Coach D, you have us so confused

'13 Football Dave Doeren Football Recruiting NCS Football86

The following entry was originally published on November 30th.

I don’t even know what the best format to write this post would be. I’ve heard so many different points and counter points about Coach D, this team and the staff as a whole that I don’t know what to think so I’ll write them all out with a few facts and maybe you all can help me decipher what the hell to think.

Point – TOB left this team without any talent.
Taking a look at the recruiting rankings a few comparable programs from 2008 – 2013, which would be an entire class plus a redshirt year you’ll see some interesting numbers:

Baylor Currently #9 & 9 – 1 in Big 12
2013 – 31
2012 – 45
2011 – 46
2010 – 39
2009 – 55
2008 – 51
Average class ranking of 42.83

Missouri Currently #5 & 10-1 in SEC
2008 – 25
2009 – 40
2010 – 21
2011 – 48
2012 – 31
2013 – 41
Average class ranking of 34.33

Louisville – Currently ranked #20 & 10-1 in AAC
2008 – 55
2009 – 77
2010 – 48
2011 – 29
2012 – 42
2013 – 52
Average Class ranking of 50.5

NC State – Currently unranked 3-9 in ACC
2008 – 31
2009 – 52
2010 – 34
2011 – 87
2012 – 53
2013 – 47
Average class ranking of 50.6

Validity – Questionable at best This is a small sample but you can see that recruiting, while important, isn’t the whole story or my small sampling of schools are a bunch of outliers who are out performing their rankings. We know recruiting is important and these rankings don’t include busts, transfers, or injuries but it is hard for me to believe that teams like Marshall, ECU, Wake Forest, and Duke are that much more talented than us.

Point – Coach D needs time.
Taking a look at the other first year coaches, some who were rumored to be in the running for our position before DD was hired

Sonny Dykes @ Cal: 1 – 11 (1 win being vs Portland State, lost 10 in a row) *Side note, Cal’s average recruiting class is 25.8!!!*
Darrell Hazell @ Purdue: 1 – 10 (currently losing to Indiana would make 10 in a row, 1 win vs Indiana State)
Willie Taggert @ USF: 2 – 9 (beat Cincy and UCONN)
Bret Bielema @ Arkansas: 3-9 (beat Louisiana, So. Miss, Samford, 0-8 in conference)

Validity? – Valid. First year coaching is hard and coaches don’t get fired and leave behind good teams.

Point – We are young
There is no disputing that we are one of the youngest teams in country. Taking a look at the number of returning starters across the country you’ll see very few major conference teams with less returning starters than NC State. Here are the teams with the 5 lowest number of returning starters in the 5 major conferences.

NC State (5 offense/5 defense), Michigan (6 / 5 ), K State (7 / 1), Cal (6 / 5), Florida (6 / 5).

As you can see, all of these teams have had tough years and if you look at the opposite, teams with highest number or returning starters overall they’ve had great years. Teams like FSU with an average recruiting class of 7.5 are able to overcome having only 10 returning starters. Maybe one day we’ll take a deeper look and find the correlation here but not today.

Validity? – 100% valid, it is hard as hell to win with young teams.

Point – WTF Play Calling
There are two areas here that I’ve heard people talking about, the aggressive play calling & the vanilla play calling. While we as a fan base have been yearning for an aggressive play caller, some of the calls this year have even the most die-hard fans scratching their head. Fake punts in particular but going for it at inopportune times have been particular areas of concern. I’ll give Coach D a pass here since I like the aggressive nature and if half of these plays had worked it wouldn’t be an issue. The area that I can not for the life of me understand is what we saw today, 4rth & short and we line up in shotgun/pistol formation. When you have a 6-4, 240lb QB and you need 6 inches on 4rth down. Line up under center and let him Cam Newton his way to a first down. The play-action rollout today was extremely puzzling when a score late in the 3rd would have put us right back in the game.

Point – Coach D doesn’t have a QB to run his system
If you want to see the type of offense that coach D wants to run turn on Auburn or Baylor this year and watch those guys run the ball. I believe it was vs Texas Tech Baylor had 5 running backs with over 100 yards and right now Auburn has 2 100 yard rushers and is tied with #1 Alabama. The offense works, is exciting but does require the right personnel.

Taking a further look at our QBs you’ll see: a converted WR who never started a game at QB, a QB who transferred in with a – 5 INT ratio and was sacked 71 times in 2 previous seasons, a guy who is transferring, 2 walk-ons and a guy who had no other BCS scholarships and chose NC State over Harvard.

