson – Jr – DB
On offense Chuck inherited NFL caliber players at QB (Rivers), 2 wide receivers (Robinson & Cotchery) and 4 offensive lineman (Borum, Colmer, Kooistra & Locklear). On defense, 2 linebackers (Fisher & White), a defensive lineman (Smith) and 3 defensive backs (Holt, Williams & Wilson).
Mike O’Cain – 1993 (7-5)
Ricky Bell – Fr – SS
Damien Covington – Jr – LB
Gary Downs – Sr – RB
George Hegamin – So – OT
Kenny Harris – Fr – SS
Carl Reeves – Jr – DT
William Strong – Jr – CB
Dewayne Washington – Sr – DB
On offense MOC inherited a running back (Downs) and an offensive lineman (Hegamin). On defense, a linebacker (Covington), a d-lineman (Reeves), and 4 defensive backs (Bell, Harris, Strong & Washington). WR Eddie Goines was also on this team, if he doesn’t get injured I would guess he would have made an NFL roster. And of course MOC was an assistant under previous head coach Dick Sheridan so he was partially responsible for the talent he took over.
As you can see, the 3 previous head coaches all inherited some pretty good NFL level talent when they took over the job. However, Dave Doeren is having to deal with the recruiting results that was part of Tom O’Brien being fired.