Validity?. Valid but coach DD has put a lot of pressure on Jacoby before he’s even taken a snap in a State uniform.

Conclusion
While this was without a doubt one of the most painful seasons I can ever remember, partly because of the results of the field and partly because of the kick in the balls that the #OurState campaign turned out to be, Coach DD needs and deserves time to get the program running the way he wants it. I know it is hard for everyone but we really need to reserve judgement and support the entire staff as they continue to put together a very good first full recruiting class.

PS – I’m completely impressed with the crowd at the State vs Maryland game today. I was expecting an abysmal showing but outside of the lack of students (home for the holiday excuse), there was a very good crowd at Carter Finley today. Good job Packies.

About JackWolf

I'm an unapologetic NC State fan but also consider myself a rational one. Hit me up on twitter if you want to talk @NCStateFootball

'13 Football Dave Doeren Football Recruiting NCS Football

86 Responses to Coach D, you have us so confused

  1. mak4dpak 12/01/2013 at 3:46 AM #

    Still bugs me though, as I see it in my memory. 4th and inches, we go into the shotgun, instead of right under center to gain inches, we have to make it back to the line, then try to get the inches. ??????? And does Mitchell ever attempt to throw the ball then, when being tackled. No. He just holds on, when the ball is going to be turned over anyway if we don’t get the 1st down. Still ?????? Again thankful to the basketball team for ending my day on a good note.

  2. JackWolf 12/01/2013 at 7:04 AM #

    Greywolf & Alpha,

    I did mention the QB situation being the fact that we don’t have one and our best backup scholarship QB only had another offer from Harvard. Very Bleak.

    Bridgewater was a 4-star QB out of high school and Bryce Petty was a 3 star. Not a world beater by any means.

    My mentioning of other coaches who we were evaluating for our position wasn’t to point out the negative of the process, these were really the only big jobs that changed hands last year and I find it hard to believe all the coaches who got jobs last season all forgot how to coach as some people would suggest.

    I could have wrote another few paragraphs but I wanted to get it out before the hoops game…I’ll do a part 2

  3. JackWolf 12/01/2013 at 7:09 AM #

    Here’s something that supports the importance of recruiting.

    Take a look at the 2011 class, which is our lowest rated class in 20 years. http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncstate/football/recruiting/commitments/2011/northcarolinastate-7 These are the guys that are playing now, a whole bunch of 2-stars that no one wanted.

    This was the most damaging thing TOB has done to us.

  4. wolf71 12/01/2013 at 7:12 AM #

    Well since some of you are so smart and believe in the WTNY campaign that has been happening forever, keep enjoying dumpster fires and the typical 6-7 year win plateau! You forget Ralph was also a problem at MD with his contract.

  5. TheCOWDOG 12/01/2013 at 9:13 AM #

    Confused? The only thing confusing is how some of you dolts seem to think a football team should be built.

    There was nothing confusing about this campaign, and to the credit of the usual good, knowledgeable, posters…the reasons why the dead body doesn’t lie at the feet of Doeren have been pointed out in spades.

    Like. ‘foose, I have given the D side of the equation some skeptical, if not quizzical, squints…For exactly the same reasons. I think that may go under the microscope.

  6. Pack1998 12/01/2013 at 9:23 AM #

    High side for this team was probably 5 wins, low side was 2 wins — so all in all, we’re pissed about a 2 win difference (3 wins vs 5 wins). We were certainly in a few games this year in the ACC . . . we usually sneak out with one of those wins, and we didn’t this year.

    Injuries hurt us, and the Brandon Mitchell injury early was a very, very big set-back as he needed those reps in the early games.

    DD will do well, it takes time.

    I certainly, like everyone here, hated a some of our play calls. We didn’t convert in the Red Zone well this season, that really bothered me. And Thorton and Smith are special players, need to use them better next year.

    One silver lining . . . every coach that ends up being a very, very good coach always has their worst year in year 1. This is DDs bad year. DD is learning on the job, which is fine, b/c his upside is huge . . . gotta keep his wits and grind some things out right now.

  7. TheAliasTroll 12/01/2013 at 10:26 AM #

    You guys bashing TOB in defense of DD should know this, DD has a long uphill battle to even sniff TOBs jock strap at this point.

    And don’t fool yourselves, the good record Dave O’fer sported at NIU can be attributed to QB Jordan Lynch. Jordan has that team at 12-0 this year under 41 year old junior coach Rod Carey.

    I’m just glad it won’t take but a couple more years of these results before everyone will be on the same page that we were likely duped & hired ourselves a “green behind the ears” 40 year old coach who is in over his head outside of the MAC.

  8. JohnGalt78 12/01/2013 at 10:29 AM #

    End of year three. Then we will know.

  9. TheAliasTroll 12/01/2013 at 10:46 AM #

    Also I’m not the least bit impressed with Dave O’fers recruiting to date.

    It’s been pointed out TOBs worst recruting year was in 2011. Well that recruting class averaged 2.75 stahhhs.

    Dave’s 2014 recruiting class averages 2.83 stahhhs. For those not good at math, I’ll let you know that ain’t a vast improvement.

    Now after the garbage of a season we just posted and with us losing to every team in the state, logically it would stand that the future of recruiting doesn’t really bode well for us now does it?

    Prepare your cornholes for the next several years, fellas. We’re in a bad way. Just whatever you do make sure to do your part and show up in the 2nd half of the games to witness entirety of the bludgeonings.

  10. RTPMedic 12/01/2013 at 12:27 PM #

    No, you do not fire a first-year football coach for not going to a bowl. You have some argument for no conference wins, but in the end you don’t fire him for that either. Don’t get me wrong, I am holding final judgement on Coach Dave until he’s had at least another year to establish his system of football.
    That being said, there are two things I have observed all season and both are due to a definite lack of coaching. First, there have been way too many times our guys look lost on the field. Second, offensive play-calling looked like it was being done by random pick-of-the-hat. I haven’t seen ‘aggressive play-calling’…only questionable ones.

  11. Adventuroo 12/01/2013 at 1:29 PM #

    Do NOT know how the table from Excel will turn out….Probably LOUSY….

    But,

    Notice anything in the following? Look how we did and what we did when we had QB’s that were a scoring threat….

    I have the utmost admiration for TOB. He ended the “Thug-A-Lete” era that Chuck had (or was castigated for by our rivals and the press) brought to Raleigh.

    TOB promised us that he would develop a LINE (both types) like he had done before….and like some politicians, “If you do NOT like your LINE, I will build you a NEW LINE”, he did not deliver.

    I would also point out that if you look at RW’s record his “SR” year versus his “GRAD” year at Wisconsin, then you KNOW that we did not really provide any supporting role in his performances. Here is a link to the Wiki….if I copied something wrong, it was a clerical mistake….

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NC_State_Wolfpack_football

    Cutting DD or judging him this year is just “fantasy” talk. I would have more impact writing about the politics of Washington.

    He misspoke (as have other coaches – TOB – after Pitt WIN – WE ARE NOT A GOOD FOOTBALL TEAM) and should not have commented on fan participation. After attending both the FGCU and EKU games and seeing all the vacant seats, Coach Gott would KILL for the actual attendance numbers (as well as sales of season tickets) that Coach D has….and he will learn from that.

    Read ’em and weep…..which is what Coach D did after REALLY looking at what he had inherited. I suspect he cried for several days and was on Meds for awhile….I sure would have been…..

    Coach YR W/L Bowl QB
    Amato 2000 8 – 4 Y PR
    Amato 2001 7 – 5 Y PR
    Amato 2002 11 – 3 (12) Y PR
    Amato 2003 8 – 5 Y PR
    Amato 2004 5 – 6 N JD
    Amato 2005 7 – 5 Y MS?
    Amato 2006 3 – 9 N DE
    O’Brien 2007 5 – 7 N DE
    O’Brien 2008 6 – 7 Y RW
    O’Brien 2009 5 – 7 N RW
    O’Brien 2010 9 – 4 (25) Y RW
    O’Brien 2011 8 – 5 Y MG
    O’Brien 2012 7 – 6 Y MG
    Doeren 2013 3 – 9 M BM

  12. Wolfman 9806 12/01/2013 at 3:01 PM #

    ^ makes me wish CTC and his white sunglasses was still here!

  13. graywolf 12/01/2013 at 3:43 PM #

    I have a close friend/co-worker that is a very well respected NC high school coach. He has coached football players that ended up being stars at NC State. After the spring practice I asked him how good we looked. His response was that the starting 22 looked like any other ACC team. The second and third string looked like want to be walk-ons. So from a talent point of view we are no where near where we need to be after the TOB era.

  14. bill.onthebeach 12/01/2013 at 5:47 PM #

    Things we know and things we will never know.
    Closing comments on this football season….

    1. What goes on in the locker room stays in the locker room. If there was any “turmoil” that resulted from the coaching change in the locker room, it never left the room and was never noticeable on the field. Our guys played with intensity in the face of adversity in every game. (Yes, I still have strong visual memories of the 2012 Virginia game ) Coach DD and staff get a A for this as this is never a guarantee with any coaching change anywhere and would have set the new Coach back two or three seasons.

    2. Coach’s play calling / game adjustments. After the TOB years where no one at SFN showed any love for our OC and DC ( I forget their names but remember the predicable 3 down calls and numerous boners like the punt down the middle of the field instead of to the sidelines in last year’s UNx game –a play we never practiced ), the number of head scratching play calls was no fewer than previous seasons. The difference was only that they were consistently on the aggressive side rather than the conservative side.

    Considering that Coach is trying to get his guys to do the impossible albeit with less talent, I don’t really know any other way to lead by example than with aggressive play calling.

    I do suspect that Coach may have under estimated the opponents Coaches on occasion. You ain’t going to consistently outcoach the majority of ACC head coaches.

    The confusion getting on and off the field, etc, is another matter, that will straighten itself out before next season.

    3.Nobody wanted to win the game more than our Coaches yesterday, and I would have felt the same way. That said…. ya’ll know I’m a BBall guy and don’t know squat about football. Nevertheless, if the game yesterday was a Bball game and I was coaching, I would put a “spy” or a doubleteam on the Twerp QB and dared anybody else on the field to beat my team.

    Here’s the problem …. we will never know whether or not Coach did exactly that or not. It may well be that He told them to do exactly that and our players just couldn’t deliver. Our defense was simply woeful (with and without injuries) all season.

    More important is that ‘we don’t know’ is a credit to Coachs’ not making excuses and throwing his players under the bus as we have seen in previous seasons.

    4. Depth. I’m with GrayWolf on this. The way I see it…. it takes 50 to 60 “quality” players to play decent football for an entire season including….

    1-3 guys on each side of the line that have a legitimate shot at playing on Sunday next season.
    5-8 guys on each side of the line that have a legitimate shot at playing on Sunday in two to four years.

    There’s no need to waste anybody’s time doing these numbers on this year’s roster…

    Let me just say this…. Shadrach Thorton (a sophomore) is an All-ACC calibre running back who finished the season with 165 carries in 11 games for a net of 768 yds. That’s an average of 15 carries and 78 total net yds per game at 4.7 yds per carry.

    Now the key is that Shadrach was running behind OUR O-line in games where most of the time we were so far behind on the scoreboard that we had no choice but to pass. Shadrach playing at Clempson or FSU would have been everybody’s All American.

    We need Shadrach and other guys just like Shadrach to be everybody’s All American at N.C. State.

    That’s all about having depth and quality players. Fix that folks and most everything else takes care of itself.

  15. Adventuroo 12/01/2013 at 6:15 PM #

    Bill.ontheBeach,

    Well said….

    How do you spell GUTSY…..STUPID, if it don’t work.

    The Superman of Coaches will probably be questioning his logic after the Auburn game yesterday. THAT was GUTSY….but who woulda thought…..? Auburn did, obviously by putting a return specialist on the goal.

    All the plans for adding Saban to the Bryant-Whatever stadium name got filed in the back of the disk drives…

    Time will soften the sting of this season….and it is NOT like it broke anybody’s record…tied it..

    If Coach D had stayed a year at NIU and we had played our hand with TOB to “defer” expenses and to “SAVE” $$’s, then we would NEVER be able to afford him….or attract him.

    The guy that got the battlefield promotion from OLC to OC to HC at NIU last year probably has suitors, or will have them…..but he has NOT shown that he can build.

    Coach D has shown that he can build….but some would think that we should be cutting Coach D and going after Rod Carey. Carey is probably VERY capable….but he certainly is also very lucky….

    Time to quit ogling all the pretty blondes in the wet T-Shirt contests and look at the prized brunette that rings your bell, EVERY TIME….

  16. TheCOWDOG 12/01/2013 at 6:16 PM #

    No offense to either party, but Bill …you just ate up Roo’s bandwidth.

    🙂

  17. packplantpath 12/01/2013 at 7:58 PM #

    All I know about coach right now is that he would make a terrible 12 year old. He seems unable to make lemonade out of lemons.

    And I find average star rating unhelpful. The variance, class size, and positions make much more difference. One 5* qb can be golden leading a bunch of 3*.

  18. bill.onthebeach 12/01/2013 at 8:30 PM #

    OK..

  19. redcanine 12/01/2013 at 9:47 PM #

    I hope that we’re not being Rich Rodded.

  20. wolf71 12/01/2013 at 9:58 PM #

    Thank you AliasTroll!

  21. Primewolf 12/01/2013 at 10:08 PM #

    I think DD needs to find some better assistants. Start with the OC. Perhaps fire 2 coaches. There is no downside to replacing a few assistants. If DY and DD don’t replace a few coaches, we will have lost a year on finding a solution and another disasterous year will really affect the fanbase support.

    DD needs time, but he also needs to recognize how bad the coaching was this year. If he doesn’t, then my guess he will be fired after another year or two.

    IMO, not getting some high quality assistants that can coach and scheme and adjust is a huge mistake. There is not way you can rationalize away the season as poor players.

    I would really like to see us fire both the OC AND DC. It would be expensive, but guess what, it is going to be more expensive if DD doesn’t work out.

    These coaches are young and haven’t really proven anything. He hired a very questionable staff, except the DC. The DC is not innovative and the defense got worse as the season wore on.

  22. Greywolf 12/01/2013 at 10:20 PM #

    Two last comments (maybe) on this season :

    1.) DD ‘asked’ for us to come back in the 3rd Qtr… said the team ‘needed’ our support. We ridicule the holes for the empty seats in Kenan and get on our high horse when we are guilty of the same thing. Before anybody makes another comment about this, please go back and read DD’s words and not our interpretation of those words.

    2.) The fake punt was called on the field by a player, not a coach. One of our players likely saw another team do this successfully the previous Saturday and thought we could do it as well. I doubt that in his young mind he gave sufficient thought to the field position when he made that call. But in all fairness and honesty let’s stop using that fake punt to attack DD’s ability as our head coach. He’s not guilty of that one.

    I consider that call a ‘daring and desperate, want-to-win’ call. That player wasn’t the only one in C-F who thought desperate measures were needed to be successful in that game. If I needed to build myself up by putting others down, I might see it differently.

  23. Texpack 12/02/2013 at 8:52 AM #

    The points about the lack of talent at QB this year are well made. Whatever modest success we have had in football over the past 15 years has all been on the backs of Rivers, Wilson, and Glennon. Look at a team like Texas that has consistently ranked in the top 5-10 in the nation in recruiting every year. They have suffered a 3-5 wins/year drop off due to the lack of a first rate QB over the past three years.

    The confusion on the field should get better with experience in the system.

    Matt Canada has a solid track record as an OC. I’m not worried about him until I see him struggle with a really good QB at the controls.

    Huxtable is a different story. Our defensive “strategy” was more than difficult to follow for much of the year. Watching Justin Burris get beat on the same deep route 5 times by three different teams in three weeks makes you wonder how much coaching is going on. Our opponents were obviously studying the film.

    I would argue that having a new coach come in and immediately recruit at the same level as a coach who had been working the state for 6 years is encouraging. I would expect this to be a low water mark for DD’s recruiting.

    The next 2-3 months will be crucial. DD has never been part of a season this bad as a college coach. His ability to identify and address our weaknesses is what will determine whether he sinks or swims. I still think he’s going to do well.

  24. VaWolf82 12/02/2013 at 9:58 AM #

    Recruiting class rankings are mostly BS. FSU has had consistent top-20 classes forever. All of those classes didn’t amount to much, on a national level, without a QB.

    State has never recruited well enough to win without a QB. This will not change in the foreseeable future.

  25. DC_wolf 12/02/2013 at 10:01 AM #

    Thanks for posting, Jack, good stuff. I can eat this up all day; only 1 disagreement: not really fair to compare our ratings to Baylor/Louisville because they both have staffs that have been in place for several years while we are coming off regime change.

    After Saturday’s loss I couldn’t even look @ a computer for a couple days. Hard to describe how bad it felt watching NCSU lose that last game to MD. The fact that we were so obviously inferior to a “<" mediocre Terp team is hard to digest.. watching that game was like being held down by a bunch of twerps & crapped on.

    1 obscure & fantastic factoid that in no way applies to us is nonetheless worth fantasizing over: Auburn in 2012 – just last year – went 3-9, including 0-8 in conference. This year they beat the defending Nat'l Champs & are playing in their conference championship game. I know, I know, SEC talent, SEC coaching, SEC this, that blah blah blah.. Don't beat me up on this – I've just been held down & crapped on by a bunch of twerp cretins. Let me dream..

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